More direct help from NATO in Iraq would be welcome but is unlikely, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld signed orders notifying about 15,000 troops they will be sent to Iraq. The orders are part of a troop rotation plan for Iraq the Pentagon announced last month.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is busy with its command of the international peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital, Kabul, though its participation in Iraq is "conceivable," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.

"I would be delighted to see a larger NATO role in Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a joint appearance with Australia's defense minister, Robert Hill.

Rumsfeld said the U.S. counteroffensive in Iraq was the result, in part, of better information about insurgent forces responsible for attacks on the American-led coalition.

"They are finding targets that are appropriate and they're, needless to say, anxious to attack any targets of opposition," Rumsfeld said.

Military officials say the U.S. attacks, which have involved one-ton bombs and other heavy weapons, have destroyed dozens of safe houses and other buildings used by opposition forces. Rumsfeld said some of the buildings were places where insurgents had built some of the roadside bombs used to attack Americans. 

Later, after a private meeting with senators at the Capitol, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were asked about how using large bombs could affect civilian support for U.S. forces.

Myers said commanders on the ground "are very responsive to the balance between appropriate military action and not trying to turn the average Iraqi against the coalition. They work this very hard. They have taken great steps to minimize collateral damage."

"There's going to be very careful balance and no one is more sensitive to that than our commanders in the field," Myers told reporters.

Wolfowitz said the United States is "very much concerned about hearts and minds." He cited strides toward rebuilding Iraq and transfer civil authority to Iraqis.

But he added: "It's also important that Iraqis understand that killers from the old regime who are out there killing Iraqis and Americans and U.N. workers and Red Cross workers, hoping to bring back the old regime, won't succeed." 

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2003)