POSTWAR IRAQ Other news

The latest developments in postwar Iraq:
Weapons hunters are spending more time on base, intelligence experts have been reassigned to work on the counterinsurgency and the man leading a so-far unsuccessful search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is thinking of stepping down.
A nine-month search for the weapons of mass destruction President Bush said he went to war to destroy has been conducted by a succession of U.S. teams that have all failed to find any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
The lack of evidence has led critics to suggest the Bush administration either mishandled or exaggerated its knowledge of Iraq's alleged arsenal. Since the war, White House officials have at times asserted that weapons were found, or that evidence of programs, rather than actual weapons, would be enough for them.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for a Jan. 15 meeting of the key players in Iraq to pin down what role they want the United Nations to play as the country moves from U.S. occupation to a democratically elected government.
Annan, clearly frustrated that the Iraqi Governing Council or the U.S.-led coalition running the country have not given him specific answers, said it was time to sit down with representatives from both bodies.
"It has to be a three-way conversation," the secretary-general said. "Once we have that, I will make a judgment."
Source: Associated Press