US chopper crashes, UN assesses return to Iraq

11.45AM - By JOSEPH LOGAN

BAGHDAD - A US helicopter crashed in Iraq and an American soldier died after a grenade attack in a surge of violence as the United Nations assesses whether Iraq is safe enough for it to return to help transfer power to Iraqis.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to announce on Monday or Tuesday that he will send a team to Iraq to study the feasibility of holding early elections, as Shi'ites are demanding. Two experts are already in Iraq to assess security.

The US military said it was hunting for the two-man crew of the Kiowa armed reconnaissance helicopter that crashed on Sunday in the Tigris river in the northern city of Mosul.

A military spokesman said the Kiowa helicopter came down during a search-and-rescue mission for a US soldier who had been on a river patrol boat that went missing earlier.

Two Iraqi police and a translator were believed to have died in the earlier incident, the spokesman said. It was not immediately known whether the helicopter had come under fire.

Since the invasion, at least 513 US soldiers have died in Iraq, 355 in combat. A soldier died Sunday from wounds sustained in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his armored vehicle near Baiji, north of Baghdad, late Saturday.

Saturday three bomb attacks in the "Sunni triangle" north and west of Baghdad killed five US soldiers and four Iraqis.

The top US commander in Iraq said bomb attacks on foreign troops helping US forces occupy Iraq suggested the involvement of the al Qaeda Islamist network.

"Those are typically tactics al Qaeda has been using. That causes us to look with a little bit more focus, trying to establish what their operating capability is in the country," Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez told Reuters.

"We believe that those links may be growing."

As the attacks underscored Iraq's fragile security, the United States said it envisaged a significant role for the United Nations in a planned handover of power to Iraqis.

Shi'ite leaders boosted pressure on Washington to hold elections before a June 30 deadline to hand power to Iraqis.

Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who represents the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said having less-than-perfect elections was better than ignoring popular demand for a vote.

"It can be done, if we want it and make the effort. I believe they can be run," Hakim told Reuters in an interview.

Washington, which had previously ruled out any major UN political role in Iraq, now wants the world body involved.

"What we are interested in is having (the United Nations) be an adviser, help oversee this process of setting up the transitional government for the Iraqis (and) be an interlocutor for the (Shi'ites), for example," said a senior US official in Switzerland on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

The United Nations pulled international staff out of Iraq last year after two suicide bomb attacks on its Baghdad headquarters. One of them killed 22 people.

The Bush administration hopes UN involvement will satisfy the Shi'ites who have been flexing their muscle after three decades of repression under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim.

Allies of top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, revered by Shi'ites who form 60 per cent of Iraq's population, have said Sistani is likely to accept any UN recommendations.

Washington says it would be difficult to hold elections before June due to a lack of electoral registers and laws.

But the Washington Post said Sunday the Bush administration could abandon or change its plan for an independent Iraqi government through regional caucuses.

Citing anonymous sources, the Post said Washington could hold partial elections or leave an expanded version of the Governing Council in place when it hands over power.

A US handover plan envisages regional caucuses selecting a transitional assembly in May to appoint an interim government for sovereignty in June. Full elections would follow in 2005.

Democrats stepped up pressure on President Bush after former top US arms hunter David Kay said he thought Iraq did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, on which Washington made its case for war on Iraq.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "The open question is how many stocks (Saddam's Iraq) had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?"

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq