Bush to push for Nato role in Iraq

US President George Bush will appeal to allied leaders next week to send a Nato force to Iraq to bolster the coalition that is struggling against a potent insurgency, two senior administration officials said.

Mr Bush will discuss with them specific roles a Nato contingent could take on, ranging from training national security forces to protecting UN personnel in Iraq, which is due to regain its sovereignty on June 30.

The President’s goal is to forge an agreement at the Nato summit in Istanbul next Monday and Tuesday, with specific roles for Nato. The alliance would assist but not overshadow the US-led coalition, said a senior Washington official.

Some 138,000 US troops are in Iraq, along with far smaller units from 31 other countries, including 16 Nato members.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who opposed the war, have refused to contribute peacekeeping troops to Iraq.

But France apparently is willing to provide training, and Germany has sent about 6,500 Nato-led security forces to Afghanistan.

The issue of training is something Nato will be grappling with at the summit, a second senior US official said. While some of the training could be done outside Iraq, much of it needs to be done within the country, he said.

The Iraqis are appealing for technical assistance and training and all Nato members should do what they can as an alliance to respond to their request, the official said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been laying the groundwork for a Nato force in Iraq in talks over the last few weeks with the alliance’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the official said.

Madeleine Albright, who was secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton and currently an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, said the Nato summit presented Mr Bush with a good opportunity to make a clear and persuasive case why the allies should get engaged in Iraq.

“There has to be some burden sharing,” Ms Albright said.

She said it would help if the President admitted to Nato allies that the US had made mistakes in Iraq.

“This is viewed as a US issue, as the US needing to be taken out of the quicksand. It’s important for them to understand their national interests would be affected” if Iraq became “a magnet for terrorist activity. It affects their security.”

On Monday, Iraq’s interim prime minister Iyad Allawi wrote to allied governments asking for training and other technical assistance, but not troops.

Nato spokesman James Appathurai said that Mr Bush and other allied leaders would discuss the request at the summit.