Iraq will be divided into three sectors commanded by the U.S., Britain and Poland

WASHINGTON, May 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Punishing the U.N. and the anti-war camp for opposing its unilateral invasion of Iraq, the United States decided to form an Iraq stabilization force in collaboration with its war allies Britain and Poland.

Washington is forging a "multinational" force to "stabilize" post-war Iraq and will seek neither a United Nations mandate nor active participation of those countries who opposed the war, a senior U.S. official said late Friday, May 2.

Iraq will be divided into three sectors to be commanded by the United States, Britain and Poland, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The thought is the force would be generated by a coalition of the willing on a bilateral basis," said the official.

That would exclude a U.N.-backed force, noted AFP.

British Defense Minister Geoff Hoon set the plan in motion at a meeting in London Wednesday, April 30, of 16 countries, grouping Britain, the U.S., 10 other NATO members and four non-NATO states.

France, Germany and Russia, staunch opponents of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, were not invited to the London "Initial Coalition Stabilization Operations Conference."

The American official said no U.N. mandate would be sought for the force, but if some countries felt they needed a NATO umbrella to participate it would be taken up in the alliance's defense planning committee.

France is not a member of the committee and so could not use its veto.

Asked whether the three ant-war countries were being excluded as punishment for their opposition to the war, the official said, "That's one view."

The size and make-up of the stabilization force will be worked out in future meetings, but they will be heavily weighted toward military police or gendarme forces.

Britain will hold a follow up meeting to generate forces from other countries for its division May 7. Poland will hold another meeting May 22.

The force would likely include engineers, medical units, ordnance disposal specialists, demining units, and units that specialize in detecting and decontaminating nuclear biological and chemical warfare.

The three division have not been designated yet, but the boundaries will not be drawn along religious and ethnic lines, the official claimed.

"The Arabs want to play a role -- they want to play a significant role -- But they all want to be careful about longstanding ethnic and religious divisions," he said.

The U.S., Britain, Poland, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria have reportedly offered troops for the force. Albania already has an infantry company in Iraq.

The Philippines, Qatar, Australia and South Korea offered aid but not troops.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who returned to Washington Friday from a weeklong trip that included a stop in Baghdad, held talks earlier in the day in London with Hoon and Prime Minister Tony Blair about the U.N. role in Iraq.

The official said there was a consensus in Washington that the U.N. role should be restricted to "what it does best" -- humanitarian affairs, dealing with refugees and internally diplaced people, and reconstruction.

A draft U.N. resolution has been devised to frame the U.N. role in Iraq, he said.

"There is complete agreement in the government on how to proceed," added the American official.

At a press conference before leaving London, Rumsfeld said it was not yet known how many troops will be required in Iraq and for how long.

But he said other planning meetings will be held.

"And of course the larger number of countries that participate, the fewer number of forces from the United States will be necessary," Rumsfeld said.

The senior official said the stabilization force would supplement the U.S. and British ground forces now in Iraq, which would be maintained at current levels as long as necessary.

About 132,000 U.S. and 23,000 British troops are in Iraq.

All forces in Iraq, including the stabilization force, would fall under the command of U.S. General Tommy Franks, the American official said.

"It would be a terrible mistake to think of Iraq as fully secured, fully pacified. It is not. It is dangerous," Rumsfeld said in London.

"There are people who are rolling hand grenades into compounds. There are people who are killing people, and it's not finished," he said.