Bush, Blair to plot Iraq endgame

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Northern Ireland Monday to discuss the endgame for the war against Iraq and the subsequent reconstitution of its government and rebuilding of its infrastructure.

"We are anxious to move quickly now that the day of liberation is drawing near," said Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has been engulfed in a heated worldwide debate over the future of Iraq after Saddam Hussein.

Powell stopped short of predicting an end to the war, as thousands of U.S. troops ringed Baghdad, but he suggested an allied victory was in the "not-too-distant future."

At the White House, Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was also cautious as she looked beyond Saddam's regime.

"Our goals are clear," she said Friday, describing a new Iraq, stripped of all weapons of mass destruction, and "at peace with itself and with its neighbors."

The administration was intent on setting the country "on the path of democracy," she said, so Iraq can be "in the hands of Iraqis as quickly as possible."

All of this -- and more -- will be on the agenda Monday when Bush flies to Belfast for his third summit with Blair in little more than three weeks.

The two leaders, who met last week at Camp David, are expected to confer over dinner Monday night, then meet again Tuesday before holding a joint news conference.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will be their host.

In addition to the war and post-war reconstruction, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the leaders' agenda included relief efforts, the road map for a new peace process in the Middle East and the process that has finally brought some peace to Northern Ireland.

Still, Fleischer reminded reporters that the nation remained "in the middle of a shooting war" in Iraq. And Rice said the administration, while deeply engaged in post-war planning, was holding off in some areas until the war was over and Iraq was fully secured by allied forces.

"We do not know, for instance, what damage Saddam Hussein's regime may inflict on the Iraqi people in the regime's last gasps," she said. "We do not know what we'll find on the ground once the regime is gone."

In the immediate short term, though, Rice said the administration would be ready to form an interim authority of a broad range of Iraqis of all ethnic and religious groups, inside and outside the country, to handle most affairs until a new, democratic government can be established.

And even before the end of the war, she said, it was possible that some sort of interim Iraqi administration might be installed in some parts of the country, where Saddam has lost his grip.

"When you get rid of the reign of fear that Saddam Hussein has wreaked on people who hold their communities together," Rice suggested, "you're going to see leadership emerge."

Separately, she said, the Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, directed by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, would help restore water, electricity and other essential services in Iraq and make sure the country's civil servants are paid.

"The goal is to transition responsibilities to the Iraqi people as soon as possible," she said.

Nonetheless, the Pentagon's post-war oversight has been controversial, as well as the involvement of the United Nations.

Both Bush and Blair say they would welcome a U.N. role, but neither has detailed exactly what that role might be. And Rice made clear on Friday the administration was not eager to duplicate the broad U.N. reconstruction missions in East Timor, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

"It would only be natural to expect," she said, "that having given life and blood to liberate Iraq the coalition intends to have a leading role."

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