COLIN Powell, the US Secretary of State, visited the site of one of Saddam Hussein's worst massacres yesterday.

Mr Powell admitted to the people of Halabja, the Kurdish town where the deposed Iraqi leader tested his chemical weapons, that the world should have acted sooner to oust the dictator.

''I can't tell you that Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant - you know that. What I can tell you is that what happened here in 1988 is never going to happen again,'' he said.

Mr Powell and leaders of Washington's Kurdish allies lit candles at a memorial for the 5000 people who died during the gas attack on the Kurdish town.

One bouquet of flowers after another was thrust at Mr Powell by women, almost all of whom were clad in black. Many carried pictures of loved ones who were killed in the attack.

Powell said Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Iraqi general blamed for the attack and widely known as Chemical Ali, would stay in jail until an Iraqi court decided his fate.

He declared the former president would also be caught.

''Saddam is running and hiding. He is going to keep running or hiding until we catch him or he dies,'' he said.

Jalal Talabani, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, told Powell: ''I'm proud that now after so many years of loneliness in our struggle we have friends in you.''

The US cited Iraqi involvement in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as the prime motive for the invasion of Iraq.

Explaining the failure of US forces to find chemical weapons in Iraq, Talabani said: ''Saddam hid many things in Iraq, in tunnels and caves. I'm sure we'll find them.''

Talabani and Masoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, are among five Kurdish representatives on the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, established in July as a first step towards democracy in Iraq.

While Talabani heaped praise on the US forces in Iraq, another member of the governing council, speaking during a visit to Spain, accused them of regularly mistreating civilians.

Rajaa Habib Khuzai said: ''There is widespread discontent with the coalition forces, the majority of whom treat the Iraqi people with violence and contempt.

''The opinion of the Iraqi people about the coalition forces is that they are forces of occupation.''

Elsewhere in Iraq, the hostilities to US troops continued.

In central Baghdad, a soldier died of his wounds in a military field hospital after his patrol was attacked by rockets.

He was the 156th to die in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.

Also yesterday, unknown attackers shot dead the chief of Iraq's US-backed police force in Khaldiya, a town west of Baghdad in the so-called ''Sunni Triangle'' where resistance to the American-led occupation is strongest.