Powell charts course for Iraqi democracy

Another US soldier was killed in an attack west of Baghdad barely an hour before Powell flew in to Iraq via Kuwait from Geneva where emergency UN talks failed to resolve core issues over Iraq's future.

Powell, the highest-ranking US official to visit since Saddam Hussein's ouster in April, hailed progress in rebuilding Iraq but shied away from a 2004 target date floated by interim leaders for elections.

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"We look forward for the next steps that will come, the writing of a constitution, and from that constitution, the people will be given a chance to express their will," he told reporters Sunday, after a meeting with interim Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari.

"The major new threat are the terrorists who are trying to infiltrate the country for the purpose of destroying this very hopeful process," he said. "We will not allow that to happen."

On the first visit to Iraq by a US secretary of state in half a century, Powell was faced with an occupation force still under daily anti-US attack, taking the toll to 75 American soldiers killed since the May 1 end of major combat operations.

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll published Sunday, Bush faces growing domestic disapproval of his Iraq policies.

Though the US poll found that Bush's overall approval rating remains strong, at 58 percent, as does public support for his war on terrorism and homeland security efforts, a majority of 55 percent called the number of US military casualties in Iraq "unacceptable".

But 61 percent still believed the war in Iraq was worth fighting, versus 37 who did not.

Top US officials took to the airwaves later the same day to defend the administration's Iraq policy and the rapidly rising pricetag for the US-led war on terror.

"What's the cost if we don't succeed with respect to our current operation in Iraq? I think that's far higher than getting the job done right here," Vice President Dick Cheney said on NBC television.

Cheney said the Bush administration was prepared to do whatever it takes to make its Iraq endeavor work.

The administration has asked Congress for 87 billion dollars in new funds to finance the anti-terror campaign and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

Asked about the need for reinforcements in Iraq, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, told ABC television that "the security picture is not just a matter of troops, it's also the political governance piece, it's also the economic piece."

"They all have to work together to provide security and a way forward for Iraqis," Myers added.