Military say postwar peace may take a year

The commander of UK forces in the Gulf said last night that it might take up to a year to secure a peaceful Iraq under a new government. Air Marshal Brian Burridge spent three hours at a camp in Qatar locked in last-minute planning with the US commander, General Tommy Franks.

After the meeting the British commander said he believed that if a war began a new government could quickly be established with secure borders, the start of economic redevelopment and new legal structures. "I would like to think inside a year we have got an up and running state," he said.

It was not clear yet, though, how the government would be run. "We have a plan that will take it from where we are now through any military engagement to be in a position to have either a UN administration or a local administration or whatever," the British commander told reporters.

Air Marshal Burridge, 53, suggested a military administration was still an option, but "not a long term one."

Iraq, with its vast oil reserves, was a very different country from Afghanistan, he said. "We have a responsibility and a vision of what a future Iraq will look like. I am hopeful it won't be a long term military administration."

Leaks of US plans under which a US general would run Iraq have generated concern across the Arab world and in the west.

After the war the military would play a role tracking down Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. "The campaign stops when they stop fighting, if they fight, but it ain't over until we have removed every last piece of this source of weapons," Air Marshal Burridge said.