The European Union remained sharply divided last night over a US proposal to give the UN a bigger role in the reconstruction of Iraq.
At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Italy, Britain's Mr Jack Straw said he was optimistic that the proposal would win European support but France and Germany made clear they could not support it without major changes.
The EU meeting came as the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, cancelled a planned speech to US soldiers in Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit.
Military commanders have warned US soldiers in the past not to show disrespect towards Mr Rumsfeld, who has been criticised for leaving troops spread thin on the ground in Iraq for extended tours.
Reuters reported yesterday, however, that soldiers preparing a makeshift stage for Mr Rumsfeld's speech made clear they would have been sharply critical.
"If I got to talk to Rumsfeld I'd tell him to give us a return date. We've been here six months and the rumour is we'll be here until at least March. This is totally, totally uncalled-for," said 40-year-old Sgt Green, who asked not to be identified by her first name. Soldiers swept streets clean around the complex of fishing lakes and mansions at Saddam's former palace ahead of the visit.
But not all were ready to roll out the red carpet. "Personally, I think the mission is over, so we should leave. I am ready to go home," Pte Baraka Davis said.
Mr Rumsfeld later met a small group of officers and took a helicopter tour of Mosul, viewing the house where Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were cornered and killed in July, a reminder of the biggest success for US troops since Saddam was deposed.
The US wants international help in the reconstruction of Iraq and has proposed a Security Council resolution that would give the UN a broader role and provide a timescale for handing over authority to Iraqi representatives. Germany's foreign minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, said yesterday that the resolution must go further if it is to win European support.
"It is not sufficient. It is not enough to move the situation in Iraq in a positive direction," he said.
The French foreign minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, told Le Figaro yesterday that the resolution text did not represent an adequate shift in US thinking on Iraq.
"It is still inspired essentially by the logic of security and does not adequately take into account the political necessity for a speedy transfer of sovereignty to Iraq," he said.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said in a speech in Washington that the US was willing to consider any suggestions its European partners make. "We'll listen to all of the comments coming in, we will try to adjust and adapt to those comments, as long as this is consistent with the overall goal," he said.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, welcomed the US resolution as a move towards giving the UN a central role in Iraq.
