Northern Iraq To Be Policed By Polish Troops

The outline of the U.S. peace keeping plan for post-war Iraq has been revealed.

The White House announced its ‘plan for a peace keeping force in Iraq’ on May 2. The main point of the plan is to divide Iraq into 3 zones and the 3 nations of Poland, Britain and the U.S., will take a role in restoring and maintaining order.

According to the plan, U.S. troops will be in charge of the central region of Iraq including Baghdad, while British troops will be in charge of the southeast region of Iraq located around the second biggest city Basra, with Polish troops in the northern region.

Instead, the role of the U.N. would be limited to humanitarian assistance such as treating wounded soldiers and food aid according to the plan, sources said.

Hence the U.S. plans to reduce the size of its 5 dispatched combat divisions in Iraq to that of 2 divisions (30,000~40,000 soldiers) and change the role of the remaining troops to that of peacekeeping. Britain also plans to reduce their 45,000 dispatched soldiers in Iraq to 25,000~30,000 by the end of this month.

“Poland will send a minimum of 15,000 peace keeping troops,” President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland said on May 3. Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of the Central Command will command those three nations` peace keeping forces.

Poland, an Eastern European country, will participate in the peace keeping mission with Britain and the U.S. as they supported the war with Iraq from its earliest stages. Poland is also the largest country among central and Eastern European countries that will join the European Union in 2004.

The plan was first presented by Defense Secretary of Britain Geoff Hoon, who participated in a conference in London on April 30. The meeting was held with representatives from 16 countries, which actively supported the war with Iraq, including 10 NATO members.

Most of the participating countries showed their interest in sending peace keeping forces to Iraq. Among these, 6 nations, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Denmark, and Bulgaria, have confirmed the dispatch of troops to Iraq to be put under British or Polish command.

Other countries including the Philippines, South Korea, Qatar and Australia, which are about to or have already dispatched their forces to Iraq are also considering joining the peace keeping mission. Portugal, Albania and other nations also showed their interest in participating in the peace keeping mission.

Why do so many countries want to participate in the peace keeping work in Iraq? This is because the U.S. is still trying to backup anything that can justify the war, and many nations are desperate to take advantage of participating in U.S. led reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Those countries that opposed the war including France, Russia, Germany, and Belgium were excluded from the peace keeping mission. However, France and Germany have closely monitored the U.S. reactions and are keeping silent although they oppose the plan.

The French and German Minister participated in the EU foreign ministers meeting on the Greek island of Kastellorizo on May 3.

“All the peace keeping mission will do is increase the number of countries the U.S. wants to claim as allied forces,” said French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin at the meeting.

“The plan to send peace keepers to Iraq from various countries is virtually what Germany has already claimed the U.N. should do,” said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. However, there was not much on those comments.

The agenda of Europe`s independent defense plan which E.U. member countries opposing the war proposed has been buried under the discussion of the Iraq peace keeping mission.

The WTO has found the U.S. guilty of breaking duty-free laws and is about to permit European Union trade retaliation against the U.S. The European Union however, is considering the delay of the retaliation to improve their severed relationship with the U.S.

Jei-Gyoon Park phark@donga.com