WASHINGTON, April 20: Top Pentagon officials assured sceptical members of Congress on Tuesday that the US military would have authority to operate unhindered in Iraq regardless of who assumes power after sovereignty is transferred on June 30.

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Iraqi sovereignty would be "limited" by UN Security Council 1511 which authorizes a multinational force to provide security in Iraq until a constitutional government is established.

"Our forces will have the authority and the wherewithal to do what they need to do, to provide security, as they must, for Iraq," General Richard Myers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But Senator John Warner, the committee chairman, said he saw "a basic conflict of interest" between investing a transitional Iraqi government with sovereignty and giving US military commanders authority to decide on their own to take military action.

"I'm still worried that, say, there's a major insurrection that occurs in July and our military commanders have to decide to the extent that force must be applied," Warner said.

"We've seen recently in the Fallujah operations where there's been some honest differences of opinion between members of the Iraqi Governing Council, the current governing body, and our military commanders as to the timing, the quantum and otherwise the use of force," he said.

"But given military operations, you can't sit down and deliberate over an extensive period of time what to do. You've got to react very swiftly," he said. Wolfowitz responded that the use of force in Iraq was a "political, not a legal" issue. "The use of force in someone else's country (has) always got political ramifications and political controversy," he said. -AFP