Allies offering to train Iraqi forces, Rumsfeld says
NICE, France -- Several NATO nations, encouraged by the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq, are offering to train Iraqi security forces in their own countries, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.
He declined to name the countries, but Defense Minister Jose Bono of Spain said after a meeting with Rumsfeld that his nation had offered to train police and some soldiers in land-mine removal techniques.
Spain's offer is notable because the country withdrew its troops from Iraq last year after unseating a pro-American conservative government in elections.
Meanwhile, speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that US allies had held their best discussions yet on Iraq and that she detected a new spirit of unity in helping to rebuild the country despite earlier tensions over the US-led war.
Rice told reporters after a working lunch with other NATO foreign ministers that she encountered ''a kind of coming together of common purpose" on Iraq and noted that many allies said they were ready to participate in a key NATO training mission for Iraq.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he appealed to all 26 allied nations to contribute more troops to help meet a goal of turning out 1,000 Iraqi officers per year.
He said his goal is to have pledges from all nations by the time President Bush visits Europe later this month.
Rumsfeld was in France for a meeting of the alliance's defense ministers as Rice finished a tour of Europe. Bush administration officials have said they are trying to reengage Europe after many countries opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The Bush administration has said that training Iraqi soldiers and police will receive a new emphasis after the Iraq election. They view Iraqi forces capable of taking on the insurgency with limited US assistance as critical in bringing thousands of US troops home.
''Countries recognize Iraq is on a path where they have a crack at making it," Rumsfeld said. ''I think people increasingly want to be a part of that."
NATO members, however, have not come forth with offers to send more troops to the NATO training mission operating inside Iraq.
NATO has sent between 80 and 100 soldiers to Baghdad for the training mission, many of them Americans working under NATO command.
Plans last year called for up to 300 NATO trainers, guarded by 2,000 or more soldiers, to go to Iraq to assist in training. Some officials say that will be scaled down.
