Washington ? Shifting tactics and reaching out for help, the Bush administration offered on Wednesday to share with the United Nations the long-dominant U.S. role in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction.

Secretary of State Colin Powell described the effort as “essentially putting the Security Council in the game,” and European governments reacted favorably to the revised U.S. approach.

France, which led opposition to the war on Iraq, said a new U.N. resolution proposed by the United States should ensure that political power would be transferred quickly to an internationally recognized Iraqi government to help restore peace.

“The question is how to win the peace — and how to have the situation stabilized,” France’s U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said in New York. “So we will see the resolution with this in mind.”

Under the resolution, American commanders would remain in charge of peacekeeping operations in Iraq, but there, too, “we are asking the international community to join us even more than they have in the past,” Powell said.

The resolution may be ready for submission to the Security Council next week, he said as he telephoned foreign ministers. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte circulated a draft to other U.N. ambassadors in New York, and Powell said initial reactions were positive.

The canvassing was described by Powell as aggressive.

In Brussels, Belgium, meanwhile, the United States and other donors pushed ahead with plans to channel billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to Iraq through an international fund independent of the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad.

In Iraq, the United States handed military control over a large belt of Iraq south of Baghdad to a Polish commander. Powell said the rest of the area, around Najaf where a prominent Muslim cleric was killed last week in a bombing, will be turned over “once things settle down a little bit.”

The Polish military is leading the international force of about 9,500 that includes troops from 21 countries.