Powell calls French timetable for Iraq 'totally unrealistic'

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GENEVA -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday dismissed as "totally unrealistic" a French proposal for a swift transition to a new Iraqi government by next spring, with the United Nations having the dominant role in the process.

As the foreign ministers of the U.N. Security Council's five permanent powers gather here today for a wide-ranging discussion on the U.N.'s role in Iraq, Mr. Powell issued a blunt condemnation of a plan floated by his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin.

The de Villepin plan, outlined yesterday in the French newspaper Le Monde, calls for a new constitution for Iraq by this fall and the restoration of full sovereignty to an Iraqi government in six months.

The program, which is in response to a U.S. draft resolution on Iraq now before the Security Council, would relegate the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority to a subordinate role in the political and economic reconstruction of the country.

The French plan is "totally unrealistic," Mr. Powell told reporters in a briefing aboard his plane last night before landing in this Swiss city.

"You would like it if one could do it, but one can't do it."

Although Mr. Powell said he believed a French veto of the Iraq resolution was still unlikely, the sharp disagreement sets up a potential replay of this spring's bitter divisions on the Security Council over the Bush administration's determination to oust Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

Germany, Russia and China have also expressed reservations over the U.S. draft text, which encourages the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to create a blueprint for eventual sovereignty and also would give the Security Council's blessing to the multinational force under U.S. control now keeping the peace in Iraq.

Mr. Powell said the United Nations lacked the staff and resources to oversee the huge military and economic rehabilitation work in Iraq, while the U.S. military and the coalition authority under L. Paul Bremer are already working on an orderly path to ultimate Iraqi sovereignty.