"Based on the worsening situation, we have been evaluating -- already for some time -- sending the Mangusta helicopters into the field," said General Filiberto Cicci, the top military officer overseeing the Italian mission in Iraq.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper said the Mangustas would be sent "within a matter of days, or a few weeks" -- leading to fears of a creeping change in the non-combat nature of the Italian mission.

Cicci said in an interview with Sunday's La Stampa the decision to send the Mangusta was unrelated to the killing of a machine gunner aboard one of its standard helicopters last Friday.

Controversy has raged in Italy over the suitability of the current AB-412 helicopter for the Iraq mission, where it is mainly used for reconnaissance and air protection for humanitarian convoys.

The left-wing La Repubblica reported Sunday that Defence Minister Antonio Martino overruled army strategists who wanted to send in the Mangusta last year because it would have compromised the humanitarian peacekeeping role of the Italian mission sanctioned by parliament.

Martino reacted angrily to the report. "It's completely contrary to the truth," the minister said in a statement, adding he had instructed his lawyers to take legal action to counter the "false and defamatory" suggestion.

The row over Italy's participation in Iraq as a peacekeeping force gathered pace as the body of the slain soldier, Simone Cola, arrived back in the country aboard a Hercules military plane at Rome's Ciampino airport.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who led the official delegation, approached the flag-draped coffin as it was borne from the aircraft, and placed his hands on it as an army bugler played the last post.

Cola, who will be given a state funeral on Tuesday, is the 20th member of Italy's armed forces to be killed on duty in Iraq since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi agreed to send a 3,000-strong peacekeeping force after a US-led invasion force overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Gustavo Selva, chairman of parliament's influential foreign affairs committee, said Italy should drop its pretence to be a peacekeeping force.

"We need to move from being a humanitarian intervention force to a fighting force," Selva, a member of the National Alliance party, told the right-wing daily Libero.

Describing Italy's humanitarian intervention as "hypocrisy", Selva said it was time to recognize that the nature of Italy's role in Iraq "is unsuitable to the reality on the ground".

"We need to reinforce our military strength, using all the men and equipment necessary," he said.

The A-129 Mangusta is an Italian-made combat helicopter equipped with anti-tank missiles and a 20mm machine gun. The weekly defence review Analisi Difesa reported in December that four helicopters would be sent to Iraq, but this was denied by the defence ministry.

Italy currently has 10 helicopters in Iraq, most of them the AB-412 type. The machine gunner died after he was hit by a burst of Kalashnikov fire on the more vulnerable AB-412 during a reconnaissance patrol following an attack on a Portuguese convoy under Italian command.

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