Washington: United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he was not consulted by President George W Bush for the creation of the Condoleeza Rice-led National Security Council to oversee reconstruction efforts in Iraq, but insisted, "it is not a problem".

Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters on October 8 in Colorado Springs, ahead of a Non-Alignment Treaty Organisation (NATO) Defence Ministers' meeting, said the Pentagon had received a one-page memorandum on October 3 that the National Security Council (NSC) headed by Rice, the National Security Adviser, would "do inter-agency coordination" of efforts in Iraq.

"I wouldn't know how to comment on it," he said, adding bitingly. "I don't remember it being discussed."

Rumsfeld, who supervises the work of the administration led by L Paul Bremer and the US military commanders in Iraq, however, insisted "it is not a problem or an issue".

"It need not have been," he said when asked whether the consultations on creating the NSC ought to have included him.

PTI