HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland - Saddam Hussein is losing his grip on power "finger by finger", US President George W. Bush said Tuesday as he sought with ally Tony Blair to ease concerns that their conquering alliance will dominate postwar life in oil-rich Iraq.

"I hear a lot of talk here about how we're going to impose this leader or that leader. Forget it," Bush said at a news conference with the British prime minister outside Belfast. "Iraqis are plenty capable of running Iraq and that is precisely what is going to happen."

Blair said the US-British role was merely to help in the transition from years of dictatorship to self-rule.

"This new Iraq that will emerge is not to be run either by us or, indeed, by the UN - that is a false choice," Blair said. "It will run by the Iraqi people."

Addressing reporters in the gilded throne room of an 18th century castle, Bush and Blair offered personal assessments of the war - all positive.

The two leaders also said they would cede power in the country as soon as possible, involve Iraqi citizens from the outset in the creation of a transitional government and give a "vital role" to the United Nations in reconstruction.

But the leaders - meeting for the third time in three weeks - offered few details about the exact UN role or the makeup of the interim governing authority. Bush said his word should be good enough.

"Evidently, there's some skepticism here in Europe about whether or not I mean what I say. Saddam Hussein clearly now knows I mean what I say," Bush said.

Questions about the UN's role persisted. "I don't think we have a clearer sense of what that role might be," said Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He said: "It would be in everyone's best interest if the international community were brought to play in the establishment" of a postwar Iraqi government or authority.

As Bush spoke, US military intelligence officials were using several means, including DNA testing, to determine whether Saddam or his sons survived a Monday night attack on a Baghdad restaurant. Four bunker-busting bombs left a smoking crater 60 feet (18 metres) deep.

Bush said the fate of the Iraqi president's regime is certain, regardless of the success of the strikes.

"Saddam Hussein will be gone," the president said. "It might have been yesterday. I don't know. But he'll be gone."

The comment reflected a desire by Bush and Blair, since the first day of the war, to convince Iraqis that coalition forces will not stop short of ousting Saddam as they did in the 1991 Persian Gulf War led by Bush's father.

"He has ruled by fear, but as the knowledge sinks in that we will get the job done, the people realize there's not going to be a repeat of 1991," Blair said.

Bush said coalition troops have steadily loosened the grip "Saddam had around the throats" of Iraqis: "I can't tell you if all 10 fingers are off the throat, but finger by finger, it's coming off."

The weapons of mass destruction that Saddam is believed to possess and were the justification for war - but which have not yet been found - received scant mention. Blair said: "We know that as the regime collapses, we will be led to them."

The summit drew protests in Belfast, a British city 19 kilometres away from the meeting site that has been torn by decades of conflict.

Outside City Hall, about 100 anti-war protesters blocked traffic, shouted slogans, banged drums and carried signs sympathetic to the Iraqis such as, "You dare to call them terrorists as you bomb their homes."

Police contained the demonstration, arresting about half a dozen protesters as hundreds of pedestrians watched at midday.

Bush travelled to Northern Ireland at Blair's behest to embrace the prime minister's peace blueprint, due out later this week. It was a political payback; Blair backed the president's Iraqi policies despite fierce opposition at home.

Blair has been pushing Bush to give the United Nations significant authority in postwar Iraq, partly to ease criticism from allies who fear the two leaders will rule Iraq alone.

Pressed to define the UN's role, Bush said it can provide humanitarian assistance, raise money and make suggestions about the makeup of the interim authority. It was nothing near the broad mandate some allies have sought, though Blair and Bush stressed the points on which they agree and largely ignored those on which they do not.

(Agencies via Xinhua)