Washington: Reiterating his call for friendly nations to join hands in rebuilding Iraq, US President George W Bush urged them not to "allow past differences interfere with present duties".

"Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation," he said in a rare prime-time speech to the country.

Faced with a mounting price tag and a death toll among US soldiers that surpasses that of the original invasion, Washington has made a policy about-face and is now seeking a new US resolution that would set the stage for wider international participation in the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.

The fresh diplomatic initiative has raised the spectre of the pre-war divisions at the UN Security Council, where France and Germany led opposition to the invasion.



"I recognise that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power," Bush said in an address from the White House.

"Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilised world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilised world," he said.

Agencies