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U.S. might ask NATO to take over control of Iraq occupation
Administration seeking to cut American presence
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By Mark Matthews and Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff
Originally published July 9, 2003



WASHINGTON -- With American costs and casualties mounting in Iraq, the Bush
administration is showing new interest in putting NATO in charge of the
military occupation as a way of scaling back the U.S. troop commitment, U.S.
and NATO officials say.

Such a change would discomfit some administration hard-liners, as it would
force the United States to share decision-making on Iraq with European
leaders who opposed the U.S.-led invasion, analysts said. It might also
require seeking a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, which
the United States failed to get before launching the war to topple Saddam
Hussein.

But as the single most powerful nation in NATO, the United States would
retain military command while spreading the burden and costs among a number
of nations, thereby easing demands on overstretched American forces,
diplomats said.

"There is interest" in turning the mission over to NATO, although not right
away, a senior Bush administration official said yesterday. "I think the
American public would be pleased to see NATO helping us in Iraq. ...
Americans believe in NATO and would consider it a plus to have NATO secure
Iraq."

The alliance suffered its worst rupture in decades over the winter when two
of its largest members, France and Germany, strenuously opposed the invasion
of Iraq and at one point joined with Belgium in blocking NATO from
bolstering the defense of Turkey in the event of an Iraqi attack on its
neighbor.

Deepening the strains, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld referred to
France and Germany disparagingly as "old Europe."

Since the war ended, however, diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic have b
een eager to repair the damage. Officials in Washington and Brussels, where
NATO has its headquarters, say that a handover to NATO command might be
formally discussed as early as this fall.

Discussion of NATO comes as members of Congress and defense analysts argue
that the nearly daily casualties suffered by U.S. forces and the continuing
sabotage of the country's infrastructure require adding more combat forces
to the 146,000 Americans stationed in Iraq along with 12,000 troops from
other nations, mostly from Britain.

The Pentagon reported yesterday that 143 Americans had been killed by
hostile fire in Iraq since the war began in March, close to the 147 killed
in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Guerrilla-style attacks have claimed 29
American lives since President Bush declared major combat operations over
May 1.

The mounting death toll has eroded the American public's confidence in the
military operation. In mid-April, 61 percent said the military effort in
Iraq was going very well, but the figure now is 23 percent, according to a
poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

"I think they need more" troops, retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, who
commanded U.S. forces in the region after the 1991 gulf war, said in an
interview, although he did not say how many. "It seems to me that in order
to guard the critical areas and the power stations, it's going to require
more people until you get the Iraqis trained up to do it."

Democrats' position

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who is running for
president, called upon the administration this week to "commit more U.S.
troops and resources to Iraq." Lieberman, a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said in an article that appeared in the Washington Post
on Monday that the president should immediately "ask NATO to assume command
of the forces in Iraq."

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph R.
Biden Jr. of Delaware, has also urged the enlisting of NATO. During a news c
onference late last month, he said the NATO secretary general, Lord
Robertson, had assured him that "NATO's willing to step in," but that
"nobody's asking them." Republican Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana,
chairman of the foreign relations panel, and John W. Warner of Virginia, who
heads the Armed Services Committee, have spoken of bringing more allies into
the Iraq operation, although they have stopped short of calling for a NATO
takeover.

NATO has crossed a major political threshold by agreeing last month to
provide military support to Poland, which is assembling an 8,000-member
multinational force that is to be sent to Iraq in September, diplomats said.
"As a general proposition, the United States would like NATO to do more in
Iraq in the future," said a senior NATO official in Brussels. He said this
had been "communicated at very high levels."

After NATO's decision to back the Polish-led deployment, "a number of people
at headquarters and a number of countries saw this as the first stage" in
turning over the whole mission to the alliance, the official said.

Iraq could follow the pattern set in Afghanistan, where NATO is to assume
command of peacekeeping forces next month, the official added.

But appealing publicly for NATO help at a time of rising American casualties
could prove embarrassing to the Bush administration.

"The problem now is, things aren't going as well as the U.S. had hoped. It's
not really an opportune time for turning it over. It looks like you can't do
it and are turning to someone else," said James Goldgeier, a European
specialist at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations.

Some analysts doubt NATO is up to the military challenge.

"NATO is not staffed, equipped or organized for the mission," said Anthony
Cordesman, a Middle East security specialist at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.

Moreover, France and Germany would likely set stiff conditions for agreeing
to have NATO assume the lead in Iraq.

"You would need a whole package" giving allies a major role in decisions on
Iraq's reconstruction and how its future government is organized, said
Robert Hunter, U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Clinton. "It can't be
just that the U.S. is still in charge of everything."

Said Stanton Burnett, a former U.S. diplomat at NATO: "The allies would have
to be convinced that this administration is not trying to find a quick fix,
and that this would set a new pattern and a new understanding of what NATO
consultation means."

Such a sharing of authority could be "quite painful" for administration
policymakers to swallow, Burnett said, particularly those who favor an
assertive, unilateralist American role in world affairs.

But given the pressure on American forces, it might also be necessary.

The Pentagon is having a hard time rotating the 146,000 troops it has in
Iraq, let alone increasing the size of the force. More than half the active
duty Army is stationed in Iraq and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, and
officials are trying to send some of those combat-weary soldiers home.

The Army's 3rd Infantry Division spearheaded the three-week war, and many of
its soldiers have been in the region for more than nine months, with some
having their duty extended because of the deteriorating security situation.
A 4,500-soldier brigade of the Georgia-based division is due to return home
in the next two weeks, with the remaining 11,500 soldiers expected to rotate
in late August, officials said.

Force levels

The question is, who will take over the unit's mission. With some
active-duty Army divisions or portions of divisions deployed to Korea,
Kosovo and Afghanistan, the Army staff at the Pentagon is looking at how to
rotate forces out Iraq and maintain force levels around the world. A senior
defense official recently told reporters he has not seen the Army this
stretched since the Vietnam era.

One option is to extend the deployment periods of active Army units from six
months to nine months. Another is to mobilize National Guard forces to help
relieve the pressure, said one officer familiar with the effort.

The Pentagon and the State Department have reached out to some 70 countries
to contribute forces outside the NATO umbrella to the occupation and
reconstruction of Iraq. But they have enlisted only the 8,000-member force
that will be led by Poland.

Turning the operation over to NATO might increase European willingness to
share the burden, but it would not necessarily be a panacea, as Europe's
forces are also being stretched. German, Dutch and French forces have all
assumed peacekeeping roles in Afghanistan, and France has troops in two
African trouble spots, the Ivory Coast and Congo.


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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
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---Theodore Roosevelt

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---George W. Bush on the Brink of Declaring War on Iraq.