JERICHO, West Bank -- Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat threw down a challenge to U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday, calling January elections that he is likely to win and expanding on his proposed reforms.

Meanwhile, Israel dug in for a long stay in the West Bank and prepared operations in the Gaza Strip.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told a press conference Wednesday in Jericho, the only West Bank city not recently reoccupied by Israel, that presidential and legislative elections would be held between January 10 and 20, and local elections in March.

Erakat also promised a series of reforms, notably to the judiciary and security services, in the coming months, AFP reported.

Analysts said Arafat, who has never attached much importance to elections, could be confident of few serious political rivals, putting Bush in a quandary if he is reelected.

Bush, in a long-awaited speech Monday outlining his strategy for the troubled Middle East, told the Palestinians to vote out leaders "compromised by terror" to win U.S. support for an independent Palestinian state within three years.

U.S. strategy if Arafat did win reelection was not clear though Bush warned that only with new elected leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors could the Palestinians expect support.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States hoped that the Palestinian people would not reelect him but would respect the results of a free and fair poll.

"We'll just have to see how that plays out," Powell said in an interview with national public radio. "I mean, we will deal with the circumstances as we find them.

Erakat vented the frustration of the Palestinian Authority with the U.S. administration. "Vision constitutes no policy," he said of the Bush speech.

"We have been working on the reforms for months," he said, adding the process was delayed by Israel's reoccupation of much of the West Bank.

The authority's "100 days" plan was dated June 23, two days before the speech.

The Palestinian plan announced Wednesday would attach the preventive security services, police and civil defense to the Ministry of Interior, which would itself be restructured and modernized.

However, Erakat said the Israeli military operations could hamper efforts to organize the first elections since 1996, when Arafat garnered 88 percent of the presidential vote.