U.S. Solicits Help in Iraq -- to a Point

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell came here Thursday to ask countries that had opposed the war in Iraq for more help in stabilizing the country, but he made it clear that the U.S.-led administration would not share military control or cede significant political and economic authority in exchange.

“We have said all along that we want the U.N. to play a vital role,” Powell said. “The issue of ceding authority is not an issue we have had to discuss today.”

France, Germany, Mexico, Syria and others were cool to the U.S. offer to share the burden in Iraq without sharing the authority.

Although there has been a swell of support to send troops or money to help secure Iraq in the wake of Tuesday’s bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, few governments want to be subject to the control of the U.S.-led occupation authority, and prewar fault lines seemed to be reappearing.

Pakistan’s ambassador, Munir Akram, hinted diplomatically that the coalition should bolster its own force before asking other countries to make up the difference. Others were more blunt.

“It sends us the message, ‘We don’t need to spill more American blood, we need foreign blood,’ ” one European diplomat said.

Asked how he would resolve the apparent conflict, Powell said, “I don’t think there is a problem.” He added that he believed that anyone sending their young men and women into harm’s way would want them under competent military leadership provided by the U.S.

Part of the strategy in seeking a new resolution may be directed toward potential troop contributors outside the U.N. Security Council more than the reluctant countries in it. A senior British official said part of the exercise was to satisfy countries such as India and Turkey that felt they needed some kind of U.N. blessing before sending troops.

India and Turkey each have about 10,000 troops on tentative offer.

Looking for ways to make it politically palatable for nations to deploy troops, U.S. officials linked Tuesday’s bombing to other terrorist incidents, providing a framework for reluctant supporters to say their soldiers would be fighting terrorism, not supporting the occupation.

And there was a proposal of a secondary force that would be limited to safeguarding U.N. personnel, aid groups and international institutions, said diplomats. If configured as a police or security force, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be under coalition command.

After listening to the U.S. and Britain present a 100-day report of postwar activities in Iraq, French Deputy Ambassador Michel Duclos said the U.N. should be put in charge. “Only the United Nations has the legitimacy, the impartiality and the expertise” to guide Iraq back to statehood, he said.

Duclos also suggested that the crisis in Iraq was of the U.S. and Britain’s making, after they circumvented the Security Council to invade the country alone, saying, “Would we be in this state if there had been set up at the outset a genuine international partnership?”

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the council to leave behind the bitter divisions over the war that threatened to erupt again in the debate over a new resolution on wider international involvement in Iraq.

“I think the issue of Iraq is of great concern to everybody, regardless of the division that stood before the war,” he said.

He ruled out sending in U.N. peacekeepers but encouraged a multinational force to ensure security, with the U.N. focusing on economic, political and social areas “where we do our best work.”

And so, rallied by Annan to think of Iraq’s people and the U.N. staffers who will stay in Iraq despite the bombing, the council met behind closed doors Thursday afternoon to discuss ways to send help without appearing to endorse the occupation.

Diplomats discussed framing the security issue as a fight against international terrorism and a way to secure the safety of U.N. personnel. The British ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, and U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte presented several themes, including how to keep foreign resistance fighters out of the country and how to get Iraqi assets unfrozen to help fund development.

Mostly, they were in “listening mode,” Negroponte said after the session.

But, seizing on the emotional intensity after the explosion in Baghdad, the U.S. hopes to craft a draft resolution soon, even as early as this weekend, a senior State Department official said.

“There was a feeling in Baghdad and Washington that this is the moment we can get more explicit authorization for security forces for stabilization without getting into a debate,” the official said.

In the consultations and in the corridors at the U.N., there were suggestions about how reluctant donors could provide troops.

One idea is for a two-tiered security structure modeled on the arrangements for Afghanistan and the Balkans, where police under a U.N. mandate ensured law and order in cities and international forces provided broader security.

“There are a lot of ideas, but the basic one is this: The administration wants to keep the baton, but give the violins a bigger role in the orchestra,” said Spanish Ambassador Inocencio Arias, one of the vocal supporters of the U.S.-led invasion.

As the U.S. asked for troops from other countries, the message was undercut by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s statement Thursday that the 146,000 U.S. and 21,700 multinational troops in Iraq were enough and that the U.S. wouldn’t be sending more.

Powell said that five nations were in the process of making their final decisions to send troops and that the U.S. was talking with 14 others.

“A resolution could make the difference,” a U.S. official said.

“Almost nothing we can do could convince France and Germany to send soldiers, but perhaps there is something we can do to convince others to send them,” officials said.

Pakistan, which has discussed sending 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers, said that even more than a new resolution, it needed a clear invitation from Iraqi leadership or a signal from other Islamic nations that Pakistani troops would be welcome.

“Our hang-up is not a U.N. resolution,” Akram said. “Our hang-up is what would be the reaction of the Iraqi people, our Muslim friends and our own people. We want to help, but we don’t want to do anything that would be opposed by any of them.”