US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with defense ministers from 18 allied nations on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf yesterday to reassure them on US strategy for Iraq.

The meeting, which had not been previously announced, drew ministers from countries with troops in Iraq or Afghanistan as well as their counterparts from Iraq, Bahrain and Qatar.

Rumsfeld told reporters accompanying him on the flight from Washington to Bahrain that the United States may send more troops to Iraq to protect the planned January elections against insurgent violence if US commanders decide they are needed.

He said Washington was trying

to find countries to provide troops to protect the UN mission that is supposed to organize the polls.

Whether the United States sends more troops to Iraq, as it has for elections in Afghanistan, is up to Central Command chief General John Abizaid and Casey, Rumsfeld said.

"To the extent that's appropriate and needed, obviously that makes sense," he said. "To the extent other countries come in and take some of that responsibility, then that might not be necessary."

Rumsfeld added that about 140,000 Iraqi security forces should be trained and equipped by the elections.

George Casey, the US commander of multinational forces in Iraq, was to give the ministers a briefing via video teleconference on the US strategy to defeat

insurgents that have mounted a bloody campaign to derail the elections.

Rumsfeld and the ministers flew from Bahrain aboard a small plane, arriving to a VIP welcome aboard the John F. Kennedy, which has been launching air strikes against selected targets in Iraq since arriving in the Gulf in June.

He would not say whether he planned to make a pitch for more troops to the defense ministers during the day-long meeting aboard the USS John F. Kennedy.

A senior defense official traveling with Rumsfeld described it as "a team-building, coalition-building event," intended to show US appreciation for their support and to reassure them about the situation in Iraq.