Bush doesn’t expect more NATO troops
SEA ISLAND, Ga. – President Bush said Thursday that it is “unrealistic” to expect NATO to send more troops to Iraq, but he suggested that some European countries might train Iraqi forces to handle a greater security load.
“I don’t expect more troops from NATO to be offered up,” he said at a news conference at the close of a three-day international summit of the Group of Eight leading economic powers.
In a meeting earlier in the day with Bush, French President Jacques Chirac was skeptical of any additional NATO military role. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he would not block it, if Iraq requested such help.
Bush came to the summit hoping to win broad approval from summit partners for a larger NATO role in Iraq either in peacekeeping or in the training of Iraqi troops.
Talks to find ways for NATO to help will continue later this month at a NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey.
At the news conference, Bush repeated that U.S. troops will stay in Iraq “as long as it takes” to stabilize the country but that the new Iraqi government will hold the main responsibility for security.
“The Iraqis will secure their own country. We will help them,” Bush said.
Despite continued violence there, Bush asserted that he believed Iraq will become “free and prosperous” and he said its people will be bolstered knowing “that the world stands with them in their quest” for freedom.
He praised a G-8 agreement pledging to work toward freedom and peace not only in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East, specifically between the Israelis and Palestinians. “The spread of freedom throughout the Middle East is the imperative of our age,” Bush said.
He brushed off suggestions that the United States is trying to remake the Middle East in its image, saying reforms toward democracy and human rights should proceed as each country sees fit. But Bush said Middle East nations should welcome reform and not be nervous about it.
“America is not trying to make the world look like America,” he said, but “free societies are peaceful societies.”
Other points made by the president:
• On the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush said he knows Saddam Hussein had the “capacity” to makes such weapons but he is waiting for the final inspection report before reaching any conclusions.
• He denied that there are serious rifts between the United States and nations such as Germany, Russia and France, which did not support the Iraq war. “We’re united in our values,” he said, and disagreements are to be expected because “nations don’t always agree on every issue.”
“We’ve got too much to do in a world beset by terror, poverty and disease to allow a policy difference to prevent us from working together,” Bush said.