GEORGE WHO?:

Nato gives Blair green light for more Iraq troops (James Cusick, 6/27/04, Sunday Herald)

NATO will tomorrow agree to send military personnel to Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces. Although the decision falls far short of earlier US ambitions for a large Nato troop deployment, it will allow Tony Blair to claim the post-war conflict has now been fully “internationalised” and, as a result, more British troops will now be sent to Iraq.

Nato ambassadors meeting yesterday ahead of the two-day summit which begins in Istanbul tomorrow, reached an initial agreement to respond positively to the request for assistance by Iraq’s newly installed prime minister, Iyad Allawi.

Up until last week, when Allawi’s plea was sent, there had been no formal contact between Nato and the new interim Iraqi administration and Nato had not played a direct role. The key members of Nato include the US, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Spain and Holland.

President George Bush, in Ireland for the mini-summit between the US and European Union, was informed in advance of the Nato decision. It allowed Bush to sound upbeat about the prospects of international involvement in dealing with post-war Iraq. He pointed to a joint agreement between the US and the EU to support the United Nation’s role in rebuilding Iraq, saying: “The bitter differences [over the war] are now over.”

Oh, yeah, Bush gets green light too....

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2004 1:04 PM