Washington ? Two international lending agencies endorsed a U.S. request to send fact-finders to Iraq to assess rebuilding costs as finance officials on Sunday wrapped up meetings dominated by divisions over post-Saddam Iraq.

The Bush administration, wanting to show Iraqis some tangible and immediate economic benefits from President Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, had pushed for teams from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to enter Iraq as soon as it was safe.

That demand was opposed at first by European countries unhappy with what they saw as a threat of U.S. domination of the reconstruction effort.

But World Bank President James Wolfensohn said the weekend talks had resulted in an unambiguous understanding that the mission would go ahead when conditions were safe.

The finance ministers on the policy-setting committees of the IMF and the World Bank “made it very clear that is what they had in mind,” Wolfensohn said at a news conference.

To settle the issue, the United States agreed to language in a final statement that endorsed the idea of another U.N. Security Council resolution to govern rebuilding efforts in Iraq.

Finance officials left the precise wording to their U.N. ambassadors.

That effort is certain to mean diplomatic haggling. The Europeans want the United Nations to play the lead role in rebuilding and installing a new government. President Bush has suggested limiting the world body to advising the United States and its partners in the war.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent Rafeeuddin Ahmed, his special adviser on postwar Iraq, to Washington for meetings beginning today with Bush administration officials.

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow told the World Bank’s steering committee on Sunday it was critical that the bank send a team of economists along with the IMF to determine the most pressing needs. The bank is the largest provider of development loans to poor countries.

“The people of Iraq have waited long enough for the promise of aid and assistance from the international community,” Snow told finance ministers.

Britain’s international development secretary, Clare Short, said countries need to offer a “coherent and comprehensive response” if Iraqis are to succeed “in their efforts to rehabilitate and reconstruct their country.”

There was no talk at the meetings about exact amounts of the aid to come from the 184-nation IMF and the World Bank. Nor was there any discussion about when the United States might call for an international donor conference to try to round up contributions from other wealthy nations.

There are no official estimates of how much the rebuilding will cost; unofficial estimates are sizable — from $20 billion annually for the first few years to $600 billion over a decade.