But he said that the United States wants to hand over the country to the Iraqi people.

Wolfowitz told Fox News Sunday that it took six months to form a government in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

"This is a more complicated situation; it probably will take more time than that," he said.

The deputy defense secretary has played a key role in preparing the US effort to get humanitarian aid to Iraq and rebuild the country once the war finishes.

Wolfowitz said the United Nations would have an "important role" in post-war Iraq but gave no specific details.

"The reconstruction of Iraq, I think, is going to be one of the most important projects for the international community in many years. And the UN can be a mechanism for bringing that assistance to the Iraqi people.

"But our goal has got to be to transfer authority and the operation of the government as quickly as possible not to some other external authority, but to the Iraqi people themselves."

President George W. Bush's national security advisor, Condoleeza Rice, has said the US and British coalition which led the war would also take the lead role in post-war Iraq.

Wolfowitz said: "The UN has an important role to play, particularly in the functional agencies that the UN has run so successfully." But he gave no specific details.

"Many of these issues have to be decided in partnership with an Iraqi government that represents the Iraqi people. And we need to get there to make partnership," he said.

Wolfowitz said an interim authority would be "a bridge to the process that creates a legitimate government of Iraq," he said.

He said he did not have a timetable for the transition at this stage.

"The interim authority is really a bridge from the coalition administration that's going to start to ultimately a legitimate and competent government for Iraq.

"It's going to depend a lot on how people are able to come out from inside the country to express themselves, how able Iraqis are to come together," the US official said.

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