***Operation Infinite Freedom - Situation Room

By JONATHAN FOWLER, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA - The United States and Britain are delaying the return of tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled to Iran during the reign of Saddam Hussein, a senior Iranian official said Thursday.

As a result, Iran has had to postpone a voluntary repatriation program for 200,000 Iraqis living within its borders, said Ahmad Hosseini, Iran's director general for refugee issues.

"We're facing problems created by the occupying powers that prevent us from returning these refugees," Hosseini told reporters before a meeting with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"The occupying powers believe it's not the proper time for all Iraqis who reside abroad to go back," he said without elaborating.

In Washington, the State Department said it was working with the United Nations, surrounding governments and Iraqis to "support well-ordered returns at the earliest possible date."

"The U.S. welcomes a voluntary, orderly and well-timed repatriation program for Iraqi refugees as an essential element of restoring normal life in Iraq."

Two weeks ago, British and other European officials said they were making plans to repatriate many of the 225,000 Iraqis who have sought asylum in Europe. But after talks with the U.N. refugee agency they said they would delay returns because many parts of the country were unsafe.

Hosseini took issue with the view that poor security was the problem. "We have not witnessed any kind of events that prove the situation in Iraq is insecure," he said.

He quoted UNHCR as saying repatriation was impossible until the United States and Britain agree to it.

UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville said while the agreement of the two coalition partners was important, he did not believe they were blocking returns.

"Many people are eager to go back and are doing so of their own accord ... but we haven't quite got to the point of launching organized repatriation," he told The Associated Press.

Around 4 million Iraqis are believed to have fled Saddam's regime. In Iran they include many who left during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

About 48,000 of the Iraqis in Iran live in refugee camps, while the remainder are hosted by communities across the country, Hosseini said.

People who fled during Saddam's rule should go back now that the former leader has been ousted, Hosseini said.

He also said Iran is having trouble coping with its 1.9 million Afghan refugees. Iran spends $675 a year on each refugee but only a small fraction of that is covered by aid donors.

Some 4 million Afghans fled, mostly to Iran and Pakistan, to escape two decades of conflict and their homeland's Taliban government, which was overthrown in a U.S.-led war in 2001.

Two million people have gone home since the Taliban's ouster, 400,000 of them from Iran.

Vase in Iraqi Museum Returned Undamaged

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The sacred Vase of Warka — one of the most valuable artifacts of the Iraqi National Museum collection, feared lost forever — was returned unceremoniously Thursday in the trunk of a car.

The 5,000-year-old white limestone vase, the world's oldest carved-stone ritual vessel, was handed over with other looted items, U.S.-led coalition forces said in a statement. Three men gave the pieces to security staff at the central Baghdad museum, a gesture that could reassure archaeologists worried about Iraq's ancient treasures.

"This is one of the most important pieces from the Baghdad museum and I am delighted it has been returned. It is reason for people all around the world to celebrate," said Pietro Cordone, senior adviser on culture for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the occupation forces.

Cordone, a former Italian diplomat, was at the museum when the men arrived unexpectedly and thanked them personally. The authority did not identify them.

The vase, still pictured on the Interpol Web site of missing artworks, is a major Mesopotamian artifact widely studied in art history and archaeology. It depicts Sumerians offering gifts to the goddess Innin as well as scenes of daily life in the ancient city of Uruk. It was carved about the time the city's Sumerians were inventing writing.

A team of German archaeologists discovered the vase in 1940 near the city of Samawa in southern Iraq.

The coalition's statement said the vase was returned "safely" but did not give details on its condition.

Once the home of rare Islamic texts and priceless, millennia-old collections from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, the Iraqi National Museum was plundered in the lawlessness and chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad on April 9.

The looting and destruction triggered an international uproar, with many curators and archaeologists from around the world blaming the United States for failing to protect the institution. Some compared it to the 13th-century sacking of Baghdad by the Mongol hordes.

U.S. military commanders have rejected the charges, saying the museum was not on the list of sites their troops were ordered to secure upon entering the city.

Some looted items have been recovered under a no-questions-asked amnesty program, while others were found in raids or in secret government vaults.

The Vase of Warka is one of 47 main exhibition items that coalition officials said last week was still missing. They did not identify the other 46.

"We will continue to do everything we can to secure the safe return of other missing objects," said Cordone.

Last week, coalition authorities announced the recovery of the treasures of Nimrud, missing since the fall of Baghdad and found in good condition in the country's Central Bank, in a secret vault submerged in sewage water.

The treasures — gold earrings, finger and toe rings, necklaces, plates, bowls and flasks, many of them elaborately engraved and set with semiprecious stones or enamel — date back to about 900 BC.

One or two of the museum's galleries are expected to reopen next month.

US Presidential Envoy and Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority to Iraq, Paul Bremer, left, meets an unidentified employee as he tours the Baghdad Power Plant with US-appointed interim Minister of Electricity, Dr. Karim Hassan, centre, Thursday June 12, 2003.

U.S. Ready to Begin Rebuilding Iraq Army

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The task of building a new Iraqi military will get under way in the next few weeks at selected training and recruiting sites, the American administrator of Iraq said Thursday.

Speaking over a satellite video hookup from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer said the project will serve not only to restore a necessary element of Iraq's long-term security but also address the short-term problem of hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers being without work since the war.

Unemployment more broadly is a "tremendous problem" in postwar Iraq, Bremer said, with far more than half the working-age population jobless. He said a recently announced $100 million emergency construction program was the most efficient way of getting people back to work quickly.

"This is where our greatest challenge lies, and we must now create jobs for Iraqis," Bremer said in a 30-minute question-and-answer session with reporters at the Pentagon. He made the same point earlier Thursday in a similar session with members of the House Armed Services Committee.

"This economy was flat on its back before the war and it's in even worse shape now," he told committee members.

The problem for members of Iraq's former conscript army, which Bremer disbanded along with the better-trained Republican Guard and other elements of the Iraqi military, is especially acute.

Bremer said there were about 375,000 Iraqi conscript soldiers before the war. Some number of those who survived will undergo U.S. training, probably starting in July, and a portion of those will be selected to provide security at facilities currently being guarded by U.S. troops, he said.

Sites for military training and recruiting have been identified, and former Iraq soldiers will be hired to clear and prepare them for use, Bremer said in his remarks to the House committee.

"So we plan to move out rather smartly in trying to stand up this new Iraqi army," he said.

Many of the questions Bremer took from the Armed Services Committee members focused on the security problems facing U.S. troops and the prospects for turning Iraq over to the Iraqis.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the ranking Democrat on the panel, said he is deeply troubled by the security situation.

"Not a day goes by when one of our soldiers isn't killed, and we need a plan for security in Iraq, in part to protect our troops but also to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Skelton said. He demanded the administration spell out the size and duration of the U.S. troop commitment there.

"Providing security is a long-term commitment; we know that," Skelton said. "We need a plan for how many U.S. troops will be needed — how many months, how many years to come."

Bremer told Pentagon reporters there is no way to know how long the United States will have to remain involved in Iraq's reconstruction. The key, he said, is getting to the point where a new Iraqi constitution is written and ratified and national elections are held.

"My guess is that it's going to be a substantial amount of time but whether that's in maybe months or years, it would depend on developments. I don't think we should set any artificial deadlines," he said.

Bremer made these other points:

_ It probably is too early to hold a national reconciliation conference. "My impression in conversations I've had so far is that the Iraqis are simply still too understandably emotionally delighted to be rid of Saddam and the Baathists that they may not yet be ready to undertake that step."

_ The nature of the economic system that Iraq establishes will be entirely up to the Iraqis. "If they choose socialism, that will be their business. My guess is that's not going to happen."

_ The failure so far to capture or otherwise account for Saddam Hussein has hurt the U.S. occupation effort. "I think it does make a difference because it allows the Baathists to go around in the bazaars and in the villages, which they are doing, saying Saddam is alive and he's going to come back," he said. "The effect of that is to make it more difficult for people who are afraid of the Baathists — and that's just about everybody — ... to come forward and cooperate with us."

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