Canada already has officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Policehelping international forces under UN auspices in Haiti and the former Yugoslavia.

Asked by reporters whether he had plans to send the RCMP to Iraq as well, Chretien said: "There will be a discussion now. The United Nations are involved."

"If asked, we will," he said, adding that there would have to be a co-ordinating plan.

"We don't send policemen there and throw them on the ground. You have to have a plan of integration," he said.

Canada, which refused to join the US-led war against Iraq, has three ships, a handful of planes and some 1,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region involved in the war against terrorism.

SPACE.WIRE