Britain sends more troops to Iraq amid signs of thaw at UN

2.00pm - By KIM SENGUPTA, ANNE PENKETH and PAUL PEACHEY

LONDON - Britain has agreed to send more troops to Iraq in response to the growing violence against the occupation forces while negotiations have began at the United Nations on an American blueprint for the country.

The Americans were under pressure to yield power to an interim Iraqi government as the price for an agreement on a UN resolution that would entice other nations into an international peace-keeping force.

Underscoring British resolve to stay the course, a company of the 2nd Battalion, the Light Infantry, are to fly out from Cyprus to spearhead a new deployment of up to 3,000 to join the force of 11,000 in southern Iraq.

Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, is expected to announce as early as Monday that about 1,200 soldiers will be sent at first.

Defence sources say another 1,800 will be put on standby to join the mission.

The decision for the immediate dispatch of 1,200 soldiers was made on the day a British bomb disposal specialist was killed near Mosul.

Ian Rimell, a 53-year-old father with three children from Kidderminster, Oxfordshire, died and his local bodyguard was injured when they were ambushed on the road to the northern city from Baghdad.

At the United Nations, France and Germany led the calls for further concessions by America on the political and economic front as the first discussions were held on the US proposals among the 15 Security Council members.

A US-sponsored draft resolution, circulated on Thursday, was deemed inadequate by France and Germany.

The proposals would establish a UN mandate for an international force for Iraq while demanding that it should remain under American command.

Anxious to avoid endorsing the occupation after a war it did not support, France is seeking a specific timetable for a handover, within months, to an interim Iraqi government.

The aim, a UN diplomat said, was for Iraqis to feel they were being assisted by the international community, after suffering "an invasion followed by an occupation".

So far, the Americans are proposing "burden-sharing without authority sharing".

There is plenty of gloating in the French press over the US predicament, but Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, declined to follow suit.

Scotching fears of a new round of battles in the Security Council, M.

de Villepin told Le Figaro: "We can no longer argue in terms of a 'war camp' or a 'peace camp'." Other diplomats confirmed that after the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the UN representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 22 others last month, the mood at the UN was no longer one of rivalry.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said he was open to discussing French and German ideas.

M.

de Villepin said the initial US draft focused too much on security issues "and doesn't take sufficiently on board the political necessity swiftly to give back Iraq her sovereignty".

He said: "If there has to be a multinational force, it must serve the new Iraqi authorities." Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that "it represents a significant move in the right direction towards strengthening the role of the UN".

M.

de Villepin appeared to rule out French troops in the multinational force, saying: "Today, the conditions are not there for a French engagement." Germany has also rejected sending troops.

America has appealed for 10,000 troops from an array of countries including Turkey, India and Pakistan, to Russia.

Many have refused unless the force acts under UN auspices.

Worryingly, countries such as India, which had earlier offered 17,000 soldiers if the force were under a UN mandate, has not stepped forward again in the light of the new draft resolution.

The number of British forces is also lower than that sought by Mr Straw.

In a leaked document, he suggested that up to 5,000 extra British soldiers were needed urgently to tackle the security crisis.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq