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The following are the latest developments relating to the Iraq war:
Washington:
A senior US defense official indicated Sunday that the United States may keep a permanent military presence in a postwar Iraq as it has done in Germany since the end of World War II.
"It's a possibility," US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday when asked about the likelihood of a US military presence in Iraq as there was and still is in Germany.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell assured his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov on Sunday that the United States would investigate an attack at the Russian diplomatic convoy fleeing Baghdad, the State Department said.
US State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said Powell talked with Ivanov about the incident Sunday morning by telephone.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday that it probably will take more than six months for the US-led coalition to hand over power to a new Iraqi government after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government is ousted.
He said that Saddam Hussein's government will not survive the war and the coalition will take initial responsibility for administering the country for "at least six months."
The US military may have to stay in postwar Iraq for at least two years until elections can be held in the country, an Iraqi opposition leader told a leading US television.
Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, made the remarks when asked how long the US troops should stay in post-war Iraq in the program "60 Minutes" of the Colombia Broadcasting System (CBS).
Baghdad:
A US military official said the first US military airplane landed at Baghdad airport on Sunday.
The official from the US 3rd Infantry Division's aviation brigade said a C-130 military transporter landed at about 8 p.m. local time (1600 GMT).
The Iraqi authorities Sunday denied that British troops have entered Basra or controlled the southern Iraqi city.
In a statement, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said that a large number of the coalition soldiers were killed in the fighting around the second largest city of Iraq.
(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2003)
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