US presses NATO to prepare takeover of Afghanistan military operations

POIANA BRASOV, Romania (AFP) - The United States pressed its NATO allies to begin military planning for possibly taking over command of operations in Afghanistan from US forces as early as next year.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also was pushing the alliance to put NATO trainers on the ground in Iraq quickly, now that it has agreed on an expanded mission there, US officials said.
US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns had said Tuesday that NATO defense ministers were likely at their informal meeting in Romania Wednesday to instruct their military authorities to report back in February with options on how to merge the NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.
"That`s the direction the alliance has been heading for many months now and it will likely be the result of tomorrow`s (Wednesday`s) discussion ," Burns had told reporters here.
Germany immediately opposed any merger of US and NATO forces in the volatile central Asian nation, setting the stage at the two-day meeting for another fractious debate over the alliance`s military role outside Europe.
Burns had suggested Tuesday that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan could be brought under NATO command quickly once the plans had been drawn up.
"It could be 2005, it could be 2006, it depends on how things go. It really depends on what the military leaders will tell us -- how would you do this, how difficult would it be, on what basis would it be," he said.
But German Defense Minister Peter Struck said NATO`s mandate in Afghanistan was to stabilize the country, not to fight international terrorism.
"Therefore, we are against a merger of the two mandates," he said.
Germany has 2,500 troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), making it one of biggest contributors to the 9,000-strong force.
Separately, the United States has nearly 20,000 of its own troops in Afghanistan. They are still seeking to pacify the country`s southeastern border regions three years after the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime after a US-led invasion.
NATO diplomats sought to downplay the sense of confrontation.
"The Americans are not in a hurry about this," said one source, adding: "You`re not looking at anyone in ISAF being forced into combat positions."
But officials did concede there was a "logic" to the idea of integrating the two missions. And they also noted that, without the US combat force in southern and eastern Afghanistan, peacekeeping by NATO in less fraught parts of the country could not take place.
If US soldiers were not "kicking down doors" in the south, it would not be possible for ISAF "to be nice" in other parts of the country, one said.
Rumsfeld first floated the idea of having NATO taking over all military operations in Afghanistan in December 2003. But the idea has until now remained in the background while NATO struggles to expand its Afghan peacekeeping operation.
If NATO were to take the lead role in Afghanistan it would relieve the stress on US forces, which are tied down by the insurgency in Iraq.
It also would mark a further expansion of NATO military commitments outside Europe.
But NATO has struggled to come up with the forces for even a modest expansion of the ISAF force.
It completed the first phase of an expansion of the force from Kabul to relatively trouble-free areas in northern Afghanistan just before the country`s October 9 presidential election. But it has so far failed to carry out a planned expansion to the west.
"I know the US, Secretary Rumsfeld and others will be pushing for the European allies to put their men, women, materiel, assets into the west to establish these provincial reconstruction teams," Burns said Tuesday.
On Iraq, NATO last week agreed to an expanded training mission that would deepen its involvement in the violence-wracked country despite bitter opposition from Germany and France to the US invasion last year.
Under the plan some 300 to 400 officers will train senior Iraqi military officers at a military academy on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, according to NATO officials. The NATO presence could involve up to 3,000 troops when support personnel are added.
But US officials are concerned the training will not get underway before elections in Iraq planned for January 2005.
"I think Secretary Rumsfeld and others will be suggesting that NATO move quickly to get that mission in place," Burns said.
Rumsfeld also will be appealing for NATO help in equipping the Iraqi security forces. Burns said the United States was encouraging NATO states in eastern Europe to donate or sell equipment to Iraq from their surplus stock of Soviet-era equipment.