After a tumultuous week which saw a steeply rising death toll and a hasty agreement by Washington to transfer sovereignty to Iraq, US President George Bush travels to Britain tomorrow for a state visit marked by unprecedented security and anti-war demonstrations, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor
In weekend violence in Iraq, two US Black Hawk helicopters crashed in the northern city of Mosul, killing 17 soldiers, and bringing the US death toll to more than 400 since the start of the war.
The US-appointed Iraq Governing Council and American officials agreed in Baghdad on Saturday to formally end the US-led occupation by July 1st and transfer sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government. This major strategic shift reverses an earlier US plan to draw up a constitution and hold elections, which could take more than two years.
However, US troops will stay on well after the formation of a provisional government to provide Iraq security against its neighbours, the US administrator in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, said yesterday.
The US would negotiate an agreement with the new provisional government "to change the American occupation into an invited presence", he told CNN.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, travelling in Asia, also said that accelerating the political process "has nothing to do with US troops and coalition troops in Iraq".
Mr Bremer said the US would dictate an interim constitution including a bill of rights, religious freedom, civilian control of the Iraqi army and an independent judiciary.
US officials in Washington said they hoped that the transfer of civilian power would quell anger against the occupation. It could also help President Bush face the 2004 presidential election with an exit strategy, for which there is now a rising clamour in the United States.
A new audio tape from Saddam Hussein was broadcast by an Arab network yesterday calling for the "jihad" against the US occupation to continue. Mr Bush said the tape was "the same old stuff, propaganda". It was a "tough week" Mr Bush said after returning to the White House from Camp David yesterday, but "we made progress to a sovereign and free Iraq" .
In an interview with David Frost, Mr Bush said the US would not spend "years and years" in Iraq and that the insurgency was "nothing more than a power grab" by Saddam loyalists and "foreign fighters - mujahedeen types or al-Qaeda, or al-Qaeda affiliates." Mr Bush leaves Washington tomorrow for the first state visit to Britain by a US president since Ronald Reagan in 1982.
He said he was not concerned by planned demonstrations. "I'm glad to be going to a free country where people are allowed to protest."