Cheney Asks NATO Allies for More Gulf Help : Military: But one official insists that the U.S. has brought no ‘shopping list’ to Brussels.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, seeking to rally the North Atlantic allies behind Operation Desert Shield, on Thursday asked them to contribute more troops, weapons and other assistance to support the U.S. deployment in Saudi Arabia.

According to North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials, Cheney told defense ministers that as the United States prepares to send another 200,000 troops to the Persian Gulf, it wants European allies to ante up ships and aircraft to transport soldiers and equipment to the area.

In closed-door meetings with the defense ministers, Cheney also canvassed allies for air defense and artillery units that could be used to fill in gaps among the ground troops in Saudi Arabia.

Washington’s latest campaign comes in response to new military needs defined by the commanders of Operation Desert Shield, Pentagon officials said. But they conceded that Cheney also hopes that by generating offers of additional European assistance, he will quell a rising political clamor for greater allied contributions to the effort.

In congressional hearings this week and last, lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the extent of NATO allies’ support for the massive U.S. deployment.

But a senior American official insisted that the United States has brought no “shopping list” to Brussels and has tried to avoid the appearance that it is circulating a “sign-up sheet” to appease growing political pressure from lawmakers.

Cheney’s appeal brought no immediate offers, German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg said. But a senior member of the U.S. delegation said that “a number of ministers indicated they had under consideration means by which they might provide support.”

The United States has embarked on a second wave of deployment that could draw tens of thousands of weapons and troops from bases in Western Europe. As they do so, American officials also want Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands to waive charges for the use of roads, railways and port facilities needed to transport and load the equipment destined for the Persian Gulf.

The American requests, however, come at a politically sensitive period for NATO. Its traditional role--facing down a Soviet Bloc military threat to Western Europe--has become largely irrelevant in the wake of changes in Eastern Europe.

As a result, NATO proponents are trying to forge a new role for the Western alliance, focusing on threats that challenge the peace and stability of the allies.

But that effort has met with resistance from alliance members wary of coordinating their security policies in areas outside of Europe.

The Middle East is one of the first major tests of NATO’s willingness to act as an alliance toward new political or economic threats, or to military threats that spring up outside of Central Europe. Many of the allies are sharply divided in their policies toward the Middle East. That fact has made NATO a difficult forum for coordinating contributions to Operation Desert Shield.

Allies similarly are debating whether NATO should become the forum for coordinating policies toward the economic crisis in Eastern Europe. That debate, the Persian Gulf and the larger topic of NATO’s “out of area” policy, is expected to dominate a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers scheduled for late December.