Any post-war interim authority in Iraq would require United Nations backing to give it legitimacy, a leading UN official said today.
Mr Shashi Tharoor, under-secretary general at the UN, told BBC radio that if the United States were to seek to install a US-led authority in Iraq and hand-pick Iraqi exiles to participate in it, it would need the UN's support.
"If the American administration were to do that, it would still be obliged to come to the Security Council for some international legitimacy," Mr Tharoor said.
"Otherwise there would be some real difficulty in the extent to which other countries would be prepared to recognise this group as anything other than an offshoot or branch of a military occupation in Iraq," he added.
Once Iraqi oil starts piling up, international legitimacy for an interim authority would be required by oil suppliers and purchasers to ship that oil during the interim period, he said.
A US-led civil administration was set to start work in Iraq today with a team of about 20 officials deploying in the southern port of Umm Qasr to assess humanitarian needs, a spokesman for the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) said.