President George W. Bush will challenge NATO leaders at a summit in Turkey next week to help train Iraqi security forces by arguing the alliance?s mission is to spread freedom.

Bush, eager to share the burden in Iraq and under pressure in an election year to obtain more international support for Baghdad, left for a five-day trip to Ireland and Turkey, his second European trip this month.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Bush would challenge NATO to respond to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi?s request for training in Iraq as well as equipment and technical assistance. «NATO needs to respond to the Iraqis? request,» she told reporters. «This is about the spread of freedom and liberty. That?s what NATO has stood for from the very beginning. It is consistent with NATO?s values.»

«Many of the members of NATO would not be free and at liberty themselves had it not been for the sacrifices for others, including sacrifices in the United States,» she added.

A senior administration official said the White House hoped for an agreement in principle to emerge from the NATO summit for the alliance to help in training Iraqi security forces.

Six Democratic members of Congress who met Bush at the White House on Thursday handed him a letter asking him to seek «concrete pledges for troops and financial support for the stabilization and security in Iraq.»

«As each day passes, as the violence and chaos expand, it becomes increasingly important to find countries willing to share the burden of building a new Iraq. The challenge should not be met by the United States alone,» they wrote.

IRAQI TROOP LEVELS

Bush?s opponent in the November 2 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, said on Wednesday Bush should seek «additional troops and resources» from the NATO allies.

The White House said the US goal was to persuade NATO allies to contribute training for Iraqi security forces. Bush has long since given up trying to persuade more NATO troops to go to Iraq.

Sixteen NATO members have forces on the ground in Iraq, but key members, including France and Germany, strenuously oppose sending troops.

Those two countries opposed last year?s US-led invasion of Iraq, which was aimed at disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction that have never been found. «We want to increase the troop levels, but we want to increase the troop levels of Iraqi forces because they are the ones who will ultimately provide for their own security,» said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Bush will attend a US-European Union summit in Ireland today and the NATO summit in Istanbul on Monday and Tuesday.

The White House said Bush?s Turkey schedule was unchanged by a small bomb explosion outside the hotel where he will stay in Ankara and a separate blast in Istanbul that killed three people. While in Istanbul, Bush will meet with religious leaders.

US officials were heartened by indications Germany and Italy were prepared to help train Iraqi military forces, a proposal Bush brought up with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other leaders at a Group of Eight summit in Sea Island, Georgia, two weeks ago.

After bitter strains over the Iraq war between the United States and its traditional European allies, US officials believe the worst is past and the allies are more focused on the future.

Steve HOLLAND