After talks with the United Arab Emirates' defense minister and chief of staff, Rumsfeld and Franks said U.S. military forces were not going to leave the Persian Gulf region any time soon. 

"We assured them that the United States intends to do what is necessary to make sure there is a secure environment in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. Franks said Sunday he wanted to continue operations at Camp As Sayliyah, which was completed just before the war began. 

In advance of the Baghdad meeting on a new government, the U.S. military flexed its political muscle late Sunday by arresting Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, the self-proclaimed mayor of the capital, for "for exercising authority which was not his." 

The arrest of the interloper showed the United States was determined to begin the political rebuilding process in Iraq with a clean slate and a clearly timed signal that Washington would allow no interference ahead of the high-profile political meeting. 

Al-Zubaidi is a returned exile associated with the opposition Iraqi National Congress. He declared himself mayor of Baghdad without sanction from American occupation forces, and the U.S. Central Command accused him of "subversion." 

A top deputy to Garner, Barbara Bodine, said the Baghdad conference would begin to produce an "emerging leadership" for Iraq. 

But the process the remained murky. A list of participants - invited by U.S. occupation authorities - was not immediately available. No agenda or timetable was published and no homegrown Iraqi news media exist to report developments. 

In a sign of the disorganization and communications problems that have plagued the U.S. occupation in its first days, dozens of delegates drove in circles around traffic-jammed central Baghdad, repeatedly blocked by Army checkpoints from entering the conference site, a grand convention hall built by Saddam more than 20 years ago but rarely used. 

Prominent exile Saad al-Bazzaz, a former Iraqi publisher, said he expected the conference to produce a "a sort of government, a sort of authority." 

"I'm not expecting one person as president. I'm expecting a presidential council" of three to six members, said al-Bazzaz. "We have been discussing this, many of us." 

Such a structure could accommodate, at least temporarily, the ethnic and religious divisions in Iraqi society. 

It was not immediately known if a key Shiite Muslim faction - the Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq that shunned a first session April 15 in the southern city of Ur - was present for this second round of talks. Between 300 and 400 delegates from political organizations that opposed Saddam and from other Iraqi interest groups were expected, Bodine said in advance of the meeting. The Supreme Council had indicated it was ready to participate. 

Fewer than 100 Iraqis, many of them exiles, participated in the first meeting, as some Shiites and others stayed away in protest of potential U.S. influence over selection of a new Iraqi president. 

Also Sunday, Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi chief liaison to U.N. weapons inspectors, surrendered to U.S. forces in Baghdad. He was No. 49 on the U.S. list of the 55 most-wanted figures from the Saddam regime, the six of clubs in the deck of playing cards that listed the fugitives. He was taken to the capital's international airport for questioning by U.S. authorities. 

He was also known as Hossem Mohammed Amin al-Yasin and was a key figure in Saddam's weapons programs. 

Meanwhile, a dozen 55-gallon drums were found in an open field near the northern Iraqi town of Baiji. While initial tests indicated one drum might contain the nerve agent cyclosarin and a blister agent that could be mustard gas, The New York Times reported subsequent tests proved negative. By design, initial test procedures favor positive readings, erring on the side of caution to protect soldiers. 

In Mosul, Kurdish paramilitary forces were given an ultimatum to stop armed patrols around the city by Monday, or the U.S. Army would stop them by force. The edict was isued to ease tensions between the city's Arab and minority Kurd residents. 

Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne's 2nd Brigade, said his troops were prepared to enforce the edict against fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. 

Militia members will be allowed to keep their weapons at their headquarters or militia compounds but will be banned from bringing them on patrol, Anderson said. 

Since the fall of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with 700,000 people, tensions have escalated between Arab residents and the large Kurdish minority. Turkey also has intermittently threatened to send troops to the area to protect the region's Turkomen minority.