Posted on 12/11/2006 5:59:57 AM PST by Michael81Dus
BERLIN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Germany may offer to train Iraqi soldiers at bases outside Iraq, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday, following calls on European governments to do more to help stabilise the country.
"I do not rule out that Germany could also take part in training Iraqi soldiers outside Iraq," Merkel told a news conference after a meeting with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.
Merkel said while there were no concrete plans for such training activities as yet, officials from Germany's defence ministry were in contact with their Iraqi counterparts.
Earlier, Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier rejected calls from Merkel's grouping of conservatives and from the U.S. ambassador in Berlin that Germany do more to support Iraq.
"It (Germany's involvement) will remain at that which was decided by the previous government," Steinmeier was quoted as saying in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.
Steinmeier said Germany had already participated in cutting Iraq's debt, training police officers and helping with redevelopment projects.
The U.S. Ambassador to Germany, William Timken, had called on Germany in an interview with Deutschlandradio Kultur to become more involved in Iraq.
"We all know, not only the German but also the U.S. government as well as Europe all have an interest in having a functioning democracy in Iraq," Timken said. "There are many means of achieving this. It needs effort on all sides."
Maybe now the trains will run on time...
Wrong. Germany is doing well in the North of Afghanistan. If you remember, Afghanistan was divided into zones where different NATO nations have control. Maybe the Canadians did a bad job in the South, maybe (make that: surely) they suffer from infiltration from Pakistan. But fact is, they´ve agreed to secure the South, and they´ve agreed that Germany takes the North. The few thousand German soldiers in the North are also at risk, the situation IS NOT STABLE AND NOT CALM. But through their rebuilding programs they´ve somewhat won trust among the population. Moving the troops out of the North would be a disaster for the North!
Yeah...we lost only 18 soldiers, less than half the amount the Canadians lost. And most of them did not die in combat action. I guess that makes us cowards. We should give up the long term structural rebuilding of our zone ASAP and spread our troops all over Afghanistan to kill as many Taliban as possible. That short term approach worked so well in Iraq, it's close to incoprehensible we are not agreeing to use it in Afghanistan. /s
Bah! I don't know why you think it is a good idea to mock out allies, but I can assure you that it is not appreciated. It is especially ironic that you are mocking Germany when they are reaching a hand out to help us. As Donald Rumsfeld would say, your conduct is "not helpful."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.