US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed as "totally unrealistic" French proposals to give power to an Iraqi government as early as next month as he flew into Geneva on Saturday for key talks on Iraq's future.
Powell was to meet foreign ministers of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council yesterday to discuss a US-drafted resolution designed to get more international troops and money into occupied Iraq.
France, which fiercely opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, wants the new resolution to hand over executive powers to a US-selected Iraqi Governing Council, possibly within a month, and provide for general elections by next spring.
"It is totally unrealistic. It would be delightful if one could do that, but one can't do that," Powell told reporters on his plane from Washington.
"The US will not accept any proposed UN Security Council resolution which includes such a requirement," he said.
Powell said he did not expect the one-day meeting in Geneva with foreign ministers of Britain, China , France and Russia to discuss in detail the language of a new UN resolution and gave no timetable for bringing it to a vote.
With US-led forces in Iraq taking casualties almost every day and the cost of occupation mounting, Washington sees the resolution as a way to coax other countries to pitch in with cash and troops. But Franco-German amendments to the US draft would push the existing US occupation authorities under diplomat Paul Bremer to the sidelines. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has been the most vocal advocate of the plan.
In an editorial in the French daily Le Monde on Friday de Villepin said: "Within a very short time frame, for example one month, a transitional Iraqi government could be put together ... and would gradually be granted executive power, including over economic and budgetary activity."
Powell replied: "We will work to see if there is not language that can bridge this but I cannot anticipate us agreeing to any language that would buy into what Minister de Villepin has been saying."
"What they are essentially proposing is that we stop everything we are doing, and we have done too much and we have invested too much to consider any such proposal... It's interesting but not executable."
Powell said US forces would have to stay in charge until a new Iraqi army and police force take shape. "We are not going to second that [US] force to anyone else," he said.
"It's easy to toss out nice theories about sovereignty and occupation and liberation and all of that but as a practical matter it can't happen in that time frame."
Powell said he did not expect the negotiations to be as difficult as the wrangling over Iraq in the Security Council earlier this year, when Washington gave up a search for UN approval for its invasion in the face of a French veto threat.
"All of us agree that we are working together to help the Iraqi people reach a point where they can assume total responsibility... Nobody disagrees with that," he said.
Powell said a resolution would make it easier for countries such as Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh to send troops.
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