BAGHDAD - US troops pressed on Monday with Operation Desert Sidewinder in another bid to suppress opposition to their presence in Iraq, amid moves to secure wider world involvement in rebuilding the country.
Faced with daily attacks on their soldiers, the US military announced its latest offensive Sunday as it carried out more than 20 raids in central Iraq, the bedrock of support for the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
Desert Sidewinder, as US authorities have dubbed it, comes on the heels of Operation Desert Scorpion launched on June 15 to root out the guerrilla fighters who have now killed 23 US soldiers since US President George W. Bush declared victory in the Iraq war May 1.
So far, Desert Sidewinder, being carried out by the 4th Infantry Division and Task Force Ironhorse, has netted more than 60 suspects in the raids along with weapons and military documents believed to relate to the former regime, the US military said in a statement.
"The raids target former Baath Party loyalists, terrorists suspected of perpetrating attacks against US forces and former Iraqi military leaders, and to locate weapons and ammunition caches," the statement said.
The US forces believe Saddam loyalists are conducting a campaign of sabotage, blowing up fuel pipelines and stripping power cables, to turn the tide against the Americans.
The raids unfolded around Samarra, which lies between the capital and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, a stronghold of Sunni Muslims, many of whom feel threatened by the growing clout of the country's Shiite majority in post-war Iraq.
Spokeswoman Sergeant Amy Abbott described Sidewinder as "a very important operation to rid us of Baath party loyalists and terrorists," while declining to say where exactly the operation was being carried out.
No US casualties were reported in the raids, Abbott added, declining to say whether any Iraqis had been killed or wounded.
US forces believe capturing Saddam, who disappeared in early April with Baghdad about to fall, is key to ending the sabotage campaign which has prevented it from getting oil flowing and delayed the return of power to the country.
"I think the chances of catching Saddam are very high. We will catch him," the top US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, told the BBC Sunday. "I think it is important that we do that, that we capture or kill him."
US newspapers aired reports over the weekend that Saddam's intelligence agents had drafted a contingency plan to wreck havoc on Iraq in case the dictator lost the war.
Those allegations were reiterated by Pentagon favorite, politician Ahmed Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi National Congress.
"Saddam ... did not have a serious military plan against the US, but he had a post-defeat plan and that is being implemented right now," Chalabi told CNN television from Baghdad.
"Yes, there is such a plan, and there is some evidence that it was formulated in writing before the war started, for after the war."
With reconstruction efforts proving more and more difficult, a US senator, considered close to Bush, signalled Washington would welcome offers of help in Iraq from its allies, even those who opposed the US-led war.
"We need to involve the world, the globe" in Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the ABC television channel.
He hinted Washington would welcome troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - which includes France and Germany who led Western Europe's opposition to the war.
"Over time I would like to see a lot of other nations contribute to security of that region, as that infrastructure is being built," he said.
An influential Democrat on the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, Joseph Biden, told the Fox network it was important for Washington to accept NATO members' help.
Biden said he wanted to see French, German and Turkish troops deployed in Iraq to let Iraqis know that, more than just the United States, the international community was in Iraq.
As part of those efforts, Japan plans to send more than 1,000 troops to help rebuild the war-torn country under new legislation expected to pass by late July, the Tokyo newspaper reported Monday.
Some 500 Ground Self-Defence Force troops, the core of the Japanese mission, are likely to be deployed starting in early October, the daily said.
Despite coming under almost daily attack, the coalition has pushed on with its efforts to construct a democratic Iraq. Bremer held talks Sunday in the northern town of Salahedin with Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, focusing on coalition plans for an interim government.
"The meeting reached some positive results on the plan to create constitutional and political councils," Barzani told reporters.
Bremer envisions installing in July an interim 25-30 member Iraqi political council that would appoint ministers in waiting, but Iraqis have criticised the plan as a stalling tactic to avoid handing them real power.
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