Iraq's new U.S.-backed Governing Council agreed Tuesday to set up a war crimes tribunal that would try ousted President Saddam Hussein and his top associates, a spokesman for a key party in the council said.

U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said Washington and London would pull out their forces from Iraq once the coalition's mission was accomplished. "We have no desire to stay a day longer than necessary," he told reporters in Baghdad.

A delegation from the Governing Council will visit U.N. headquarters in New York next week and hopes to address the Security Council, U.N. officials said. The council will also lobby for a seat in the U.N. General Assembly.

As the number of American combat deaths neared the 1991 Gulf War total, the U.S. military announced a new nationwide crackdown -- Operation Soda Mountain -- to eliminate armed Iraqi resistance and said its forces had killed five Iraqi fighters.

Washington blames attacks on its forces on supporters of Saddam, who disappeared during the U.S.-led invasion. Thirty-four people on a U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis are either dead or in the hands of U.S. and British forces.

"The Governing Council will take it upon itself to try them and to punish them according to law," said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress led by Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi.

"That includes Saddam Hussein, the biggest criminal."

He did not say whether Saddam would be tried in absentia.

Qanbar said the council formed a commission to lay down laws that would allow it to put suspected war criminals on trial, including for mass killings, executions and chemical attacks against Kurds in the 1980s.

Qanbar said the 25-member council, formed Sunday, would also create a commission to look into ways to "uproot" Saddam's once all-powerful Baath Party from Iraqi society.

VISIT TO THE U.N.

The visit of the council delegation to the U.N., tentatively slated for next Tuesday, would mark one of its first official acts, and U.N. diplomats said the Americans were hoping no member state would raise an objection to the unusual request.

Convincing the United Nations to accept an ambassador to represent a new Iraqi government that does not yet exist could be a problem, but only if the General Assembly's credentials committee makes it a problem, the diplomats said.

As U.S forces try to crush growing armed resistance, the military said troops had conducted 53 raids across Iraq, detaining 316 people and confiscating arms, ammunition and explosives in Operation Soda Mountain launched Saturday. Another operation, Ivy Serpent, is part of the crackdown.

U.S. forces killed five Iraqis and captured another after they came under ambush while driving out of an ammunition depot, the commander of the unit involved said.

There were no U.S. casualties in the ambush between the cities of Ramadi and Habbaniyah, about 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad in particularly hostile territory for U.S. troops.

Thirty-two U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

In an abrupt about-turn, the U.S. military said Monday thousands of troops from its 3rd Infantry Division would stay in Iraq until further notice instead of returning by September in line with an announcement made only last week.

U.S. Senate Democrats blasted President Bush over the spiraling costs of the war and for not seeking more international help in the reconstruction of Iraq in the face of skyrocketing U.S. budge deficits.

The charges came as the White House tried to deflect accusations that it exaggerated intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and as it announced the federal deficit will balloon to a record $455 billion this fiscal year.

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