Participants also resolved to step up the deployment of 330 military instructors to Iraq by the end of the year to train the Iraqi military. They also announced that a NATO rapid reaction force is now ready for deployment.

The meeting was held October 13-14 in Romania, the newest NATO member. It registered the degree to which Washington is making progress in reshaping imperialist armies in Europe to match the changes being carried out in the U.S. military aimed at speedier deployments and greater maneuverability.

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said the NATO “security instructors” would be on the ground in Iraq before the end of the year. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer added, “Speed is of the essence here, and it’s what the Iraqis want.” There are now about 40 NATO instructors in Baghdad, working with Iraqi generals, reported the October 14 International Herald Tribune.

Paris and Berlin, the central leaders of what U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has referred to as “Old Europe,” initially objected to NATO’s training of Iraqi military personnel inside Iraq citing “security concerns” and proposed instead that it be carried out outside the country. Underneath this dispute is the conflict between Paris and Berlin, on the one hand, and Washington on the other, over their competing imperialist interests in the Middle East.

As in every other significant turning point regarding the war in Iraq, U.S. imperialism prevailed once again. The total number of NATO troops to be sent to Iraq could go as high as 3,000. Washington has largely been responsible for training Iraqi army units, while London has taken the lead in training new Iraqi national guard forces. All training of Iraqi armed forces will be under the command of U.S. Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the Tribune said.

At the NATO meeting, German defense minister Peter Struck said that although sending German troops to Iraq in the foreseeable future is excluded, he could “think of other times in years to come when there could be a German role,” according to the Financial Times. A spokesperson for German chancellor Gerhard Schröder denied any change in Berlin’s opposition to sending troops to Iraq. “There will be no German soldiers in Iraq,” the spokesperson said.

Christoph Bertram, chairman of the German Institute for International Politics and Security, told the big-business London daily that some members of the German government have for some time been “trying to find elegant ways of not being without options when the need arises” in Iraq.

In an October 14 editorial subtitled “Germany prepares to reposition itself on Iraq” the Financial Times’ editors advised Berlin, France, and other European governments opposed to the U.S. course in Iraq that with impending elections in that country next year and the possible reduction of U.S. forces the new Iraqi government may well ask other countries for military aid. “Germany—as well as France and other EU members such as Spain—would do well to start preparing their answers now,” the editorial said.

The NATO defense ministers decided to draft options for the integration of the U.S.-led and NATO military missions in Afghanistan. Some 15,000 U.S. troops, along with 5,000 from 19 other countries, are in Afghanistan as part of “Operation Enduring Freedom” (OEF), ostensibly hunting for Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaeda. NATO has a force of 9,000 troops in an “International Security Assistance Force” (ISAF), which is supposedly only involved in “peacekeeping” and assisting Kabul in training and setting up its military and police forces.

Paris and Berlin objected. “There are two operations with two different missions—the OEF is fighting terrorism, the ISAF is an operation for securitization,” argued French defense minister Michele Alliot-Marie, according to Reuters.

“We are against the merger of the two mandates,” added German defense minister Struck. Berlin is one of the largest contributors to the ISAF mission with 2,500 soldiers.

“Most countries that spoke today, including our country, said the goal should be one NATO mission,” said Burns, confident Washington’s proposal would carry the day.

In his opening remarks, NATO secretary general Scheffer announced that the alliance’s rapid reaction force was up and running, reported the BBC. Scheffer said the NATO Response Force, which consists of warships and fighter planes, gives the alliance the capability to intervene in “crises” anywhere in the world within five days. “This is an important milestone in our quest for more usable and deployable forces,” Scheffer said, “but more needs to be done.” The current force includes 17,500 soldiers and is projected to reach full strength with 24,000 troops in 2006.

The Iraqi deployment is another step toward expanding NATO’s jurisdiction beyond Europe and around the world. The first was the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, which was sanctioned by the United Nations in October 2003.

According to the Washington Post, Burns told reporters the defense ministers spent hours talking about how to limit government restrictions on the deployment of the 2.5 million European troops outside their home countries. “There has been some movement, but there is enormous room for change,” said the U.S. ambassador to NATO. He also said there was discussion about increasing military spending in Europe in order to bring it in line with that of the United States. Washington budgets an estimated $417 billion for its military compared to $200 billion by all the other NATO members combined.
 
 
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