March 13, 2008 | By JAMES GLANZ

BASRA, Iraq — Several senior Iraqi officials said on Wednesday that the government might soon deploy Iraqi Army troops to seize control of this city’s decrepit but vital port from politically connected militias known more for corruption and inciting terrorism than for their skill in moving freight.

The officials refused to disclose many details but appeared to suggest that this entire southern port city, whose streets have been increasingly torn by violence as the militias vie for power, would be affected. No specific timetable was given for the move.

“There must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who led a delegation of government officials to a conference here to promote investment in the port.

As Iraq’s only major gateway to the Persian Gulf, the port is critical for the nation’s economy but is beset by labor problems and is in serious need of dredging and modernization.

Mr. Salih declined to give particulars, but when asked if the central government’s plan to seize control in Basra involved a troop buildup, he said, “Definitely so.” He also said Western troops would be involved, raising the possibility that the effort could parallel the American troop increase in Baghdad that has been credited in part with reducing violence there.

But, Mr. Salih said, Iraqi troops would lead the effort in Basra.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, was more direct, telling the conference that “we will launch a campaign to rid us of the bad elements.” He blamed the ascendance of the militias on what he called “the weakness of the local government” as local officials sat uncomfortably in the audience.

Mr. Rubaie later said in an interview that the central government had effectively given the provincial governor, Muhammad al-Waeli, an ultimatum to combat the militias in the port and elsewhere in the city or lose the support of Baghdad.

But Mr. Waeli suggested in an interview that Basra might not be ready for the reforms sought by the central government. “Rubaie doesn’t know exactly what is happening in the ports,” Mr. Waeli said.

Shiite militias controlled by Mr. Waeli’s political party, Fadhila, are widely considered to be in control of the dock workers’ union. The governor said, however, that the real problem was that the central government had ignored Basra. “So we blame the central government for what has happened,” Mr. Waeli said of problems at the port.

The main port, called Um Qasr, is about 30 miles south of the Basra city center and is connected to the Persian Gulf by a waterway littered with nearly 300 sunken navigation hazards, including 82 large ships, said Michael J. McCormick, the transportation attaché at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, who was along on the trip.

The port is divided into a northern and a southern section, both of them sprawling, Mr. McCormick said.

The northern part is “a usable port, but it’s not an efficient port,” he said, with mostly small cranes typical of the 1960s, a militia-controlled union that will load and unload ships only eight hours a day — rather than the 24 hours a day typical of modern ports — and a general air of seediness.

At first, large stacks of some 8,000 shipping containers on the docks seem to indicate that a brisk commerce is taking place at the north port. But Mr. McCormick pointed out that most of the containers were empty. Ships leave the containers, taking a heavy financial loss, because dock workers take too long to hoist the empty containers back onto the ships, he said.

He added that the southern part was essentially derelict and would be opened to international investors in hopes that it could be built almost from scratch into a modern facility. With all those problems, he said, progress at Um Qasr would require physical work like dredging and clearing wrecks, security improvements and general economic development.

And indeed, part of the rationale for the conference was to highlight $2.1 billion in long-term, low-interest loans that Japan has agreed to give Iraq for a series of reconstruction projects, many of them in the south, including $254 million for dredging and other rehabilitation work at the port.

Kansuke Nagaoka, minister-counselor at the Japanese Embassy, who was also along on the trip, said the national importance of the project was its greatest selling point. “As many people have pointed out, Um Qasr is not only for Basra but for the entire country,” Mr. Nagaoka said.

But before any of that work is likely to have an impact, the entrenched powers on the docks must be subdued, Iraqi officials at the conference said. And that almost certainly means military action involving the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, often referred to here in shorthand as M.O.D.

“We have a plan that is already set by M.O.D. and the prime minister’s office, and we’re going to implement it in a scientific way,” said Gen. Mohan Fahad al-Fraji, the top defense official here, and the one who would carry out the plan.

The additional forces called for in that plan, General Fraji said, “are not going to control the port itself, but they’re going to provide security.”

Mr. Rubaie suggested that the plan would be carried out with a vigor commensurate with the stubbornness that the militias have shown in holding their territory on the waterfront.

“Whoever gets in the way will be dealt with swiftly, decisively and with no mercy,” Mr. Rubaie said.