UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19: The Iraqi government and the United States military commanders have rejected a Saudi plan for an all-Muslim force to protect the United Nations staff in Baghdad, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Monday.

"The Iraqi interim government had some real concerns about having troops from a neighbouring country inside Iraq. The multinational commanders also had some concerns about forces operating outside the chain of command structure," said the spokesman.

A New York daily, Newsday said on Monday that US President George W. Bush rebuffed the Saudi initiative because the force would not have been under US command.

Such a move would raise questions about the Bush administration's repeated assertions that it was eager to have other countries send troops to Iraq to ease the burden on American forces, the report said.

Saudi Arabia announced during a visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in July that it hoped to organize such a force.

However, several Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan were not happy with the idea, citing the increasing violence in Iraq as well as concerns about possibly having to serve under US command.

The UN is under pressure from the US, Iraq and other countries to send senior staff for the Iraq elections, due by Jan 30. All international staff was pulled out last year after two bomb attacks on the UN's Baghdad headquarters.