WASHINGTON: Even under the best scenario, it will take two months or more to deploy extra international troops to Iraq and this is just one of the hurdles confronting United States President George W. Bush as he scrambles to impose stability on the occupied country.

In a significant policy shift, Bush dropped his resistance to a broader United Nations role in Iraq in an effort to induce other countries to contribute troops and money.

But he still has to work out the terms of his altered approach with UN Security Council members, the US Congress and even within his own administration.

These processes usually are protracted but analysts say Bush, whose popular support has slipped partly because of his handling of Iraq, does not have the luxury of time.

Pressures are building rapidly to stem the security slide in Iraq and keep the US military victory in overthrowing Saddam Hussein from becoming a political liability that could affect Bush's re-election in October next year.

The president's speech to the UN General Assembly on September 23 will be an important opportunity to make his case.

The ideal case for Bush, which appears unlikely, is that it all comes together by this month's end - a new UN resolution, congressional approval of a new multibillion-dollar financing package and administration harmony on policy.

Even then, more foreign troops to back up the US occupation force would not be in Iraq before Christmas, said William Dutch, a peacekeeping expert at the Henry L. Stimson Centre think-tank.

A quicker fix might be to deploy more US troops, but with US forces stretched, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has rejected this, saying the key to beefing up security is in training more Iraqis.

US military planners foresee a potential bottleneck if US troops due to rotate out of Iraq during early 2004 try to leave at the same time as international reinforcements are arriving.

Experts say the most that the United States could hope for is 60,000 foreign troops - most likely from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Turkey and maybe a NATO brigade.

Bush's proposal to create a US-led multinational force authorized by the United Nations was not immediately embraced.

France, Germany and Russia - key anti-war allies before the US-led military invasion in March - faulted the draft resolution, saying it must give the United Nations a larger political role in rebuilding Iraq.

They had denounced the drive to oust Saddam Hussein without backing from the UN Security Council and they may use their new post-war leverage to extract concessions from Washington.

If the Europeans "play hardball, it's going to force the administration to face its fundamental foreign-policy divide," said Barry Blechman, the Stimson Centre's board chairman.

Hardliners in the Pentagon and elsewhere have insisted on a dominant US role in the military operation and political rebuilding of Iraq, while the State Department has been more amenable to UN and international participation.

But the hand of Secretary of State Colin Powell seems strengthened as the United States finds its forces stretched and Defence Secretary Rumsfeld comes under attack for failing to plan adequately for the post-war period.

A major challenge will be to find a UN administrator as outstanding as Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad in August, to execute the UN mandate.

In Congress, Republicans and Democrats last week said Bush will get the estimated US$65 billion in additional money he is seeking to pay for the US occupation of Iraq.

But their support would come with a price - tougher questions about US plans for the country. US sources also say billions more US dollars will be needed, including funds to pay for troops from other countries that may join the US forces.

(China Daily September 8, 2003)