Most Nations Standing Firm In Iraq

Nations that have sent forces to help keep the peace in postwar Iraq have no immediate plans to draw down or pull out despite mounting casualties, eroding security and a growing wariness of the potential for a quagmire.

From Slovakia to Singapore, coalition governments are steeling their resolve. Others are offering more than troops, such as Hungary, which says it's open to a U.S. proposal to train up to 28,000 Iraqi police cadets at one of its military bases.

"To run away from this conflict only means to turn a blind eye to reality," said Cyril Svoboda, foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which has 312 personnel stationed at a military hospital in Basra, in southern Iraq.

This is what "willing to die for your beliefs" really means. Just exactly that. Most of the people who pretend to be alarmed at the deaths in combat and in accidental encounters in Iraq do not themselves have much courage of their convictions.

Most importantly, the military troops who are present in Iraq, to bring some sense of order to that chaotic and tormented land are doing so because they voluntarily entered into a contract with their national government to serve as vangards to protect and extend the blessings of freedom as we know it in our country. We came not as invaders, or for mere conquest and looting of another country, but to protect our interests, and prevent a cancer from spreading.

Those of us who could see that vision of America's purpose knew, going in, that it would be dirty, messy, grubby work. Or has been said in other circumstances, "blood, sweat, toil and tears". The alternative would be unending repeats of the events of September 9, 2001, until we were so weakened we could never recover.

The lines of battle have been drawn. The coming months, into the fall and winter in Iraq, may prove to be far more intractable than anything we have so far faced in Iraq. This is not the time to crumble or break, or as Margaret Thatcher once said, "Don't go wobbly now."

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