De Hoop Scheffer, whose mission was previously kept under wraps for security reasons, announced the opening at a press conference.

And addressing a group of alliance officers already in the country to train Iraqi officers, de Hoop Scheffer stressed that NATO was in Iraq "on behalf of the Iraqi people".

"It is their priority, they want to be as soon as possible less dependent on others," said de Hoop Scheffer, whose visit was the first by a NATO chief to the war-wracked country.

The secretary general stressed the importance of holding elections on January 30 as planned, "to see the political process in this country developing, to see people taking their fate into their own hands."

Asked about how many Iraqis had so far benefited from the training, in Iraq and abroad, NATO information officer Colonel Petter Lindqvist said "perhaps a hundred".

Lindqvist said that progress so far had been impressive.

"Our trainers report back to us that progress has really been remarkable, the devotion and dedication of the officers is great and these people are receiving threats to them and their families," he told AFP.

"The Iraqi officers are prepared to sacrifice so much."

Lindqvist stressed that NATO itself would not be involved in fighting insurgents, despite a rising tide of violence ahead of the elections.

"It is a NATO decision that NATO will not engage on the tactical level and we are not entering into any combat whatsoever, except from self-defence point of view," he said.

Several hundred instructors due in the country will be protected by a NATO force, with the aim of training 1,000 Iraqi officers a year.

NATO agreed to send a military training mission to Iraq in principle in June, but struggled for several months to agree the details. It is now rushing to deploy up to 400 instructors in the country ahead of the crucial elections.

Lindqvist said NATO at present had 20 instructors in the country and the rest were being trained for the job.

Some training will be carried out at the Baghdad headquarters in the heavily defended Green Zone, but the main military academy will be in Al-Rustimayah outside Baghdad.

The secretary general also Friday met Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as well as representatives of NATO countries posted in Baghdad, said officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

NATO's top military commander, US General James Jones, said last month that the refusal of nearly a dozen military allies to participate in the trans-Atlantic alliance's training mission in Iraq was "disturbing."

Several alliance members opposed to last year's US-led invasion of Iraq will not be participating, including Belgium, France and Germany, as well as Spain, which withdrew its troops from the country following a change of government.

"It is important to recognize that once the alliance gets involved in an operation, it is important that all allies support the operation," the general said in Washington.

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