The announcement, made by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a wide-ranging interview with The Los Angeles Times, marked the apparent beginning of a new round of US-UN diplomacy aimed at mending a rift between Washington and the world body that opened in the run-up to the war with Iraq.

Last month, the administration of President George W. Bush was forced to withdraw from the UN Security Council a draft resolution authorizing military action against Iraq in the face of stiff opposition from France, Germany and Russia.

But with the government of Saddam Hussein apparently out of the picture and humanitarian problems coming to the forefront, Powell said the United States might need "more than one" new UN Security Council resolution, addressing a broad range of political and economic issues.

"We need an endorsement of the authority, an endorsement of what we're doing in order to begin selling oil in due course, and in order to make sure that the humanitarian supplies continue to flow in the oil-for-food program," said the secretary of state.

The top US diplomat said that while the United States and its coalition partners would reserve for themselves "a leading role" in post-war Iraq, the United Nations had "a vital role" to play in bringing stability and prosperity to the war-ravaged country.

Special White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will be heading for the region in coming days in hopes of starting to set up a broad-based transitional authority that will assume power in the violence-torn nation once hostilities subside.

"We'll start it in the region that we have the greatest control over, and the part of the country where people have now the greatest freedom to speak up and stand up," Powell explained.

But he conceded that some members of this future government would be selected with the help of US military commanders, who are "starting to identify who in a community, in the neighborhood of a community, are the leaders."

The post-war organization of Iraq and a UN role in shaping it are expected to be at the center of discussions Friday in Saint Petersburg among the leaders of Russia, France and Germany, all of whom insist on a "central" role in Iraq for the United Nations.

But Powell said he was "not quite sure" what "central" meant, while categorically rejecting the notion the United States and Britain would turn over Iraq to the UN Security Council after the end of hostilities.

The secretary of state also sought to assuage fears in Syria and Iran that the United States might be planning military action against them, saying recent US warnings did not mean that "war is coming" to these countries.

"We believe that all of these nations -- Syria, Iran, others -- should realize that pursuing weapons of mass destruction, supporting terrorist activities, is not in their interest," he said.

"That doesn't mean that war is coming to them, it just means that the world is changing."

The conciliatory note came hours after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria of helping the remnants of the Saddam Hussein government who, according to US officials, are fleeing Iraq seeking refuge in the neighboring nation.

Late last month, Rumsfeld charged that Damascus was secretly shipping night vision goggles and other military equipment to Iraq and that Iranian-backed Iraqi rebels had been seen crossing the border into Iraq.

Powell reiterated that the two countries have to realize there are "consequences to this kind of behavior," but he did not elaborate.

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