The US does not want to stay in Iraq a day longer than necessary but will not leave until an Iraqi constitution and administration are properly in place, Secretary of State Colin Powell has said. In his first trip to the Iraqi capital since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Powell said again that the Americans had come as liberators and were not occupiers. Powell, who had arrived from a Geneva meeting of the permanent UN Security Council, said there were still differences with Council members who wanted a speedier handover of power to an Iraqi administration. But he said: "The worst thing that could happen is for us to push this process too quickly, before the capacity for governance is there and the basis for legitimacy is there - and see it fail."

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