New York: US President George W Bush's plan to send more than 20,000 troops to Iraq to secure Baghdad faces some of the fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for its success  Iraqi Government officials.

American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad, 'The New York Times' today said.

With the first American and Iraqi units dedicated to the plan due to be in place within weeks, time is short for setting details of what American officers view as the decisive battle of the war.

But the Times says the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems ranging from a contested chain of command to how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad's most dangerous districts that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among the American concerns, the paper said, is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.

"We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem," an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan was quoted as saying.