Biden urges larger NATO role in Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Charging that US policy on Iraq is adrift, a senior Democrat in the Senate yesterday proposed turning to NATO for troops to bring stability to the country and the United Nations to lend political legitimacy.

The way to start such a fundamental change is for President Bush to sell the idea to European leaders at a trans-Atlantic summit, said Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"The US is a country right now basically in search of a strategy, and I think it's time to make a fundamental shift in the way in which we're going about trying to win the peace here," Biden told ABC's "This Week."

He said Bush should tell Europeans of the need for three changes regarding Iraq:

Making it a NATO-led operation.

Having a high commissioner, who does not have to be American, report to NATO, its political arm, and the UN Security Council.

Overhauling Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council, which he said could serve as "the entree to the French to say, `We can work out an arrangement here.' "

France has been the most vociferous European opponent of US policy in Iraq since before American troops invaded in March and deposed President Saddam Hussein. The United States installed the Governing Council as a symbol of local control amid the continuing US occupation.

The NATO idea won support from a former NATO supreme commander, retired General George Joulwan, and presidential candidate Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina.