Citing an unnamed senior Pentagon official, the newspaper said the department was weighing "a next assignment for Petraeus," now the top US military commander in Iraq, and that the job of NATO supreme commander was a possibility.

"He deserves one and that has also always been a highly prestigious position," the report quotes the official as saying. "So he is a candidate for that job, but there have been no final decisions and nothing on the timing."

One of the proposed scenarios calls for nominating Petraeus for the NATO post before the end of September, when Congress goes into recess for elections, the paper said.

If everything goes as planned, Petraeus might stay in Iraq for some time after that before moving to the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, The Times said.

The leading candidates to replace him are Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, head of special operations in Iraq, and Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, a senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to the report.

Under the "surge" strategy advocated by Petraeus and fully espoused by President George W. Bush, about 30,000 extra troops were sent to Iraq early last year in a bid to quell violence.

According to a Pentagon report released last month, the surge has been working, with US forces achieving "significant security progress" in Iraq over the past three months with the number of attacks down 62 percent.

Petraeus has been repeatedly praised by leading Republicans as the man who can get the job done in Iraq.

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