WASHINGTON, Nov 13: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday that Washington’s efforts to reform Iraq are quickening, but he didn’t confirm rumours the Iraqi Governing Council would be replaced.

“We do want to accelerate the pace of reform,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Washington. “We want to accelerate our work with respect to putting a legal basis under the new Iraqi government.”

“And we are doing everything we can to get the Governing Council equipped with what they need in the way of staff, what they need in the way of procedures in order to do the job that they want to do and we want them to do.”

Mr Powell’s comments follow media reports that the Bush administration is thinking of bringing a new Iraqi government in Baghdad and had called US administrator L. Paul Bremer to Washington for consultations.

Talks of the need for an administrative change in Iraq gained momentum after Wednesday’s truck bomb attack that killed 18 Italians and eight Iraqis at the military police headquarters.