Iraqi Council debates handover options

Elsewhere, a US soldier was killed in a bomb explosion in Baghdad and an American civilian attached to a religious group was killed in an ambush of a taxicab.

"We want an agreement on how we will create the leadership that will be handed sovereignty," Council member Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.

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"We have two options: either expanding the Governing Council by adding new members or holding a national conference that will include all the Iraqi powers."

The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said on Sunday Washington was awaiting UN proposals on the handover, but insisted it take place by June 30 as President Bush wants.

Bremer signaled some willingness to bring closer Iraqi national elections -- set under the US plan to begin next January 31 -- perhaps to December this year.

But he insisted at the weekend that elections could not take place before the June handover set by Bush, who faces what could be a fierce US presidential re-election battle in November.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said during his mission in Iraq last week that consensus had emerged on holding elections, but that all sides agreed they had to be well prepared.

That has left Iraqi politicians in the US-backed Governing Council wondering how sovereignty will be restored to a country eager to put behind it decades of autocratic rule.

Many Iraqis criticise the council as US puppets who spent years abroad while Saddam Hussein oppressed those at home.

But expanding it is one option up for debate.

"I want to see a national conference for all the components of the Iraqi people under the auspices of the UN, the US, the European Union even the Arabic League and this would be the right step toward a national reconciliation," Othman said.

Although Shiite members of the council still insist polls are possible, they are also making proposals that would ensure Iraq's majority sect would be well positioned to dominate.