The 19-member Alliance, which asked military planners last month to examine how NATO could help, agreed to provide support in five defined areas at a meeting on Monday, said a NATO spokesman.

"This is of course a very important decision, very symbolic," the Polish minister said on arrival at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Madrid. "We are very satisfied."

Warsaw, a key European supporter of the United States during the Iraq war, have been given command of a stabilization force in one sector of Iraq, alongside Britain and US forces.

The five areas are force generation, communications support, coordinating troop and equipment movement, logistics and intelligence, said spokesman Mark Laity on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Madrid.

He added NATO's support would be along the lines of the backing it is giving to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, although stressing that NATO officials will not be permanently based in Iraq.

"There will be no NATO flag. But if duties require some NATO personnel to fly to Iraq to give advice for some advice for a few days, they will go," he added.

The Polish minister added: "We treat it as a decision of solidarity. It is another example, after Afghanistan, proving that NATO is ready to operate also out of area."

He also said the Iraq decision, like the Afghan NATO deployment, demonstrated the Alliance was recovering from the crisis which engulfed it in February, ahead of the Iraq war.

"We see efforts to improve the sitaution .. and this is one of the examples," he said. "What we have seen in the last couple of weeks is a general desire to reconcilate."

NATO chief George Robertson, addressing the start of the two-day meeting, said the Iraq and Afghan decisions showed the Alliances' strength in overcoming crises.

"These new tasks reinforce an enduring truth: NATO combines flexibility and effective like no other organization," he said.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, standing in for US Secretary of State Colin Powell, said NATO was already over the crisis sparked when three anti-war countries blocked NATO support for Turkey.

"I think NATO is actually well on the way to recovery," he told reporters.

The two-day NATO meeting will take stock of the Alliance's "transformation" from a Cold War military bloc to a post-9/11 global security body, in particular the perennial problem of boosting military muscle.

The Madrid meeting will also discuss the consequences of a landmark EU-NATO accord struck in December, which has already paved the way for the EU to take over peacekeeping operations from NATO in in Macedonia.

The ministers will also broach the perennially thorny question of military capabilities -- or the Europeans' lack of them compared to the United States -- taking stock of new promises made at the Prague summit.

On a more personal note, the question is certain to be raised -- in informal discussions if not on the formal agenda -- of who will succeed Robertson when he stands down in December.

WAR.WIRE