In addition, spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington is advising foreign countries to hold off on sending envoys to Baghdad until a new Iraqi government is in place as "at this point there is really no purpose" for them to be there.

However, the exact status of foreign diplomatic missions -- which are considered part of the sovereign territory of the country that owns or leases the property -- in Iraq was not immediately clear.

Responding to reporters' questions about a raid on the Palestinian mission in Baghdad and the arrest of three Palestinian diplomats by US forces, Boucher first said that neither the envoys nor the property held any diplomatic status.

"There are diplomats who were previously accredited to the Saddam regime who have been residing in former mission residences who are still there," he said.

"We do not regard those as diplomatic missions, they are accredited to a regime that is no longer existent and, therefore, their accreditation has lapsed," Boucher said.

"They and their premises don't have diplomatic status," he added firmly.

But after repeated questions about the legality of that position under international law and diplomatic protocol, Boucher then allowed that the missions themselves might still retain some protection.

"Certainly, the accreditation of the people has lapsed," he said. "Whether the property has some residual status, I will see."

US forces in Iraq ransacked the Palestinian mission in Baghdad overnight Tuesday, arresting at least eight people, including seven Palestinians and a Syrian, the top military commander said earlier Thursday.

The commander, Lieutenant General David McKiernan, could not say if any of them were diplomats but a spokesman for the Palestinian mission said that three of them were accredited to the Iraqi foreign ministry.

Spokesman Mohammed Atta said charge d'affaires Najjah Abdel Rahman, consul Ibrahim Mohsen and commercial counsellor Munir Sobhi were arrested along with six guards and staff and two Iraqi gardeners.

"We are the Palestinian representatives recognized by the Iraqi foreign ministry," he said at the mission after the raid in which McKiernan said a "terrorism" manual had been seized along with a variety of weapons.

But Boucher said any accreditation the Palestinians or other diplomats might have had under Saddam's regime had been annulled when the government fell.

And, he said the United States would discourage attempts by any country to send diplomats to Baghdad and had the authority to bar them from coming in.

"As a matter of policy ... we discourage foreign diplomats from entering Iraq," Boucher said.

"There is no Iraqi government for them to interact with, there is no Iraqi government to grant the privileges and immunities that diplomats would normally have inside a country," he said.