NATO set: French offer one officer 


Wednesday, February 23, 2005
BRUSSELS The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced agreement Tuesday on a modest plan to train and equip Iraq's new security forces, a symbolic display of unity but one that is unlikely to translate into a dramatic change on the ground in Iraq.
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The agreement by the 26 countries of the alliance came after France quietly dropped its refusal to participate under a NATO umbrella. It pledged $660,000 to a NATO fund for military and police training in Iraq and has assigned one French midlevel officer to the training mission at NATO headquarters near Brussels, French officials said.
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The deal was announced after a meeting between President George W. Bush and other leaders of NATO countries. The United States is anxious to get Iraq's security forces whipped into fighting form both to restore stability to the country and allow the eventual withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. troops there.
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But the training mission is going much more slowly that expected. In testimony before Congress early this month, two senior Pentagon officials acknowledged that less than one-third of the Iraqi security forces who the Pentagon claims have been trained are capable of tackling the most dangerous missions in the country.
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In addition, the officials said, Iraqi Army units have severe troop shortages, and absenteeism and even corruption in the security forces is a problem.
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Certainly Bush was delighted to put aside the anger of the past because of the division within NATO over the U.S.-led war in Iraq and congratulate NATO on its commitment to move forward.
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"Twenty-six nations sat around the table saying, you know, let's get the past behind us and now let's focus on helping the world's newest democracy succeed," he said at a joint news conference at the headquarters of NATO with its secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
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Asked if he was satisfied with the token contributions, Bush said, "Every contribution helps."
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The French about-face has symbolic importance because France, which fiercely opposed the war in Iraq, had steadfastly refused to participate in any initiative to help Iraq that formally came under the NATO umbrella. Even a financial contribution to a special NATO training fund for Iraq had been rejected.
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As late as Tuesday morning, French officials were saying that France would not participate in a NATO initiative on Iraq, with one French official criticizing the intense U.S. lobbying campaign of NATO members as an unseemly diplomatic "telethon."
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Even with the agreement, the training mission is hampered by the fact that six NATO countries - France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece and Spain - have refused U.S. and Iraqi requests to help train military forces and police officers inside Iraq, preferring to do training outside the country or to help pay for the mission.
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At least three other countries, including Canada, have not refused outright, but neither have they committed trainers to the mission inside Iraq, a NATO official said.
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The United States, which has watched several countries withdraw their combat troops from Iraq in the past year, had pushed hard to win unanimity of the world's most powerful military alliance for the training mission, particularly after the recent elections in Iraq.
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But as several NATO countries resisted U.S. appeals to put even one soldier or police officer on the ground, the United States curbed its aims, saying that paying for the transport of equipment was to be lauded as an important contribution.
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Even those countries that have sent troops have sent small numbers.
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Last October, NATO's top general, General James Jones of the U.S. Marine Corps, said that up to 3,000 soldiers and police officers might be needed as trainers as well as security forces to protect them.
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But the number was scaled back dramatically after a decision was made to do most of the training inside the relatively safe Green Zone in Baghdad that reduced the need for security. NATO now is aiming to recruit 159 security force trainers in the first phase of the mission.
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As of now, however, there are about 111 trainers on the ground in Iraq; while more are on the way, there is still a shortfall of trainers, who are all volunteers, NATO officials said.
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NATO hopes to expand the mission later this year to allow NATO to run a military academy outside Baghdad, if its members contribute the troops and money.
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As a result of the intense U.S. lobbying campaign, 17 other member states have committed more than $5 million in the last two weeks for trust funds that will cover such expenses as transporting Iraqi officers to NATO training posts outside Iraq and for equipment purchases.
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By contrast, the United States has already contributed more than $50 million since last summer for the training mission.
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Jones and other senior U.S. military officers have complained about the lack of adequate funding for the training mission and the cumbersome NATO system of fund-raising.
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In a speech at NATO headquarters Tuesday, President Jacques Chirac of France said nothing about the French decision to participate in the NATO plan, but he reminded his partners that France has offered to train 1,500 Iraqi police officers outside of Iraq, a program that would cost France $20 million.
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"In Iraq," Chirac told NATO leaders, "France wants to contribute to stability."
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Iraq has not responded to the French request, which is seen in NATO diplomatic circles as a rebuff of the French offer. With almost 3,700 troops on the ground, France is the second-largest troop contributor to NATO missions, behind Germany and ahead of the United States.
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In addition to NATO, the European Union has launched its own training mission for Iraq, announcing on Monday that it will open an office in Baghdad to coordinate the training of Iraqi judges, prosecutors and prison guards. The program will train about 770 Iraqis outside of Iraq because of the precarious security situation there.
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In another initiative, the European Union and the United States agreed Tuesday to play host to an international conference on Iraq's reconstruction, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, whose nation holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters after a U.S.-EU summit meeting with Bush.