By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell distanced himself Thursday from Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying the
embattled leader needs to make a "careful examination" of whether he should step down.

Secretary Powell did not call for Mr. Aristide's departure — as his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, did Wednesday — but he signaled for the first time
that Mr. Aristide's resignation might be in the best interests of Haiti.

"I think it is a very difficult time for the Haitian people," Mr. Powell said. "And I know that President Aristide has the interest of the Haitian people at heart. I hope he
will just examine the situation that he is in and make a careful examination of how best to serve the Haitian people at this time."

Mr. Aristide, in a television interview on Thursday, said he would not resign, and his Miami-based representative, Ira Kurzban, called Secretary Powell's remarks
"disgraceful."

"The president is not leaving, and he's made it clear today that despite the rumors and psychological warfare, he's not leaving until his term is up in February 2006,"
Mr. Kurzban said.

Mr. Powell's comments were the most pointed indication yet from a Bush administration official that the administration views Mr. Aristide's determination to serve out
his term as an impediment to a peaceful resolution of the three-week-old uprising, which has claimed the lives of about 70 people and left the northern half of the
country in rebel control.

In Port-au-Prince, tensions mounted when rebel leaders said they were moving closer to an assault. At dusk flaming barricades went up across the city, and
truckloads of armed masked men patrolled the streets.

Bernie Léon, manager of three terminals at the port, said more than a hundred people had looted shipping containers there. Many gas stations stopped selling fuel.

At the airport, hundreds of people waited to board flights to the United States, but late Thursday, American Airlines announced it was canceling all flights from Haiti
until March 3, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Powell, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, traveled to Haiti a decade ago with other negotiators at President Clinton's request and attempted to
negotiate the departure of the military leaders who had ousted Mr. Aristide in his first term. He has been one of the administration's strongest voices in defense of
keeping Mr. Aristide in office to uphold democratic principles. Several of his subordinates have privately indicated disaffection with Mr. Aristide, whom they accuse
of ruling autocratically.

The secretary's shift appears to muddle further the status of peace talks based on a plan backed by the administration and the Caribbean Community, or Caricom.
That plan, which the State Department says it still supports, calls for allowing President Aristide to continue in a titular role while a government of national unity takes
over under a politically neutral prime minister.

Mr. Aristide agreed to the Caricom proposal over the weekend, but opposition leaders balked, saying they could not accept his remaining in office. Working the
phones doggedly, Mr. Powell has been frustrated in his efforts to persuade opposition leaders to accept the deal, which would be monitored and enforced by the
United States, France, Canada and other nations.

In an interview on Thursday with CNN, Mr. Aristide noted that he had accepted the Caricom's power-sharing arrangement but would not relinquish the presidency.

"This agreement includes the possibility to have a new government, where we share power and share responsibilities," he said. "And I think that's fair, when we can do
that with members of the opposition, from civil society."

Asked pointedly whether he would step aside, Mr. Aristide replied: "No. We had 32 coups d'état in our history.

"We will strengthen our democratic experience by moving from one elected president to another elected president, but not from one coup d'état to another one."

Mr. Kurzban, an immigration lawyer who works for the Aristide government, said Secretary Powell was confusing the issue by focusing on Mr. Aristide as the
problem. He said former members of the Haitian Army and known human rights violators were fomenting the violence, not the president's loyalists.

"If, by this, Secretary Powell is suggesting that a democratically elected government should give up power, it's disgraceful that that should be the formal position of the
United States," Mr. Kurzban said.

Some specialists in the region's foreign policy disagreed.

Bernard Aronson, who served as the top Latin America policymaker under the first President Bush, said international leaders were only now coming to acknowledge
Mr. Aristide's failings as a leader.

"You have this real dilemma of how do you defend constitutional democracy when the democratic leader is part of the problem?" Mr. Aronson, who is managing
partner with Acon Investments, said earlier this week in an interview. "Finally the international community has woken up to what he's been doing."

On Wednesday Mr. de Villepin, the French foreign minister, presented a five-point plan to stabilize Haiti that included Mr. Aristide's voluntary departure and elections
by next summer. He also proposed the immediate formation of a civilian peacekeeping force "responsible for guaranteeing the return to public order."

The proposal was discussed at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

With the first signs that Haitians fleeing violence might be taking to the seas, Mr. Aristide seemed to warn of a growing exodus to Florida. President Bush has said that
he will not tolerate a boatlift and plans to repatriate refugees as they are intercepted.

"Yesterday, we had more refugees leaving Haiti because of those terrorists," Mr. Aristide told CNN. Asked if he was posing a threat, Mr. Aristide replied: "No. I am
being realistic. I'm just telling the truth. Because the more we have those terrorists killing more people, the more we will be seeing refugees."