NATO agrees to send advisers to Iraq

WASHINGTON -- In a diplomatic victory for the United States, NATO officials agreed yesterday to send hundreds of military advisers to Iraq this year to train local security forces as part of a new task force that could eventually grow to 3,000 personnel. Trainers from France, Germany, and other nations that bitterly opposed the US-led invasion are expected to join the effort.

At a meeting in Romania, the alliance -- which now has about 50 advisers in Iraq -- accepted US and Iraqi pleas to help speed up the training of Iraqi security forces in advance of Iraqi elections planned for January.

More than 300 trainers will begin staffing a new training academy outside Baghdad in the coming months, officials said. They said initial personnel from Denmark and Norway, which both opposed the war, could start to arrive by the end of November.

Officials at the talks said the agreement also paves the way for Germany and France, who were among the most vociferous opponents of the war, to send noncombat personnel to Iraq to assist in the training mission, although no timetable was set for their participation.

The advisers will be under the command of US Lieutenant General David Patraeus.

"We have an agreement that those trainers will go into Iraq by the end of the year," US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns told reporters after the alliance's defense ministers completed the first of two days of talks at a mountain resort in Poiana Brasov, Romania.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that trainers and the additional forces needed to protect them must be on the ground in Iraq "as soon as possible. Speed is of the essence here. This is what the Iraqis want."

US officials described the talks as another step forward in mending relations between the United States and some of its long-standing European allies that have been highly critical of the war in Iraq and have been reluctant to take on a greater role in stabilizing Iraq.

President Bush has been under attack from his Democratic rival, Senator John F. Kerry, for failing to enlist more international assistance in rebuilding Iraq.

At their second debate in St. Louis last week, Kerry chided Bush for not doing more to recruit help from NATO allies. While yesterday's agreement marks a relatively minor initial contribution in terms of the number of personnel, it is likely to somewhat undercut one of Kerry's criticisms.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters after attending the discussions yesterday that the agreement was an "important decision" for Iraq's future.

Despite yesterday's development, additional allied combat troops to help quell the Iraq insurgency do not appear to be in the offing.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany reiterated his country's opposition yesterday to sending combat troops, clarifying comments yesterday in Romania by Defense Minister Peter Struck that appeared to hold out the prospect that Berlin might agree to help battle the insurgency at some future date.

"The position of Germany will not change," Schroeder said at a news conference in Rome after meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. "We will not send soldiers to Iraq."

Germany and France had opposed participating in the training mission inside Iraq because of security concerns and because of worries that such a mission could thrust their personnel into a combat role.

However, officials participating in the talks said yesterday on condition of anonymity that the two nations, as well as Belgium, had received assurances on those concerns and were prepared to drop their opposition and lend their expertise.

The French government did have any immediate comment on the NATO agreement.

The Iraq training agreement was reached a week after the 26-member alliance's top decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, agreed to assist Patraeus, who is overseeing the training of Iraqi police, border guards, national guard, and army troops. The council approved a "concept of operations" on Oct. 8 to "substantially enhance" the training mission and decided that Patraeus would also serve as the head of any NATO training mission there.

Officials said the 300 trainers, who will arrive in stages, will be followed by several thousand support personnel for logistics, security, and communications.

"I think what it means is we're not going to wait for the full complement of trainers," Burns said. "As soon as those trainers are available, and we identify them from the allied countries, including our own country, they will go in."

The new military academy is designed to train a professional class of military officers so that they can lead and train thousands of new recruits.

Some of the training will include class work in human rights law.

Rumsfeld estimated that about 100,000 Iraqi forces have been fully trained and 45,000 more will be ready by the end of January. The United States has been forced to retrain many of the forces after they either fled or refused to fight during a joint effort in the spring to put down a Shia Muslim uprising in Baghdad and south of the capital.

NATO officials, meanwhile, also agreed yesterday to consider a US request to merge the US and NATO military operations in Afghanistan as early as next year, despite vocal opposition from France and Germany to taking on a larger role in battling terrorists and former Taliban forces.

The Afghanistan request surprised some NATO countries, which are contributing the 10,000 troops that make up the International Security Assistance Force, which is primarily restricted to the capital of Kabul and nearby areas.

Germany and France quickly opposed merging the Afghan operations, expressing concern that NATO troops would no longer conduct peacekeeping activities but would be forced to take on combat missions.

Material from wire services was included in this report. Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.