Washington ? The Bush administration’s drive to persuade Congress and the United Nations to authorize military action against Iraq is just the public face of its campaign. Behind the scenes, it’s more like “let’s make a deal.”

Russia wants assurances it will not forfeit the $7 billion Iraq owes it, and less criticism about its Chechnya policy. China would appreciate support in its crackdown on Islamic militants in its Central Asia border areas.

France would like future access to Iraqi oil fields. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait hope for U.S. protection for their own vast petroleum reserves. Egypt and Jordan might get more economic assistance.

Turkey would like reimbursement for its past and continued support in confronting Iraq. Turkey also would prefer that an invasion of Iraq not take place in the summer; the timing would be bad for tourism, a major prop of the Turkish economy.

Belying widespread international skepticism, arrangements are being negotiated in private for bases, airspace rights, troops and financial support, administration officials say.

Those officials are touchy about details. But clearly, deal making is in the air as major world players gauge how their own interests might fit into a post-Saddam Iraq. Looming over such discussions are Iraq’s oil reserves, the second biggest in the world.

If those oil fields are reopened and sanctions lifted, countries and their corporations do not want to be left out.

To wage its war, the United States is counting on and negotiating for access to bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and elsewhere in the region. Use of bases in Saudi Arabia appears to hinge on the degree of U.N. participation.

U.S. bargaining was vastly complicated by Iraq’s offer to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return, markedly slowing momentum for military action.

China opposes unilateral U.S. action but has not threatened to use its Security Council veto.

U.S.-Chinese relations have warmed since the spy plane crisis last year, further helped by the State Department’s decision last month to add an anti-Chinese group the East Turkestan Islamic Movement to its list of terrorist organizations. Some human rights activists claimed the move gave China a freer hand to suppress Muslim ethnic groups.

Russia is seeking a variety of U.S. assurances to protect its economic interests.

Moscow is trying to position itself as an alternative source of oil to the volatile Middle East.

Bush lobbied Putin by phone late last week and Russia’s visiting defense and foreign ministers in person. But Russia held to its view that war plans be held while U.N. weapons inspectors do their job.

Spain and Italy are being courted as likely supporters. But Italy is a delicate case since it has a large pacifist movement among its mainly Roman Catholic population, and the Vatican recently voiced concerns over an Iraq war without U.N. authorization.

Opposition in Germany to a war runs strong, and questions about U.S. use of bases there were an issue in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The Bush administration has a lot of diplomatic outreach ahead to ease such tensions.

The first President Bush sent emissaries around the world to pass the cup and raise cash for the Gulf War. The current president is partially reversing the process, sending out representatives to dispense U.S. largesse in exchange for help or at least acquiescence.