Baghdad, June 02: The US-led team in Iraq said today that an interim Iraqi administration will be put in place within six weeks, headed by a political council that will act as a fledgling government. The council will be appointed by the US-British coalition forces here following wide-ranging consultations with Iraqis. The move comes after the US-British team decided to scrap a long-promised national political conference. The 25-30 strong body will advise the occupation administration on the whole range of policy issues, economic as well as political, an d will name advisors to all of Iraq's ministries who will be ministers in waiting. It will also debate, ratify and then put to a referendum a new Constitution, which is to be drawn up by a separate convention. "This council will emerge as the face of the Iraqi people in its interactions with the coalition provisional authority," one senior coalition official told reporters.

The officials stressed that the process being launched was a "dynamic one" and that the coalition's ideas were "not cast in stone."

The new vision was presented today to a seven-strong leadership council, consisting mainly of former exiles, which had previously been the occupation administration's principal Iraqi interlocutor.

Bureau Report