Former US secretary of state Colin Powell has warned it will be six to eight months before the success of the recent Iraqi election will be known and has backed US troop reductions in the war-torn country. In a wide-ranging Christmas Day television interview with former Bill Clinton press secretary George Stephanopoulos, Mr Powell also conceded that legitimate questions on presidential authority had arisen from the controversial domestic spying program authorised by US President George W.Bush without the approval of the courts.  On the Iraqi election, Mr Powell echoed the concerns of a growing number of analysts when he suggested the success of fundamentalist candidates, particularly in the Shia majority, could harden ethnic divisions and increase the chances of civil war. "There's a lot of voting strictly along political, ethnic and tribal lines and religious lines and there appears to be, from early results, great support for a Shi'ite majority that is somewhat more fundamentalist than, I think, we all would be entirely comfortable with," Mr Powell said. "But we've got a long process ahead of us. The way this has been designed, it's going to take a while first to document the results, secondly for a national assembly to be formed. "Then it will take more time for a president and two deputies to be selected, and more time yet for a prime minister to be selected. So, it's going to be six to eight months of uncertainty before we really know what this government looks like." Mr Powell said the critical issues now were the disarming of the militias and the willingness of the majority Shi'ites to protect the interests and the rights of the Sunnis, who had oppressed them under Saddam Hussein. "If the Shias just see it as an opportunity to oppress the Sunnis, then we're going to have a very tough time and it could lead to a civil war," he said. "We have to make sure that, as we move through this (post-election) period, we have the interest of the minorities, the fears of the minorities - and here, I mean the Sunnis - taken into account by the Shias and by the Kurds." Mr Powell said he was certain there would be fewer US soldiers in Iraq next Christmas. (But) something has to be done about the militias," he said. "The Iraqis are going to have to put in place a political system that says the only ones who hold the power of the state, the military and police power of the state, is the state and not individual militias that are loyal to a particular secular or religious figure. The real challenge is really the institutions of government, the political institutions, the cabinet ministries and the other institutions that you need in order to control a country ... to make this a functioning society." On the domestic spying issue, Mr Powell said there was "absolutely nothing wrong" with Mr Bush authorising surveillance on US citizens but that it was a different question as to whether he could authorise such surveillance without going to the courts. "My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the (court) warrants," he said. "And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it - the law provides for that - and then, three days later, you let the court know what you have done and deal with it that way. The question is, was it done in the way that is consistent with the law ... Some members of Congress do not see a problem; other members of Congress do see a problem, on both sides of the aisle. (But) the nation is not going to collapse over this issue. What the President is determined to do and what the Congress and the American people want him to do is protect us from terrorism. And if eavesdropping does that, then more power to it. Nobody is suggesting that the President shouldn't do this." -By David Mason