MERKEL’S US TRIP : Berlin To Offer Increase in Iraq Aid

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not be heading to Washington empty handed on her inaugural visit to the White House this week. Keen to improve ties with the United States, she is reportedly going to offer to expand Berlin’s commitments to Iraq.

George W. Bush has got to be pleased. Finally rid of that irksome Gerhard Schröder — whose staunch opposition to the war in Iraq strained trans-Atlantic ties — the United States president can look forward to a visit from a much more amicable guest from Berlin. On Thursday, Angela Merkel will start her first official trip to Washington since becoming chancellor in November and she apparently wants to get things off on the right foot.

After repeatedly making clear she wants to make good relations with Washington a top priority of her administration, Merkel is reportedly planning to expand German efforts in the rebuilding of Iraq. According to the conservative daily Die Welt, the deployment of German troops to the strife-torn country remains a taboo. However, Berlin wants to dramatically increase the number Iraqi police it is training and make vocational training for Iraqi youths a new focus of German aid. The report says Berlin plans to finance the educational programs via the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

But it won’t all be nice talk when Merkel sits down with Bush on Friday. Ahead of her trip, Merkel criticized the US prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "An institution like Guantanamo can and must not exist in the longer term," Merkel said in an interview with SPIEGEL. "We must find different ways of dealing with prisoners."

Her criticism was widely praised in Germany and raised eyebrows in Washington. However, Merkel also said she would discuss the broader issue of the fight against terrorism with Bush and made clear she would not allow long-standing relationship between Germany and the United States to be trivialized by focusing on differences over one issue. Nevertheless, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other human rights abuses have tarnished the United States’ reputation in Europe.

So what’s Merkel’s strategy here? First criticize the Bush administration on Guantanamo and then spring a sugar-coated offer to help out in Iraq? Perhaps this is just more evidence of Merkel’s foreign policy savvy. First she surprised her European colleagues by helping broker an EU budget deal last December and now she might do the same across the Atlantic. If the report about the increased German aid to Iraq is accurate, Merkel could win points in both Berlin and Washington within the same week.

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