"The American military should stay in Iraq until the first elections and a democratic government established," said Ahmad Chalabi, who heads the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC) umbrella opposition group, interviewed on the CBS news program "60 Minutes."

Chalabi suggested that US forces should stay for a minium of two years.

Chalabi, interviewed from a location in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, is under fire for saying ahead of the war that Iraq's military would fold without a fight, and that the Iraqis would greet the US-led forces as liberators.

But the neatly-dressed millionaire, dismissed charges that he predicted a cakewalk as "false."

The US Central Intelligence Agency now blames him for their own faulty intelligence, he said, adding that he is "not a candidate for any role" in post-Saddam Iraq.

SPACE.WIRE