17 Nations Pledge Troops to Haiti Peacekeeping Force : Caribbean: U.S. appeals garner 1,500 police and military personnel. France and Canada deny request.

The Clinton Administration, laying the groundwork for a yearlong multinational occupation of Haiti, announced Monday that a total of 17 other countries have agreed to send 1,500 police and military personnel to the island nation--as long as U.S. forces go ashore first.

Officials said the new force commitments will save the United States from being stuck with sole responsibility for the potentially dangerous mission of policing Haiti after an invasion. And that, they said, should help build public and congressional support for intervening.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher called a news conference to trumpet the 17 enlistments, which came after weeks of behind-the-scenes appeals to foreign leaders from President Clinton and his aides.

The countries that have offered to provide forces soon after U.S. forces enter Haiti include Britain, Israel, the Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina, Panama, Bolivia, Bangladesh and nine former British colonies around the Caribbean, officials said.

But at least six other countries, including longtime U.S. allies France and Canada, turned Clinton down, at least for now. Christopher aides drafted a list of 23 participating countries Monday morning, but they pared it back to 17 as it became clear that some commitments were not coming through.

Christopher said he expects more countries to sign on in coming weeks, however.

The newly committed foreign forces are a key part of the Administration’s plan for the transfer of power in Haiti, which officials have been revising during recent weeks as a U.S. invasion began to appear inevitable.

The plan now has three basic phases, officials said:

Phase 1 is the landing of an all-U.S. force of 20,000 or more troops--either an invasion to dislodge Haiti’s military regime or a relatively peaceful operation if the regime gives up power without a fight. The U.S. force will be responsible for securing key installations and making sure there is no armed resistance to the reinstallation of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Phase 2, described by one senior official as “pacification,” could begin as soon as 48 hours after a peaceful landing. The U.S. invasion force would be drawn down rapidly to perhaps 4,000. About 2,000 foreign troops--including the 1,500 announced on Monday--would arrive to keep order and begin building a new Haitian police force.

Phase 3, peacekeeping, would begin as soon as the Administration can persuade the United Nations to take over the job and turn the multinational intervention force into a U.N. peacekeeping force. Even then, the remaining force of about 6,000 troops would still include at least 2,000 Americans.

Christopher has said that the entire peacekeeping operation should end in early 1996--after a little more than a year. But other officials worry that this calendar is overly optimistic and predicted that U.S. troops will be needed in Haiti for at least two years after Aristide’s government is restored.

Administration officials acknowledged Monday that a protracted military operation like the one envisioned in Haiti will require a call-up of at least some military reservists, a politically sensitive step.

Under the Pentagon’s post-Vietnam doctrine, many of the units most suited to pacification work in Haiti, such as companies trained to assist civil governments, have been largely transferred to the reserves. With the active force shrinking under pressure of budget cuts, the Pentagon clearly will need reservists once the initial fighting ends.

Nevertheless, the step is sure to be controversial because the activation of reserve units disrupts the lives of the individuals and affects their families and their communities. The Pentagon avoided reserve call-ups throughout the Vietnam War, although the George Bush Administration activated reservists for the war in the Persian Gulf.

In any case, officials said Monday’s announcement marked a significant accomplishment for the Administration, eliminating fears that the United States might invade Haiti and then find that none of its major allies were willing to share the burden of pacifying the country.

Most of the foreign contingents offered are small, and the United States has offered to pay for transportation and other support costs for some countries, especially the small Caribbean island countries, officials said.

The Caribbean countries that have offered to participate are Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago.

France, which once ruled Haiti as a colonial power and has taken an active role in diplomacy on the issue, turned the President down flat, despite a personal appeal from Clinton to French President Francois Mitterrand, diplomats said.

Canada is still considering the issue, officials said, despite a last-minute telephone plea from Clinton to Prime Minister Jean Chretien over the weekend. “We said ‘no,’ ” a Canadian official said, “but it was a positive ‘no.’ ”

Canada has already promised to send several hundred French-speaking officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to Haiti to help train a new police force, but at this point they will wait until a U.N. force is in place.

At his news conference at the State Department, Christopher repeated the Administration’s warnings that time is running out for the Haitian junta and said the addition of the new forces would not delay U.S. military action.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster and Richard A. Serrano contributed to this report.

* DEBATE DEMANDED: Republican congressional leaders seek vote on Haiti. A12