"We hope that the French and the Germans might be able to contribute (to) the protection of the UN," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Our NATO allies have a lot of capacity to train and equip Iraqi forces and that could be very helpful," he said.

Wolfowitz said such help would "not put additional strain on their own forces."

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Carl Levin, said, "It's critically important to get NATO involved in Iraq even (if) only for training."

"All of us hope president Bush will be successful in Istanbul" site of an upcoming NATO summit.

General George Casey, newly named leader of the multilateral force in Iraq, told the same committee on Thursday that one of his priorities will be to have NATO send a brigade to Iraq to protect the UN mission there. He recalled that the United Nations is to set up elections in Iraq.

He also said that his mission was to work with Iraqi authorities to quell the fighting in Iraq, another task in which NATO could take part.

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