Romania sends anti-biowarfare specialists to Gulf

Reuters | 4/04/03

[kattracks]

Romania sends anti-biowarfare specialists to Gulf

BUCHAREST, April 4 (Reuters) - Romania said on Friday it sent an unspecified number of troops trained in responding to chemical, nuclear and biological attack to Kuwait following a request from U.S.-led forces fighting the war in Iraq.

Romania has offered a total of 278 non-combat troops and technical help to Washington, similar to offers made by other ex-communist states grateful for U.S. support during the years of Soviet domination and for backing their efforts to join NATO.

"A section of the non-combat troops took off early on Friday aboard American planes from Timisoara air base," Marcel Iliese, spokesman at the base, told Reuters.

A first group of 15 Romanian troops arrived in the Gulf in early March, Iliese said. Seventy more were due to be deployed in the coming days.

He declined to say when other troops, including medical, engineering and military police, would be sent, saying it depended entirely on when U.S.-led forces asked for them.

Romania, which has opened its airspace to U.S. airplanes, has around 1,000 U.S. troops at an air base near the Black Sea port of Constanta, acting as an "air bridge" for equipment and personnel going to the Gulf.

Bucharest has also offered the United States intelligence on Iraq's energy networks, which it helped build during the time of communist rule.

04/04/03 07:11 ET

[Savage Beast]

Americans must not forget the support that Rumanians and other allies have given during this nightmarish time.

And, although the mending of damaged alliances is important for future peace, liberty, and prosperity--i.e. the bringing of The American Dream to all mankind--Americans must not forget just which "allies" abandoned them so cynically at their time of need--and would obviously do so again.