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BAGHDAD,Friday (AFP) Iraqi government ministries will begin reopening next week and oil is again flowing from local wells, the United States announced, giving hope that Iraq's reconstruction phase was finally underway.

Speaking after holding a town meeting in Baghdad with prospective local leaders, Jay Garner, the US civil administrator for Iraq, told reporters that the process of establishing a "government of Iraqis" was going well.

"I think you will begin to see a governmental process start probably by the end of next week," Garner told reporters.

"It will have Iraqi faces on it. It will be a government of Iraqis."

Garner said he had told the meeting that some government ministries would open next week and all of them would be run by Iraqis.

However he said the ministries would be overseen by "coordinators" from the US-led restructuring team.

In another step regarded as vital in the early stages of rebuilding Iraq, an aide to Garner announced that coalition forces had restarted some oil and gas production.

"We're pumping about 175,000 barrels a day, and we're pumping that to the refinery at Basra and also into the power plants in that vicinity," Major General Carl Strock said, referring to Iraq's biggest city in the south.

"This is strictly for domestic use, for Iraqi internal needs, it's not for export." Strock, of the US army corps of engineers, said it was hoped another 60,000 barrels a day would begin being pumped from Iraq's northern oilfields in a day or two, for the same purposes.

While still refusing to give a timeline as to how long the United States and its allies would stay in Iraq, Garner hinted that the process was beginning to speed up. "I don't have a calendar for the length of time. We'll do it as fast as we can and I think it will go faster than people think," he said.

In the town meeting, which brought together university professors, government technocrats and other Iraqis whom the United States selected, Garner emphasized the foundation of democracy the United States was trying to build.

"Our purpose here in your country is to create an environment for you so that we can begin a process of government that leads to a democratic form in Iraq," the retired US general told the all-male group.

Garner described Ahmad Chalabi, the best-known opposition leader who is regarded as a US favorite, as a "fine man".

"(But) he's not my candidate, he's not the candidate of the coalition. You'll see the leaders emerging in the next week or so and they'll work with us in providing the proper framework so we can get into the democratic process."

Garner also said the self-rule established by the Kurds in the north of Iraq, which he had earlier visited, over the past 12 years beyond the control of Saddam's regime, could be a model for a future Iraqi government.

As the United States focused on efforts to establish a new Iraqi government, it found itself in an escalating war of words with Tehran over US accusations Iran was trying to influence Iraq's Shiite Muslims, who represent 60 percent of Iraq's population.

"We certainly hope that Iran will allow Iraq to develop into a stable and peaceful society. We have sent the word to the Iranians that that's what we expect," US President George W. Bush told NBC television in his first exclusive interview since the war in Iraq began.

Asked whether Iran's failure to cooperate would make it a target of US military action, Bush replied: "Well, no. We just expect them to cooperate, and we will work with the world to encourage them to cooperate."

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi rejected as "baseless" US claims that Iranian-trained agents were trying to infiltrate Iraq to push Tehran's brand of Islamic government by stirring up anti-US unrest among Shiites.

"There is no Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs," Kharazi said at a joint news conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Bush, on a visit to Lima, Ohio, nearly declared the war in Iraq over, and for the first time suggested that Baghdad may have destroyed the banned arms at the core of his argument for military action. But he said in the interview that the US-led occupation of Iraq could last two years, and speculated that Saddam Hussein may have been killed in the surprise air strikes that started the war.

US-led forces scouring Iraq for the chemical and biological weapons that Saddam always denied possessing have yet to turn up any evidence to back up Bush's case for using force to topple and oust the Iraqi leader.

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