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NATO likely to cut Iraq training missions
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-15 14:24

NATO is likely to scale back plans to send instructors to train Iraq's military, the alliance's top operational commander, U.S. Gen. James L. Jones, said Friday.

He insisted the cuts were not due to NATO's difficulties in mustering troops for the mission, saying instead that Iraq's fledgling forces had proved more capable of training their own recruits.

"We're discovering, from the training aspect of things, that the Iraqis have quite a bit of capacity to do that themselves," Jones told reporters. "What the NATO mission can do is obviously take advantage of that and incorporate it into our overall scheme."

Jones said the current target was to raise the about 100 NATO soldiers presently in Iraq to 159. Last month, the alliance said it wanted to put 300 instructors and support staff on the ground at the start of this year. A final decision will be taken by ambassadors from the 26 member nations.

Speaking at NATO's military headquarters in southern Belgium, Jones said U.S. Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who commands the training effort in Iraq, had "revised his concept" of the mission.

Jones acknowledged that last year's estimate of a longer-term deployment of 300 instructors and up to 3,000 guards and other backup was more than will be needed.

"As it turns out, it was considerably less than that," he said.

NATO has been struggling to persuade governments to commit extra troops to both its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, the problem has been compounded by the refusal of France, Germany and other nations that opposed the U.S. led war to send instructors.

"Obviously that makes it more difficult when you have to generate the force," Jones acknowledged. But he said that was not forcing the alliance to scale back its plans.

The alliance may also reconsider its plans for expanding peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan, Jones said, because of a more stable environment in that country.

NATO currently has around 8,000 peacekeepers in Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Next month it is expected to announce an expansion into a western sector around the city of Herat, with several hundred more troops. However, Jones said the number of reinforcements planned to support parliamentary elections scheduled for the spring could be fewer than anticipated.

"The ability of an organized insurgency to muster a cohesive military capability seems to be on the decline," he said.



 
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