BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military in Iraq is changing its focus from fighting guerrillas to training Iraqi troops and protecting the fragile interim government, the head of U.S. military operations said in an interview.

Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, who took command of the new Multinational Corps Iraq headquarters last month, said the military will also consult Iraq's interim leaders before engaging in future offensives.

"Combat becomes a lower priority than it has been for much of the insurgent fight to date," Metz said Thursday.

He said decisions on U.S. operations will be made in concert with Iraq's incoming leaders, through liaisons sprinkled through coalition and Iraqi military units. But American forces "certainly have the right" under a U.N. Security Council resolution approved Tuesday "to conduct operations as we would like to."

One of the first tasks Metz identified was to declare which militias and rebel forces are "the enemy."

"I don't think we're going to conduct a lot of operations where we disagree with the Iraqi government on who is hostile or not," Metz told The Associated Press in an interview on the sprawling coalition base on the edge of Baghdad International Airport. "It's only to our benefit ... to get the support of the interim Iraqi government."

Iraq's incoming prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has said the U.S. military will not be permitted to repeat heavy offensives like the April siege of Fallujah, which involved helicopter gunships and Air Force bombings that killed hundreds of Iraqis, many of them civilians.

The aborted assault on Fallujah is widely seen as a mistake that cost the United States support among Iraqis and left Fallujah a rebel safe-haven.

The U.N. resolution gives Iraqi leaders a say on "sensitive offensive operations" by the U.S.-led multinational force, but stops short of granting the Iraqis a veto over major U.S.-led military operations as France and Germany had wanted.

Now, the U.S.-led command is focusing intensely on rebuilding the Iraqi military and police, appointing a three-star U.S. general to oversee the task and giving it a higher priority than defeating anti-American guerrillas.

Metz said another top job is guarding Iraq's economic infrastructure - pipelines, electric pylons, roads - needed to resuscitate the economy, while protecting the fragile, fledgling government selected to run the country until January's elections.

"There are very professional terrorists that would like to kill any number of those people," he said.

Of course, as U.S. officers like to say, the enemy gets a vote. If rebels launch an offensive, perhaps timed to coincide with the June 30 transfer of some sovereignty to an Iraqi regime, Metz said the Army will shift back into counterinsurgency mode. Many have predicted a guerrilla attempt to disrupt the handover.