AFP, WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will press NATO allies to help out more in Iraq and end restrictions that some countries have used to block their officers' participation in training of Iraqi security forces, a senior defense official said Monday.
Rumsfeld departs Tuesday for an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers Thursday in Nice, which France is hosting for the first time.
The US-led invasion of Iraq opened bitter divisions in the alliance, but Pentagon officials hope that Iraq's recently concluded elections will ease resistance to a larger NATO role there.
“I do think that with these successful elections there is going to be probably greater enthusiasm about doing more on the part the countries that were anti-war,” said the defense official. “I think we're somewhat in a new phase.”
Rumsfeld will press the allies to do more for Iraq by training Iraqi forces, either inside or outside Iraq, or providing equipment or funds, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He also intends to urge allies to eliminate restrictions placed by member countries on the use of their forces in NATO-led missions, a practice called “national caveats,” the official said.
About five NATO countries, invoking “national caveats,” have instructed their officers on the NATO staff not to deploy to Iraq on training missions, or in some cases even to participate in planning for the training missions, the official said.
The official said “somewhere on the order of 20 percent” of the headquarters were affected by the restrictions, which have complicated efforts to organize a NATO-led training mission in Iraq.
NATO leaders at a summit in Istanbul last year pledged up to 300 NATO officers to train senior and mid level Iraqi forces, but so far only about 100 have been deployed, General James Jones, NATO's supreme commander, told reporters last month.
“This is not about a country's individual forces or units participating, but actual headquarters staff,” said the defense official.
“So some general officer who may have responsibility for training in this area is told you can't go even though he is part of the headquarters staff, which has been a big problem for General Jones to contend with. That hasn't happened before,” the official said.
The official indicated that the Pentagon does not expect the issue to be resolved where Iraq is concerned.
“But I think for the future in particular this is something that needs to get fixed. We don't know what the issue is next time,” she said.
“Countries want these billets, they are highly coveted, they lobby for them, they get them, then we should expect that they do their job when they are there,” she said.
In Afghanistan, where NATO leads the 8,300-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Pentagon officials are looking forward to a commitment by NATO allies to lead more provincial reconstruction teams.
Countries are expected to offer to lead two more of the provincial teams in western Iraq and take over two others from US forces, the official said. That would raise the total to 21, nine of them under NATO leadership.
