The Bush administration is waiting for West African troops to be deployed in Liberia before deciding whether to prop up a peacekeeping mission in the turbulent nation, a U.N. official said on Thursday.

Jacques Paul Klein, the American diplomat and retired reserve army general who is the new U.N. envoy for Liberia, told a news conference the White House was willing to make a commitment once the region showed it could do the same.

"The key thing is that we need ECOWAS to move quickly," Klein said referring to troops from the Economic Community of West African States. "The Americans will not make their decision until the ECOWAS troops are deployed."

Klein, who attended the meeting in Washington on Monday with President Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, however, acknowledged the West African troops needed help from the United States before they could go into Liberia.

But he contended that transport or equipment needs could be determined and fulfilled quickly by a U.S. assessment team Bush had sent to the region.

Klein embellished on a scenario Annan outlined after his meeting with Bush and again to reporters on Tuesday. ECOWAS would send in 1,000 to 1,500 troops as soon as it was able.

When "sufficient" ECOWAS troops were on the ground, the United States would send in a limited force at which point Liberian President Charles Taylor would leave the country for exile in Nigeria.

ECOWAS foresaw a total of 5,000 troops in Liberia before the United Nations could organize a peacekeeping force, which U.N. officials estimate could take six months. The United Nations would then attempt to move in to disarm 40,000 roving militia, train the police and build up a civilian structures.

Bush has demanded that Taylor, a former warlord indicted in Sierra Leone for fomenting that country's civil war, leave Liberia before any U.S. troops arrived.

But Klein said Taylor's exile should be supervised closely. "The danger naturally is someone with a cell phone in Nigeria still manipulating things from abroad does not help us stabilize Liberia. So there will have to be some real constraints placed here," he said.

Annan on Wednesday warned violence would escalate in Liberia if African and U.S. troops move quickly. Latest plans, showed deployment would not occur until well into August.

The Security Council will be asked to approve any West Africa-United States mission in Liberia and U.S. officials said Washington was drafting a routine resolution.

Some U.S. officials want special language exempting any American soldiers from jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Other diplomats say this is redundant since the council last month adopted a separate resolution exempting for another year peacekeepers in U.N.-approved missions.

Rebels hold about two-thirds of Liberia and attacked the capital of Monrovia twice last month in battles that killed about 700 civilians. Political talks are being conducted in Accra, Ghana, on a transitional government.

On Thursday, the rebels advanced closer to Monrovia, sending civilians scurrying for refuge and heightening fears of a third assault. Klein said about a third of the population had flocked to Monrovia out of fear of militia in the countryside.

"No one has the vaguest idea any more of what is going on in the rest of Liberia," Klein said.

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