WASHINGTON: In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to create the largest US diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, complete with a staff of over 3,000 personnel , according to US officials.

The transition will mark the hand-over of responsibility for dealing with Iraq from the Pentagon to the State Department, which will then help oversee the two definitive steps in creating Iraq's first freely elected democratic government.

"The real challenge for the new embassy, so to speak, or the new presence will be helping the Iraqi people get ready for their full elections and full constitution the following year," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview this week. "That's going to be a major effort on our part."

One of the first steps will be resuming diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad. Although the United States is the occupying power in Iraq, the two nations have not formally resumed relations, which were severed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

"Saddam broke off relations in 1991, and it requires a fairly complicated agreement to re-establish ties," a senior administration official said.

The other major challenge will be sorting out the terms of the US military presence, which is expected to exceed 100,000 troops even after the occupation ends, US officials say.

"We have to determine what command American troops will be under: Will it be part of some kind of multinational force, under the United Nations, under Nato? Or will they be relatively independent in an agreement with the Iraqi government? These are huge questions to be answered in a very short amount of time," the official added.

In the interview, Powell said he will spend the next six months pressing for larger international participation: "As I build up that large embassy, I've got to also generate more international support, UN presence - get the UN back in there in force. ... I think Nato is more and more willing to play a role in Iraq."

Over the next six months, the State Department will increasingly assume responsibility for jobs now carried out by the US-led coalition authority, senior US officials said. Several teams of lawyers are immersed in the complicated legal issues of handing back sovereignty to Iraq and making arrangements for a formal diplomatic relationship.

The bulk of the US staff will continue to be headquartered in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace. But to prevent the potential psychological fallout from staying in the headquarters of the previous dictatorship, the new embassy will officially be in a building not far from the "Green Zone" of Baghdad, where the Coalition Provisional Authority operates. The embassy, however, will have nominal use.

The United States is tentatively planning to build a new embassy, although construction could take three to five years, US officials say. Over the next two months, the State Department will be intensively recruiting to staff the US Embassy.-Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.