Responding to the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq, former New York governor George Pataki has introduced a proposal he says can "bridge the gap" between those who support Bush's policy and those who want to withdraw immediately.

Pataki, a possible Republican presidential candidate, said he opposes sending more troops to Iraq under most circumstances and believes the United States needs to distinguish between fighting the "global insurgency led by al-Qaida and its affiliates" and being caught in the crossfire of sectarian violence in Iraq.

Pataki said the Shiite-led government in Baghdad has failed to provide leadership or security for Iraqis in part because the Bush administration has not demanded it. He issued four goals he says the Iraqi government must meet. If it does, Pataki said, the United States should maintain troop levels and possibly consider sending more forces. If not, the United States should redistribute its soldiers in the region to focus on the "global insurgency."

"I really think it represents a way forward," Pataki said of the plan, which he unveiled Friday in a speech at Georgetown University and which he elaborated on yesterday in a phone interview while on a brief visit to New Hampshire.

"The goal here is to have an intelligent, thoughtful policy that allows both those who believe we need to continue to stay in Iraq . . . and those who have doubts about the mission and Baghdad itself to find common ground," he said.

Pataki did not give a timetable but said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government should meet the following four criteria in order to retain the continued military support of the United States:

q Implement "meaningful legislation" to allocate a part of national oil revenue to the Sunni minority as a sign that the government is interested in unity, not factions.

q Restore the stripped civil rights of rank-and-file civil servants, teachers and other government employees from the previous Baathist era, provided that they were not "high-ranking or criminal members of Saddam Hussein's regime."

q Create a nonsectarian "national army that would take the forefront in defending the rights of the Iraqi people and government."

q Confront all Islamic extremist groups equally, as opposed to fighting Sunni militants while allowing the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to "grow stronger because of the void created by a weak Iraqi central government."

Pataki said he thinks the Iraqi government could accomplish these goals with the support of the United States, provided the U.S. demands it.

"I think they could. The question is whether or not they will," said Pataki, adding that the United States has been "propping up" the Iraqi government without holding it accountable. "It's high time that we demanded that they have a functioning government before we committed more troops - largely in the midst of sectarian violence - to try to protect that government."

Most of that violence - Sunni-Shiite fighting as well as combat between Shiite factions - occurs in Baghdad, Pataki said. If the Iraqi government proves incapable of meeting criteria set by the United States, Pataki said, the U.S. should concentrate its troops only in regions of Iraq in which ties to global Islamic terror are strongest, such as in the Sunni Anbar Province.

Pataki said the president and other policymakers should distinguish between a worldwide insurrection by al-Qaida and its loose affiliates in the Islamic world - including parts of Iraq - against the West and against moderate Muslim nations and between the fight to stabilize Iraq and create a representative government in Baghdad, which is rife with sectarian violence, he said.

A successful outcome of the first struggle is essential to the long-term safety and security of the United States and its allies, while solidifying a Baghdad-based representative government for Iraq is not, Pataki said.

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