Kuala Lumpur, Mar 29: Malaysia, chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, said the United States should cede power to the United Nations to administer Iraq if it succeeds in ousting Saddam Hussein, a news report said today. "If it (the US) decides to stay, then it will not be a liberator but a conqueror and the world will certainly turn against it," the star newspaper quoted Malaysian acting prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as saying.
US officials said President George W. Bush has not decided how to administer postwar Iraq, but many top advisers want to limit UN participation to primarily humanitarian relief.
US secretary of state Colin Powell has said that while the United Nations should play a role, the burden of war entitled the United States "to have a significant dominating control" over the fate of Iraq.
Malaysia, which chairs the non-aligned movement of 116 developing nations and will take over as chairman of the 57-member organization of Islamic conference in October, has strongly criticized Washington and its allies for invading Iraq.
Government officials have said the invasion, which failed to get UN backing, will prolong the suffering of the Iraqi people, fuel international terrorism and worsen the global economy. Bureau Report