Troops Would Go If Interim Iraqi Leaders Asked

WASHINGTON —  Pressed by foreign ministers to clearly define how much power the United States would cede to an interim Iraqi government June 30, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Friday that if the as-yet-unnamed government asked the U.S. to withdraw its troops, the U.S. would do so.

Powell is the most senior administration official yet to state that even an interim, appointed Iraqi government would have the power to dismiss 135,000 U.S. troops and end U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq if it so chose. But he also indicated that he believed the prospects were highly unlikely.

“I’m losing absolutely no sleep thinking that they might ask us to leave during this interim period, while we’re building their forces,” Powell told reporters after a meeting with foreign ministers from the major powers. But “were this interim government to say to us, ‘We really think we can handle this on our own. It would be better if you were to leave,’ we would leave,” he said.

At the same time, Powell said that as long as U.S. forces remained in Iraq, they would stay under U.S. command, and Iraqi military and paramilitary forces would report to the U.S. commander.

“Otherwise, you would have chaos,” he said.

Powell’s remarks, which were later echoed by a White House spokesman, came at the end of daylong meetings with foreign ministers of the G-8, the group of eight leading industrialized democracies that includes the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and Canada.

The gathering, called to prepare for a Group of 8 summit next month at Sea Island, Ga., gave Powell an opportunity to lobby for support of a U.N. resolution on Iraq that the U.S. hopes will win approval before it hands power to an interim Iraqi government June 30.

But diplomatic sources and U.S. officials confirmed that the French, Germans and Russians differed with the U.S over how much sovereignty the U.S. must transfer to the Iraqis to win international backing for an interim government. France, Germany and Russia all opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and refuse to send troops.

The United States wants a U.N. resolution that recognizes the transition, lends support to the interim government and urges countries to support that government and U.S. efforts to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq.

France, Germany and Russia indicated Friday that any resolution would have to make clear that the U.S. had handed power back to Iraqis. It seemed clear Friday that even if the U.N. Security Council agreed on a resolution, none of the three nations would send troops to Iraq.

“There will be no French troops, not here, not now, not tomorrow,” French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, said Russia “does not intend to send forces to Iraq.”

The two foreign ministers emphasized that their political support for reconstruction depends on the U.S. handing control of Iraq back to Iraqis. Lavrov said that the interim government must be “truly acceptable to Iraqis,” and “truly sovereign.” The interim government, Lavrov said, should decide what support Iraq needed from the international community.

U.S. officials originally envisioned the interim government as a caretaker, composed largely of technocrats who would have had limited powers. But it has been forced to alter the view under pressure from the more political U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council, which insists that political leaders run the interim government.

Barnier also seemed to support that view.

“I do believe that this government should be a sovereign government with all the trappings of sovereignty, but also the hard facts of sovereignty,” he said. “We have to go on discussing how that will happen.”

The new government, Barnier said, “has to be a break with the past.”

It must be able to “manage the economy, the law enforcement, the judiciary, natural resources,” he said. The Iraqis must also have “some kind of authority over the Iraqi forces” from when they take power June 30 until elections scheduled for January are held.

Powell said the U.S. would set up a process for consulting with the interim Iraqi government on military issues.

There would be “various liaison organizations and cells,” Powell said, “so that the Iraqi interim government is fully knowledgeable about what our military activities are and what we’re planning to do.”

He said there was already close collaboration “in places like Fallouja and Najaf” where U.S. forces have been battling insurgents and the militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Besides the Governing Council, U.S.-backed officials control civilian government ministries overseeing foreign policy, justice, the interior and other government functions, and it would be unclear what effect a U.S. pullout from Iraq would have on them.

In Iraq on Friday, L. Paul Bremer III, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, also said that the U.S. would leave if the new Iraqi government asked. “Obviously we don’t stay in countries where we’re not welcome,” Bremer told a delegation from Iraq’s Diyala province, Associated Press reported.

White House officials also echoed Powell’s remarks. Press Secretary Scott McClellan, traveling with President Bush in Wisconsin later in the day Friday, indicated the troops would leave if asked. The visiting foreign ministers met with Bush at the White House on Friday.

“We only station our forces in places around the world where we are welcome and I fully expect coalition forces to continue to be in Iraq at the invitation of a sovereign government on July 1,” McClellan said. “If a sovereign Iraqi government did not want us there, we would not be there.”

Bush, speaking to the foreign ministers at the White House, reassured them that he remained committed to the so-called road-map strategy for a negotiated Middle East peace that would lead to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Powell left for the Middle East immediately after the session with foreign ministers. He is traveling to Jordan for an economic meeting but also will meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei and other Arab leaders.

It is Powell’s first trip to the region since photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, further damaging the image of the United States across the Arab world, were broadcast and published.

Seeking to repair the damage, the administration has revived contacts with the Palestinian leadership and put new emphasis on its efforts to promote peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians and democratic reform in the Arab world.

The White House announced last week that national security advisor Condoleezza Rice would meet with Korei in Europe next week.