Washington: Ahead of an emergency summit with Britain and Spain on the Iraq issue, United States has warned that it is in the "endgame of UN diplomacy" and said an interim authority would be set up in post-Saddam Iraq on the lines of the one in Afghanistan.

"We are in the endgame for UN diplomacy. They will look to see if there is anything more that can be done to bring the UN to take the decision that it needs to take," US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice said on the March 16 Azores meeting of US President Bush with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Spanish counterpart Jose Maria Aznar.

"We are reaching the final stages. This cannot go on for very much longer," Rice told 'al Jazeera' television channel on March 14.

"A moment of truth is coming soon and that is what the leaders are going to meet to discuss in the Azores."

Pointing that the Security Council "could not act in Kosovo and Rwanda", Rice said President George W Bush and the co-sponsors of the resolution, asking Baghdad to disarm by March 17 or face war, are "making a last push to see if we can convince people to take on their responsibilities".

Denying that a US-led attack would pave the way for "foreign occupation" of the country, Rice said US was mulling setting up of an interim authority comprising of Iraqis from inside and outside the country in post-Saddam Iraq.

"We are determined that almost from the very beginning, Iraqis will have their own future at hand. Just as we did in Afghanistan, the United States and the coalition will stay as long as we are needed. But we have no desire to stay very long at all," Rice said.

Rice maintained the forces will stay in Iraq "as long as we are needed but not one minute longer" and said US was determined "to very early on put in place with Iraqis from outside and inside the country an Iraqi authority that can administer and run the country.

"We know that there are local and other leaders who have a lot of legitimate authority in Iraq. And we would hope that this interim Iraqi authority would bring together Iraqis to start to take control of their own future.

"There will be a period of time in which there are tasks to be done, humanitarian assistance, guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Iraq, being concerned about sectarian violence, being concerned that the resources of the Iraqi people are returned to the use of the Iraqi people. Those are the things, the coalition will have to do," Rice said.

PTI