Powell Says Alliance Not Ready to Assume Iraq Role

If there is not a strong NATO presence in Iraq after July 1st, I fear there will be civil war.---BBB

Apr 2, 2004
Powell Says Alliance Not Ready to Assume Iraq Role
By Barry Schweid
The Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to persuade NATO ministers on Friday to assume a peacekeeping role in Iraq, but acknowledged approval was unlikely at least until later in the spring.

On a day marked by the ceremonial raising of the flags of seven new members of the alliance at NATO headquarters, Powell made his case for NATO to approve doing what a majority have done individually: join the United States in peacekeeping during Iraq's reconstruction.

The job is a dangerous one. Hundreds of U.S. troops and civilians have been killed by foreign terrorists and remnants of the regime of the deposed leader, Saddam Hussein.

At a news conference after Friday's meeting, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he saw a lot of support for a U.N. resolution offering the use of peacekeepers in Iraq.

But he said NATO ministers were not ready to take that step until the interim Iraqi government takes over from the U.S. occupation on July 1. Even then, de Hoop Scheffer said, "I don't know if it is going to happen."

By contrast, NATO is engaged enthusiastically in bolstering security in Afghanistan.

"We don't yet have a NATO role for Iraq the way we have for Afghanistan," Powell told journalists from the seven new member nations - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. "But it took time to get NATO to take a positive role, an alliance role, in Afghanistan. With respect to Iraq, we have not reached that point yet."

He said the allies would take the issue up again in June at a NATO summit meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. Powell did not predict success even then.

Meanwhile, he said he had talked to Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov about the deployment of four F-16 fighter planes in defense of the new members, thereby bringing the aircraft closer to Russian territory.

The Russian Duma has passed a resolution criticizing NATO's enlargement. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, due in Washington for high-level talks next week, said last month that anti-Russian attitudes within NATO could force his country to adopt tougher defense measures.

Powell said he did not think Russia should feel "particularly threatened" by four fighter jets. "I don't sense that the Russians will find it necessary to counter this move with anything that would be either provocative or destabilizing or dangerous."

Earlier, Powell said he expected the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution authorizing peacekeeping troops in Iraq before the July 1 deadline for establishing an interim government.

U.N. approval could heighten prospects of supplementing the U.S.-led force with countries that have held back while encouraging others like Spain, which are weighing a withdrawal, to remain.

"I think there will be a new resolution as we move closer to the first of July," Powell told ZDF German Television in Berlin before he flew to Brussels for talks with NATO ministers about the peacekeeping situation.

"With respect to what role NATO might play in Iraq, that remains to be seen," he said.

A U.S. official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration was not necessarily pushing for a new resolution since it believed past ones were adequate in providing a mandate for a multinational force.

Of greatest interest to the United States would be an affirmation of Security Council support for recognition of the legitimacy of the interim government.

Powell, in the TV interview, said there will be an Islamic government in Iraq, as there is in Turkey and Pakistan. But it will be in a constitutional framework, he said. "There is no reason that Islam cannot coexist with democracy."
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