Ahmed Maher, speaking after a meeting with US Ambassador David Welch, said "the Iraqi question must be solved in a pacific fashion and that the Iraqi people, and only they, should choose their government."

"No one else has the right to supplant the Iraqi people in this matter," he added.

Earlier Sunday, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the US military may have to run Iraq for more than six months after the war has finished before it hands over to an Iraqi authority.

He told Fox News 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.

Washington has named retired general Jay Garner to head an interim military administration.

SPACE.WIRE