thedrifter
05-14-03, 06:34 AM
May 13, 2003
Myers asks NATO allies to help stabilize Iraq
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium — America’s most senior military officer urged NATO allies Tuesday to join the United States and Britain in helping to stabilize Iraq and lay a foundation for its future.
“Certainly we’re hopeful that NATO countries or NATO as an alliance could help us inside Iraq in our stability operations, and those discussions are ongoing,” Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters after meeting with his counterparts from the 18 other NATO countries.
Myers was the first high-ranking Pentagon official to visit NATO headquarters since the war, which was fought over the objections of two of America’s longtime allies, France and Germany, and without direct support from some other members. NATO members Britain and Spain were the most vocal supporters.
Asked whether he was on a fence-mending mission, Myers said he was hopeful that tensions would ease.
“The kind of divisiveness that we had” when France and Germany led the opposition to a second U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq “was not helpful,” Myers said.
“We don’t need to repeat that,” he added. “There’s a lot of work to be done on both sides to be sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Regarding the prospects for a NATO role in Iraq, Myers alluded to the Afghanistan example, in which NATO chose to participate in postwar stabilization efforts despite not having been officially part of the U.S.-led war to topple the Taliban regime.
He noted that in the case of postwar Afghanistan, the heads of state of the NATO countries decided that “NATO needed to be proactive.”
“You can’t just build a wall around our alliance and hope” that security will be established in parts of the world that pose terrorist threats, he said.
In his meetings at NATO headquarters, Myers reviewed his trip Monday to Iraq, where he met with British military officials in the southern city of Basra and toured parts of Baghdad. He recounted his visit to a Baghdad hospital where the staff is enthusiastically working to recover from looting and other postwar damage.
“To me, that bodes well for the new Iraq that we all want to emerge from this,” he said.
Myers was to hold a second day of NATO meetings on Wednesday before returning to Washington.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.
Sempers,
Roger
Myers asks NATO allies to help stabilize Iraq
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium — America’s most senior military officer urged NATO allies Tuesday to join the United States and Britain in helping to stabilize Iraq and lay a foundation for its future.
“Certainly we’re hopeful that NATO countries or NATO as an alliance could help us inside Iraq in our stability operations, and those discussions are ongoing,” Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters after meeting with his counterparts from the 18 other NATO countries.
Myers was the first high-ranking Pentagon official to visit NATO headquarters since the war, which was fought over the objections of two of America’s longtime allies, France and Germany, and without direct support from some other members. NATO members Britain and Spain were the most vocal supporters.
Asked whether he was on a fence-mending mission, Myers said he was hopeful that tensions would ease.
“The kind of divisiveness that we had” when France and Germany led the opposition to a second U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq “was not helpful,” Myers said.
“We don’t need to repeat that,” he added. “There’s a lot of work to be done on both sides to be sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Regarding the prospects for a NATO role in Iraq, Myers alluded to the Afghanistan example, in which NATO chose to participate in postwar stabilization efforts despite not having been officially part of the U.S.-led war to topple the Taliban regime.
He noted that in the case of postwar Afghanistan, the heads of state of the NATO countries decided that “NATO needed to be proactive.”
“You can’t just build a wall around our alliance and hope” that security will be established in parts of the world that pose terrorist threats, he said.
In his meetings at NATO headquarters, Myers reviewed his trip Monday to Iraq, where he met with British military officials in the southern city of Basra and toured parts of Baghdad. He recounted his visit to a Baghdad hospital where the staff is enthusiastically working to recover from looting and other postwar damage.
“To me, that bodes well for the new Iraq that we all want to emerge from this,” he said.
Myers was to hold a second day of NATO meetings on Wednesday before returning to Washington.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.
Sempers,
Roger