UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.S. wants the United Nations to authorize the tracking down of Somali pirates on land and in Somali air space together with the AKrican country’s crumbling government.

The United States is circulating a draft U.N. Security Council resolution, one of the Bush administration’s last major foreign policy initiatives. The resolution proposes all nations and regional groups cooperating with Somalia’s government in the fight against piracy and armed robbery "may take all necessary measures ashor%in Somalia."

But Somalia’s government may need more propping up.

The council’s group that monitors Somalia reported Thursday that more than 15,000 of Somalia’s soldiers and police - representing 80 percent of the government’s security capabilities - have deserted the government and fled with their vehicles, weapons and ammunition.

Since May, there has been a steady disintegration of Somalia’s government, which earmarks 70 percent of its budget for security but spends little for that purpose because of corruption, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told the council.

Piracy is booming, meanwhile, with up to about 1,500 pirates based in the semiautonomous Puntland region raking in millions of dollars, and armed opposition groups are getting much of their funding from charities, the Internet and trades, he said.

Somalia’s government welcomes the U.S. initiative. Spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon said Thursday the government will offer any help it can.

If the U.S. military gets involved, it would mark a dramatic turnabout from the U.S. experience in Somalia in 1992-1993 that culminated in a deadly military clash in Mogadishu followed by a humiliating withdrawal of American forces.

Small numbers of U.S. Navy ships are already patrolling the waters off Somalia. A senior administration official in Washington said Thursday the proposed U.N. authority would give the U.S. military more options in confronting the pirates but does not mean it is planning a ground assault.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the resolution would simply provide the possibility of taking action ashore, including from Somalia’s air space, in the event of timely intelligence on the pirates’ whereabouts. The official said it should not be assumed that such action would necessarily involve U.S. forces.

Without committing more U.S. Navy ships, the Bush administration wants to tap into what officials see as a growing enthusiasm in Europe and elsewhere for more effective coordinated action against the Somali pirates. Administration officials view the current effort as lacking coherence, as pirates score more and bigger shipping prizes.

The U.S. resolution is to be presented at a session on Somalia Tuesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It proposes that for a year, nations "may take all necessary measures ashore in Somalia, including in its airspace, to interdict those who are using Somali territory to plan, facilitate or undertake acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea and to otherwise prevent those activities."

The draft also says Somalia’s government - whose president wrote the U.N. twice this month already seeking help - suffers from a "lack of capacity, domestic legislation, and clarity about how to dispose of pirates after their capture."

Britain agreed Thursday to hand over pirate suspects captured off Somalia’s lawless coast to face trial in Kenya, removing a key legal obstacle to prosecuting them, a British diplomat said at a U.N.-organized piracy conference.

More than 40 nations attended the conference in Kenya, where they failed to produce a consensual legal framework for tackling piracy but recommended regulation for armed guards on ships and establishing a common policy to discourage ransom payments.

In the past, foreign navies patrolling the Somali coast have been reluctant to detain suspects because of uncertainties over where they would face trial as Somalia has no effective central government or legal system.

"Nations are very wary of taking pirates onboard their ships," said Lord Alan West, British undersecretary of state for security and counterterrorism. "It is extremely difficult - where can you put them - if you’re not going back to your home country, and even going back to your home country causes immense problems in terms of legal prosecutions."

Britain does not currently have any detained suspects. But in the past some suspects have been released by other members of the international naval coalition despite being found with weapons and boarding equipment such as ladders and grappling hooks.

The agreement is based on an ad hoc deal that saw eight suspected pirates brought to Kenya by a British warship last month. Their trial is expected to take approximately a year. The European Union is currently completing a similar arrangement.

About 100 attacks on ships have been reported off the Somali coast this year, with the pirates growing increasingly audacious in their targets.