CANBERRA -- Australia said on Friday it plans to open an office in Baghdad later this month to help coordinate its involvement in rebuilding post-war Iraq.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he expected to visit the Iraqi capital this month and open the mission, which would be the first resident Australian mission in Iraq since 1991.

He said senior diplomat Neil Mules would head the Australian representative office in Baghdad.

"The office will strengthen our ability to coordinate our rehabilitation efforts with our coalition partners and the Iraqi people," Downer said in a statement.

Defense Minister Robert Hill has already foreshadowed plans to send 75 soldiers to protect Australia's diplomatic presence in Iraq, Reuters reported.

However, the bulk of the 2,000 military personnel that Australia sent to fight alongside U.S. and British troops in the Persian Gulf will begin to return home this month.

Prime Minister John Howard, who will spend this weekend with President George W. Bush in Texas, has so far ruled out sending a significant peacekeeping force to Iraq, saying Australia already has peacekeeping obligations in East Timor and the South Pacific.

But Australia has sent a small contingent of military and civilians to Iraq to help search for weapons of mass destruction, control air traffic at Baghdad Airport and try to get Iraq's agricultural sector up and running again.