Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s new prime minister made his first address to the nation Friday, saying a rapid U.S. withdrawal from the country would be a “major disaster” because Iraqis are not ready to handle their own security.

Iyad Allawi’s call for improved Iraqi security and an end to guerrilla attacks came as unknown assailants attacked a U.S. Army patrol in Baghdad near the Shiite district of Sadr City, killing five U.S. soldiers and wounding five others.

Still, there were signs of hope, as an Iraqi official said the U.S. military and Shiite militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr agreed Friday to withdraw from areas around holy shrines south of Baghdad and turn over security to Iraqi police in a bid to end two months of fighting.

The televised speech by Allawi — a longtime exile with close ties to the CIA and State Department but with little popular support in Iraq — was the first by an Iraqi head of government since Saddam Hussein fell a year ago.

For the past year, such addresses have come from L. Paul Bremer, the top official in the U.S. occupation authority — or from the president of the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council, a position that rotated every month.

Allawi, appointed last week to head the interim government taking power on June 30, defended the continued presence of 138,000 U.S. troops and thousands of troops from other nations on Iraqi soil even after the handover of sovereignty.

“The targeting of the multinational forces under the leadership of the United States to force them to leave Iraq would inflict a major disaster on Iraq, especially before the completion of the building of security and military institutions,” Allawi said.

Nevertheless, Allawi said that Iraq would never accept occupation and looked forward to having the U.N. Security Council adopt “a new resolution regarding the transfer of full sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.”

At the United Nations on Friday, the United States and Britain again revised their Security Council resolution, this time giving Iraq’s interim government the authority to order the U.S.-led multinational force to leave at any time. But other key council members still want the Iraqis to have final say in offensive military operations by U.S. and international troops who will remain after June 30.

The agreement to end fighting in the Shiite cities of Najaf and Kufa, in which U.S. forces pledged to stay out of sensitive areas, is broadly similar to the accord that ended the bloody, three-week Marine siege of Fallujah, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The Marines struck a deal there to lift the siege and hand over security to an Iraqi force commanded by former officers from Saddam’s army.