The Boston Globe January 16, 2003
US ASKS NATO FOR INDIRECT MILITARY SUPPORT AGAINST IRAQ
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - The United States formally asked for NATO's help yesterday in the event of a war with Iraq but requested only indirect military assistance, including the deployment of missiles to protect key alliance member Turkey.
US officials are still seeking Turkey's permission to use military bases that would provide a crucial staging ground for air and ground forces moving into Iraq from the north. The Turkish government has refused to commit to any direct assistance so far, citing domestic opposition to a US-led war against Iraq. But Monday, the United States started surveying possible base sites in Turkey. NATO and US officials said Washington had proposed six forms of support, including access to airspace, bases, ports, and refueling facilities, and providing peacekeeping troops to replace US personnel who might be moved to Iraq. The United States did not seek direct involvement by the 19-nation alliance in an attack.
The request for NATO help - including the deployment of Patriot air-defense missiles and AWACS surveillance aircraft to Turkey - could ease negotiations with the leadership in Ankara and with other NATO members who have been critical of America's policy toward Iraq, analysts said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wouldn't detail the specific help requested by the US ambassador to NATO. But he said it was "appropriate" to begin planning now for NATO's role in any military campaign.
"We have to begin with the fact that the president has made no decision to use force," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing. "But it does take time to plan."
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz broached the subject of NATO assistance while meeting with NATO ambassadors in Brussels early last month. At the time, he outlined the type of aid formally requested yesterday and also raised the possibility of NATO helping Iraq form a new government after a war.
During that meeting, nine European countries expressed support for the United States: Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Turkey, a senior NATO official said last week. "The pendulum among European governments is swinging towards force," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But several NATO allies have expressed discomfort with US moves toward war, and Germany's leadership has pledged not to take part in an invasion of Iraq even with UN approval.
By making the request to NATO rather than to individual governments, the White House might diffuse criticism that it acts unilaterally and does not consult allies, said Owen Cote Jr., associate director of MIT's Security Studies Program. "We've made a scaled-back request, and are almost daring NATO to say no," Cote said.
The Pentagon could get most if not all the assistance requested by making direct requests to allies, but it is trying to build a broader anti-Iraq coalition, said Patrick Garrett, an analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank.
"It's smart," Garrett said of the NATO appeal. "It makes it easier for the leadership in Turkey to say they have to help in accordance with their alliance obligations. And it puts countries like Germany on the spot."
The United States has not invoked the article of the NATO charter that obliges signatories to come to the defense of a member nation that has been attacked, as it did after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In other preparations for hostilities in the Gulf, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that the Pentagon has dispatched several hundred soldiers to Tazsar Air Base in Hungary to train Iraqi dissidents. The US Army trainers will work with an unspecified number of Iraqis who have volunteered to work with US units, Myers said.
"The training is going to be right now scheduled for about 30 days; the real basic training so they could potentially fit in with some US units and provide assistance with language skills, perhaps local knowledge," he said. "We're going to have to see how many finally show up, how much time we have."
Myers also lashed out at Iraq's plans to use volunteers from Arab and Western countries to act as "human shields" to protect sensitive sites if attacked.
"This is a deliberate recruitment of innocent civilians for the purpose of putting them in harm's way should a conflict occur," he said. "It is illegal under the international law of armed conflict to use noncombatants as a means of shielding potential targets."
Myers said, meanwhile, that the UN has accepted an American offer to use U-2 spy planes to provide high-altitude surveillance for the inspection teams in Iraq, though no missions have been flown yet.
Copyright © 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
