UN: Just hours after US President George Bush explained to Americans on television that the US must seek help from the United Nations to stabilise Iraq, UN secretary-general Mr Kofi Annan announced plans to act as intermediary to bring this about.
Mr Annan said he planned to meet the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in Geneva on Saturday to work out a compromise.
The US wants more troops and finance but faces opposition from France and Germany unless it agrees to cede more responsibility to the UN.
In his Sunday evening address, Mr Bush did not spell out what he was willing to offer UN members, who opposed the war, in exchange for their assistance.
He said he recognised that "not all our friends" agreed with the decision to invade Iraq. "We cannot let past differences interfere with present duties," he said.
"Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilised world. Members of the United Nations have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation."
Mr Bush said he needed an extra $87 billion from Congress from October 1st. Of this, $66 would be for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $21 billion for Iraq reconstruction.
Congress is expected to meet his request, but Mr Bush's presentation got mixed reviews in the US.
Newspaper editorials pointed out that he did not address the failure to find weapons of mass destruction or the troubled peace process in the Middle East.
Mr Bush said that the US was "rolling back the terrorist threat to civilisation, not at the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power", but he did not offer any evidence of the role Iraq played in terrorism.
Looking grim and drawn, Mr Bush outlined three major US objectives in Iraq: to "destroy terrorists" and Saddam Hussein holdouts, to expand the international role and to transfer sovereignty to Iraqi people.
Mr Bush has been under mounting pressure to explain the setbacks in Iraq. Recent polls show his overall approval rating is sliding, with 54 per cent of voters rating his job performance as poor or fair, according to a survey by Zogby International on Sunday.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell yesterday held talks in Washington with Mr Annan, who is emerging as the key interlocutor between the US and its European critics.
"It is important to get a resolution that enjoys, hopefully, unanimous support in the Security Council," Mr Powell said before the meeting. "We have the common goal of returning sovereignty to the Iraqi people as soon as possible."
Mr Annan told a news conference earlier that the UN was capable of playing a major political role in Iraq, pointing to its experience in Afghanistan, Kosovo and East Timor.
"The day that Iraqis govern themselves must come quickly," Mr Annan said. "And we need to work together to find out how we can move the process forward, how we can create security on the ground, how we restore essential services and how, as an international community, we come together to make this possible."
