The head of the council, which is to give way to a caretaker government when Washington transfers sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, said the final UN resolution outlining that handover must guarantee those rights.

"The draft resolution is positive on many points, but there are some points that we hope to see revised in the interest of the Iraqi people and sovereignty," Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar told reporters in Baghdad.

The United States asked the United Nations to endorse its handover of power on June 30 to a "sovereign" Iraqi government but proposed US forces there be allowed to "take all measures" to keep order and set no date for them to leave.

France meanwhile said the resolution UK needed to be improved if it was to work. France, which opposed the Iraq war, has the power of veto at the UN.

Meanwhile, Russia says it wants to have a clear idea of what a transitional government in Iraq will look like before backing the resolution.

Russia has been extremely cautious not to allow Washington to win retrospective UN blessing for the occupation.

US President George W Bush Monday sought to shore up flagging support for his Iraq policies, outlining broad plans for the country's return to self-rule, including the demolition of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Faltering in public opinion polls, with his approval rating at an all-time low, Bush delivered the first in what is to be a series of confidence-building speeches in which he described a five-step process for Iraq's return to sovereignty on June 30.

Under the plan, a transitional administration takes over on June 30 to prepare for January elections that will choose a national assembly to draft a new constitution that will allow a permanent government to be chosen by the end of next year.

The US and Britain earlier presented a new draft resolution on Iraq to the UN Security Council, in a bid to gain global support for the plan.

In his speech to the Army War College in Carlisle, Bush warned that "there are difficult days ahead and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic."

Yet he vowed the handover would take place on schedule and that the US-led coalition would not be defeated by insurgents blamed for the recent surge in violence.

However, the president did not set out a specific date for the withdrawal of US and other coalition forces, which the draft UN resolution envisions remaining in Iraq for at least a year.

Instead, he said the current US troop level, which now stands at 138,000, would remain the same for "as long as necessary" and could grow depending on the situation on the ground and requests from military commanders.

Bush said the head of US Central Command General John Abizaid and other commanders in Iraq "are constantly assessing the level of troops they need to fulfill the mission. If they need more troops, I will send them." (AFP, REUTERS)