US view A majority of Americans now believe the war in Iraq is going well for the US, as recent gains on the battlefield have eased public concerns
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said last night he had briefed UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan on possible ideas for a United Nations role in post-war Iraq but declined to discuss specifics of the conversation.
Mr Powell, who tried to reassure European officials on Washington's desire for a UN role after the conflict in Brussels on Thursday, said he had had a "good discussion" with Mr Annan about the possibilities and that they would be speaking again shortly.
"We are at the beginning of a process of pragmatic dialogue to determine what the appropriate role of the UN should be," Mr Powell told reporters at the State Department after meeting the EU foreign policy chief diplomat, Mr Javier Solana.
"The UN will be a partner in all of this, everybody understands that," he said. "There is no disagreement about that. We'll work our way through the intricacies of the role to be played by the UN in the days ahead," Mr Powell said.
Meanwhile, a growing majority of Americans now believe the war in Iraq is going well for the US as recent gains on the battlefield have eased public concerns, at least for the moment, that the war will be long and costly for the allies, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
More than nine out of 10 Americans believe the US and its allies have been successful, with nearly half - 47 per cent - saying the conflict is going "very well" - up 13 percentage points in a week.
But an overwhelming majority of Americans see difficult days immediately ahead as US troops mass outside Baghdad for what may be the final showdown.
Eight in 10 Americans expect a hard and bloody battle to control the city, a number that is unchanged in the past week.
The survey also found overall support for the war remains strong. Three in four Americans approve the decision to invade Iraq and 58 per cent strongly support the conflict - figures that have not changed since the war broke out more than two weeks ago.
President Bush's overall job approval rating continues to rise and now stands at 71 per cent, its highest level since late last summer. A majority of Americans - 54 per cent - strongly approve of the job Mr Bush is doing as President, up 16 points in a month and higher than at any time in more than a year.
The poll also found that a growing majority of the public believes it is unnecessary for US and allied forces to discover chemical or biological weapons to justify the decision to go to war.
More than two-thirds of those interviewed now say that the war was justified even if the US fails to turn up biological or chemical weapons, up from 53 per cent in a survey taken the day after the war started. The survey found relatively few Americans are deeply disturbed that no hard evidence that Iraq currently possesses these weapons has yet surfaced and many said they would not be bothered if none were ever found.
The poll found that fears that the war with Iraq will be long and bloody have ebbed in the past week as the weather improved and US forces rapidly advanced into the outer suburbs of Baghdad.
Fewer than half of all Americans - 44 per cent - now expect the war to last months, down from 57 per cent last week. A growing majority of Americans doubt that the US will get bogged down in a long and costly conflict.