The US government has held talks with United Nations envoy Mr Lakhdar Brahimi at the White House on a possible UN role in Washington's planned handover of power to Iraqis in June.
In the latest violence in Iraq 11 people were killed by militants in the central so-called Sunni Muslim "triangle", but a US general said last night insurgents had become only a sporadic threat. Two US soldiers were among the dead.
"I believe within six months I think you're going to see some normalcy," US Major-General Raymond Odierno told reporters at the Pentagon by a video link from Iraq.
A US official said US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice had discussed with Mr Brahimi the "way forward on the political process in Iraq and how the UN can contribute on that".
President George W. Bush, seeking re-election in November with Iraq high on the campaign agenda, has run into opposition over his handover plans from the long-oppressed majority Shi'ite Muslims who are demanding elections to decide the process.
The Bush administration, which had previously resisted any major UN role in postwar Iraq, invited ,Mr Brahimi for the talks.
Washington is pressing the former Algerian foreign minister, now an adviser to UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan, to lead UN teams to Iraq to study the feasibility of holding elections in a few months' time and other options.
Top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has demanded a legislative assembly should be chosen through polls, a procedure that could give greater representation to the Shi'ites who were repressed during Saddam Hussein's three decades of iron rule.
The United States has proposed indirect elections through a system of caucuses in Iraq's 18 provinces, and says it would be difficult to organise polls before June due to a lack of electoral registers and laws.
Mr Annan is considering a request by Washington and the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to send a team to Baghdad to study the situation and eventually negotiate with Ayatollah Sistani.