"Around 15 countries have declared their contributions to the division and certain countries have expressed the wish to send officers to the (force's) command," Defence Ministry spokesman Eugeniusz Mleczak said in a statement.

"We can say as a result that the division has been completely formed," he said, following a week-long secret meeting in Warsaw of military officials from around 20 countries.

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

He declined to name the countries which would take part and stressed that the door was still open to others who decided to participate.

"The list of participants is nevertheless not closed and several countries are examining their participation in the multinational division," he said.

"The decisions will be taken next week," the statement said.

Despite the secrecy surrounding the make-up details have slowly emerged.

Poland is expected to send more than 2,000 soldiers to the force of 7,000.

On Thursday Ukraine's parliament approved the deployment of 1,800 soldiers, while Bulgaria has agreed to send 500.

Slovakia is expected to send 85 soldiers and, while Denmark is expected to send 10 officers from a German-Polish-Danish force in Szczecin in northwest Poland to the Polish-led force.

Lithuania and Romania have also agreed to send soldiers to the Polish-led force in Iraq.

Poland has been chosen to administer a zone spread over 80,000 square kilometres (almost 31,000 square miles) between Basra and Baghdad, roughly a quarter the size of Poland itself.

Poland has said the force will be on the ground by July and fully operational by the end of August.

The meeting was the second behind firmly-closed doors to determine the make-up of the division.

NATO agreed on Tuesday to support Warsaw to establish part of a multinational stabilization force in a sector of Iraq.

The five areas in which it will help a are force generation, communications support, coordinating troop and equipment movement, logistics and intelligence.

WAR.WIRE