BAGHDAD, Iraq – A blueprint for trying to start a war between America and Iran was among a “huge treasure” of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said yesterday.

The documents, purporting to reflect Al Qaeda policy and its cooperation with groups loyal to Saddam Hussein, also appear to show that the insurgency in Iraq was weakening.

The Al Qaeda in Iraq document was translated and released by the Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie.There was no way to confirm independently the authenticity of the in formation attributed to Al Qaeda.

Although the office of Prime Minister Maliki said the document was found in Zarqawi’s hideout following a June 7 airstrike that killed him, a U.S. military spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, said the document had been found in a previous raid as part of an ongoing three-week operation to track Zarqawi.

“We can verify that this information did come off some kind of computer as set that was at a safe location,” he said. “This was prior to the Zarqawi safe house.”

The document also said Zarqawi planned to try to destroy the relationship between America and its Shiite allies in Iraq.

While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses,”time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance,” the document said.

The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military’s program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the terrorists’ financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.

“Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups,” the document said, as quoted by Mr. Maliki’s office.

According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits.To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.

“We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq,” it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.

“Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans,” it said, adding that “the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits.”

They included “opening a new front” for the U.S. military and releasing some of the “pressure exerted on the resistance.”