Saddam 'in talks with US'

LONDON - Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been in secret negotiations with United States forces in Iraq for the past nine days, a British tabloid newspaper claimed yesterday.

According to the Sunday Mirror report, Saddam was demanding safe passage to the former Soviet republic of Belarus in exchange for information on weapons of mass destruction and his bank accounts.

US President George W. Bush was being kept up to date by his national security adviser Condoleeza Rice who was co-ordinating negotiations led by US General Ricardo Sanchez, the paper said. Sanchez is the commander of US forces in Iraq.

"A representative of Saddam ... came to coalition people at Tikrit ... on September 12. He led them to a house where the security official was waiting," the Sunday Mirror quoted a senior Iraqi as saying.

"The discussions are now going on under the direct authority of General Sanchez," the source said.

Meanwhile, gunmen seriously wounded a leading woman member of Iraq's Governing Council yesterday, as Europe's three biggest powers failed to resolve their rift over Iraq and its future, six months after the war began.

They disagreed on how fast power should be handed back to Iraqis by the US, which tried again to put the bitter pre-war debate aside as it seeks international help to rebuild and stabilise the country.

Officials said Bush would issue a "call to action" at the United Nations General Assembly, urging members to back a new resolution to share the financial and military burden of Iraqi reconstruction.

In the latest in a string of strikes on Iraqis co-operating with the country's occupying powers, attackers in Baghdad fired on a car carrying Akila al-Hashemi, a Shiite Muslim career diplomat. She was hit in the abdomen.

Some Iraqis have denounced the 25-member Governing Council for co-operating with the US-led administration in overall charge of the country since the war that ousted Saddam.

Hashemi, who served in Iraq's Foreign Ministry during Saddam's rule, had been due to travel to New York with Iraqi delegates attending the General Assembly meeting.

Leaders of Britain, principal backer of the US in the war, and Germany and France, main European opponents of the war that began on March 20, met in Berlin in an effort to overcome their differences over the conflict and its aftermath.

But divisions remain.

"Our views are not quite convergent," French President Jacques Chirac said after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Chirac and Schroeder want a much stronger UN role and a faster transition to democracy in Iraq.

"It's important to give the UN a bigger role," Schroeder said. Chirac said: "On the technicalities and timetable, we are still not fully agreed."

He restated France's position that Iraq must regain sovereignty within months. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has ridiculed the notion that power could be handed back overnight.

Blair, in contrast, stressed the leaders' common ground.

"We all want to see Iraq make a transition to democratic government as swiftly as possible. We all want to see, and know there must be, a key role for the UN."

In the United States, Bush's approval rating for his handling of the situation in Iraq has fallen below 50 per cent, to 46 per cent, for the first time in a Newsweek poll.

The poll also found that 50 per cent of people do not want to see Bush re-elected to a second White House term.

Seeking help

The United States is seeking a new United Nations Security Council resolution to pave the way for more countries to send troops to Iraq.

America's 130,000 troops in Iraq suffer almost daily casualties from guerrilla attacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he would not send Russian troops to Iraq.

Putin, who meets President George W. Bush at Camp David on September 26 and 27, reiterated his demand for a move back to Iraqi sovereignty.

Washington also wants to spread the cost of rebuilding Iraq.

Iraq's battered economy needs more donor money, with one estimate as high as US$70 billion ($121 billion) over three to four years.

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