WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (AFP) - A top US administration official assured Wednesday that Iraq's interim government will decide how to handle a standoff in Najaf with forces of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.
But national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said Sadr -- whose camp has promised to disarm -- could not be trusted to keep his word and he must be "dealt with".
Rice told CNN television that the Iraqi government "has been very clear with Sadr that he has to do some things, leave the shrine, that he has got to disband his militia."
But he said the government was sovereign and must resolve its problems.
"But nobody is taking Sadr at his word. He's someone from whom you have to see action. He said lots of words before. He has never followed through on them. And I don't think you're going to see an Iraqi government that's going to take his word."
Rice warned: "Moqtada al-Sadr must not try and be a law unto himself down in Najaf. And what that means for his future we will see.
"But he can't have a militia running the streets. He can't occupy the holiest shrine in Shiadom. He has to be dealt with and I'm quite certain he will be."
Asked what the US military planned to do in Najaf, Rice told Fox News Channel: "It has always been the case that we have felt it better that the Iraqis would handle something as sensitive as going into one of the holiest shrines in all of Shiadom.
"And so we are there to support the Iraqis in their efforts, let's wait and see what they do here."
A organiser of the national conference on the future of Iraq, which is being held in Baghdad, said earlier that Sadr has sent a letter agreeing to disarm and leave the holy shrine in Najaf, as the conference has demanded.