09 February 2004	Monday	17 Zilhaj 1424

BAGHDAD, Feb 8: Iraq's US-backed Governing Council on Sunday met a UN team that will judge if elections demanded by the Shias can be held before a June 30 deadline for Washington to hand power back to Iraqis.

In a boost for Washington, the first members of a Japanese force the United States has persuaded to help rebuild Iraq entered the country from Kuwait - Japan's most controversial military deployment since World War Two.

The UN delegation arrived on Saturday. It is the highest-level presence for the world body in Iraq since leaving after two bomb attacks on its Iraq offices last year, including one that killed mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and now an adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, led the team but refused to hint which way it would lean on the question of an early election.

"The United Nations only confirms its firm desire to do everything possible to help the Iraqi people...to get beyond the long ordeal they have suffered and to restore their independence and sovereignty and rebuild Iraq," he told reporters at the Governing Council's offices in the US occupation headquarters. -Reuters