"NATO would seem more suited for that," Ambassador Daniel Coats was quoted as saying in an interview with the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper.

But Coats said that the United Nations should play a significant role in Iraq's reconstruction, adding that the nature of that role needed to be discussed.

"There is enough work for everyone in Iraq," Coats said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell originally mooted the idea of a NATO peackeeping role in Iraq on April 3.

But NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said last Wednesday there was, as yet, no consensus on the alliance's potential role in Iraq.

Britain, a staunch ally of the US-led intervention in Iraq, has said it would prefer a peackeeping mission similar to the current UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan.

NATO on Wednesday agreed to take over command of ISAF in the summer, in what would be the first "out-of-area" mission for the alliance.

Germany, firmly opposed to military intervention in Iraq, last Friday said that it did not see a role for NATO there, with a high-ranking government official insisting it was the United Nations' job to ensure security.

SPACE.WIRE