In a letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the president of the 115-year-old Congress party said deploying troops without a UN mandate would violate "fundamental principles" followed by India.

India's security cabinet discussed the issue Thursday prior to the departure Friday of Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani to the United States and Britain, newspapers reported.

At a meeting last month of India's security cabinet, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh argued in favour of deploying troops in Iraq while Advani and Defence Minister George Fernandes reportedly urged caution.

The request to send a division-strength contingent was conveyed to New Delhi in early May by the United States, which is facing growing difficulties in replacing its own occupation troops with an international stabilisation force in the war-ravaged country.

Vajpayee said on June 2 during a tour of Europe that his government was still undecided whether to send troops and had raised several questions on the tasks Indian troops may be asked to perform in Iraq.

Indian military sources Thursday appeared to back opposition parties and some allies of Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist BJP party-led coalition government who are campaigning against committing troops to Iraq.

"India's policy is to send troops only through the United Nations and in this case it will be a stabilisation force and India must first revise that policy and then commit troops," a highly-placed military source told AFP.

A powerful section of India's influential military establishment is wary of the BJP's growing proximity to Washington after decades of closeness to the Soviet Union.

It hopes the anti-US lobby in Vajpayee's multi-party government will derail any attempts to send troops to Iraq without the UN's blessing.

WAR.WIRE