Washington ? A bitter, even acrimonious, debate within the Bush administration about how to assist Iraq after fighting dies down took a new twist Wednesday as the nation’s largest humanitarian groups complained about the Pentagon’s role in overseeing relief efforts.

The relief groups said their workers risk becoming targets of reprisal if they toil under the control of the Pentagon, and they grumbled that their advice on humanitarian efforts has been ignored.

New signs emerged, meanwhile, that hawks within the Bush administration are pushing for a major role for Ahmed Chalabi, controversial head of the Iraqi National Congress, in an interim government after Saddam Hussein is toppled. The INC is a long-feuding coalition of Iraqi exiles with shallow popular support inside Iraq.

Chalabi is a lightning-rod figure, even in Washington. Some at the CIA and State Department mistrust him, while officials under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praise him for his pro-Western views.

Two Iraqi National Congress officials are now assigned to U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. Also, U.S. officials are planning to send an INC functionary into the southern Iraqi city of Basra as soon as possible to provide a pro-Western Iraqi voice on events unfolding there, said U.S. and Iraqi opposition officials.

With the war grinding into a third week, interagency wrangling about Chalabi and public debate about relief efforts underscored the secrecy shrouding much of the administration’s postwar strategy. President Bush has said Iraqi civilians will control their country once the war ends, but he has not outlined publicly how the transition will occur.

In an unusually strongly worded statement, relief groups in the United States demanded that the White House yank the Pentagon from its role of overseeing humanitarian relief efforts.

The 160 groups, under the umbrella alliance known as InterAction, urged all relief efforts to be given to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“The Department of Defense’s efforts to marginalize the State Department and force nongovernmental organizations to operate under (Pentagon) jurisdiction complicates our ability to help the Iraqi people and multiplies the dangers faced by relief workers in the field,” InterAction head Mary McClymont said.

InterAction represents some of the most well-known humanitarian groups in the United States, including the American Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children, Oxfam America, Catholic Relief Services and Lutheran World Relief. They say they can funnel tens of millions of dollars in medical, food and other assistance to Iraqis once fighting dies down.

The lead administration official on relief, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, denied that the Pentagon controls relief efforts.

Natsios said he and Secretary of State Colin Powell oversee U.S. relief efforts, and not retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, the head of the Pentagon’s newly created Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.