Postwar plans for Iraq get attention of allies

WASHINGTON -- With their troops overtaking Iraq, President Bush and wartime ally Tony Blair will meet next week in Northern Ireland to review final-stage battle plans as well as Bush's hotly debated blueprint for postwar reconstruction.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will join the leaders in Belfast for meetings Tuesday that also will address efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

Iraq will dominate their session. The leaders will get joint updates on battle plans and achievements, and will discuss thorny issues such as the pace of deliveries of humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians and plans for the country's postwar reconstruction.

The reconstruction strategy has pitted Bush's advisers against each other. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has urged Bush to immediately install a provisional Iraqi government made up of Iraqi expatriates with some experience in democracy. Secretary of State Colin Powell has argued for a transitional authority to include Iraqis currently living under Saddam Hussein's rule.

Rumsfeld rejection

Making a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reasserted Bush's long-stated calls for an interim -- or transitional -- governing authority to consist of both Iraqi exiles and people living in the country now.

It was a public rejection of a memo Rumsfeld prepared for the White House this week arguing for a provisional government, aides said. Bush rejected the idea, as he has before, and Rice's news conference was meant to counter media leaks suggesting the U.S. might turn over Iraq to exiles, aides said.

There was a nod to Rumsfeld's call for quick action: Rice said the president was open to establishing an interim government in some parts of the country -- even before Baghdad is under coalition control.

With allies demanding a role in postwar Iraq, Rice also said the United Nations will play an undetermined role in the interim authority. But she said countries that fought the war will dominate the postwar process.

"Having given life and blood to liberate Iraq ... the coalition intends to have a leading role," she said.

Blair is said to want deeper United Nations involvement in postwar Iraq than Bush, and next week's summit may resolve any differences.

The meeting will be the third face-to-face talk in just over three weeks. The leaders met in the Azores on March 16, along with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, to announce the end of their diplomatic campaign. Bush and Blair held private talks at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat March 27, more than a week after the war began.

Their latest summit will be held in the heart of the historic Northern Ireland conflict. Recent progress toward peace in the region gives the setting some symbolic importance as Bush and Blair plot a more peaceful postwar course for Iraq, White House officials said.

Before leaving for Camp David, Bush spent nearly an hour talking with about a dozen Iraqi-Americans about plans for a liberated Iraq. Some shared personal stories detailing atrocities suffered under a repressive regime.