BAGHDAD, April 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), expected Friday, April 18, an Iraqi interim authority to take over most government functions from the U.S. military in "a matter of weeks rather than months," but without him.

"I am not a candidate for any position in the interim government," Chalabi told a press conference in the first public appearance in Baghdad.

"My role is to help rebuild Iraq," he added.

Chalabi, a Pentagon favorite for the Iraqi leadership, said Iraq would have a three-step transition from U.S. occupation, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"I expect this stage to take a few weeks," Chalabi said, although U.S. officials anticipated this process might take more than 6 months and some said even more.

He added the second stage would involve the creation of an interim government of Iraqis which would draft a constitution.

Chalabi said there was ambiguity about how this government would be formed.

The third phase, he added, would be democratic elections.

"I expect this process to take not more than two years," said Chalabi, who said he had been involved in talks with the Americans and other Iraqi leaders.

The formerly London-based Chalabi has been traveling across the country and had spent nearly two months in Kurdish-held northern Iraq ahead of the U.S.-British invasion.

Winning the popularity test in Washington, Chalabi is still a controversial character with a reportedly scant support among the Iraqi people.

He was convicted by a Jordanian military court trying him in absentia of bank fraud and embezzlement and sentenced to 22 years' hard labor after the collapse of the bank he founded in 1989.

Jordanian authorities said they had unraveled a web of gross irregularities involving the siphoning off millions of dollars of depositors' money to Chalabi's offshore funds after he fled the country.

But Chalabi is widely expected as the only viable head of a future Iraqi government.

The U.S. military has distanced itself from both men saying neither had been sanctioned for any official position.

In Nasiriyah earlier this week, Chalabi faced angry protests by 20,000 Shiite Muslims.

U.S. soldiers were on the verge of using tear gas amid charges the INC leader was now a stranger to his homeland and too close to the Americans.

Chalabi, a wealthy businessman surrounded by gun-toting members of the U.S.-trained so-called Free Iraq Forces, countered such criticism, arguing the spirit of the Iraqi people had not been broken by 35 years of dictatorship under Saddam.

"And, the U.S. does not want to run Iraq that is not the policy of the U.S., that is what President (George W.) Bush has said and I believe him," he said.

But Iraqis are still skeptical, as tens of thousands of protestors joined hands after the Friday prayers demanding an end to the U.S. occupation of their country.

Chalabi said the United Nations should have only a limited role in a post-war Iraq and reserved his harshest criticisms for France and Germany for opposing the U.S.-led invasion.

"The U.N. has been less than helpful and dealt with Iraq under Saddam Hussein like it was a normal state."

"It did not recognize the seriousness of the oppression in Iraq ... their performance was less than stella."

He pointed out that France and Germany were two countries that had been liberated from Nazism by the United States and yet had behaved like "defacto allies of Saddam Hussein."