A DIFFERENT VOICE OUT OF GERMANY

With a different message....

A senior member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's own party on Wednesday contradicted the German leader’s demand that the US swiftly hand over Iraqi sovereignty to leaders in Baghdad.

"Let me remind you again of the German example. It took four years (after the Nazi defeat in 1945) until we had a German government,” said Hans-Ulrich Klose, a member of Schroeder’s Social Democrats (SPD) and deputy chairman of the German Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Klose, speaking in an NDR radio interview, noted that Iraq had far fewer structures and political leaders needed for nation-building than did Germany after the war.

"Where is the Konrad Adenauer of Iraq?” said Klose, a reference to the widely respected first chancellor of former West Germany who was elected in 1949.

Klose noted that while the United Nations was needed to legitimise rule in Baghdad it was the US which would have to stay in charge of security.

"It will take a great deal of time before Iraq is given full sovereignty,” cautioned Klose.