Key developments Friday in the war in Iraq:

• Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed that an interim administration be set up quickly with exiled Iraqis and people inside the country who oppose Saddam Hussein.
• A car exploded near a coalition checkpoint in western Iraq, killing three coalition soldiers, a pregnant woman and the car’s driver, U.S. military officials said.
• White House announces that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair will meet next week in Northern Ireland to discuss the war in Iraq.
• France, Russia and Germany renewed demands that the United Nations play a major role in postwar Iraq during a meeting of foreign ministers.
• American and British forces have started distributing water in Iraq’s southern city of Umm Qasr, hiring and paying Iraqis to do that and other jobs, a defense official said.