Germany Softens Stance on Sending Troops to Iraq

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany said Wednesday it could not rule out sending troops to Iraq, dropping its firm refusal to consider any deployment to the country whose invasion last year it staunchly opposed.

Defense Minister Peter Struck said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper that Germany might deploy troops if conditions in the country, now riven by insurgency, changed.

"At present I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq," Struck told the paper. "In general, however, there is no one who can predict developments in Iraq in such a way that he could make such a binding statement."

He also welcomed U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s call for an international summit on Iraq.

Kerry has maintained during his campaign for the presidency that he would have more success getting traditional U.S. allies and Iraq war opponents like Germany and France to help in Iraq.

In a debate last month with President Bush, Kerry said that if elected he would call for a summit on Iraq.

"This is a very sensible proposal," Struck said.

"The situation in Iraq can only be cleared up when all those involved sit together at one table. Germany has taken on responsibilities in Iraq, including financial ones; this would naturally justify our involvement in such a conference."

The comments by Struck, a member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s center-left social democrats (SPD), drew a cautious response from U.S. officials.

"The United States consistently has said international participation is always welcome in the reconstruction and stabilization of Iraq," said a U.S. official, traveling with the U.S. delegation to the meeting of NATO defense ministers in the Romanian ski resort of Poiana Brasov.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said however Washington was taking a cautious line on what the German position actually was.

Struck’s comments drew quick criticism from the SPD’s mainly pacifist Green coalition partners.

"I assume Peter Struck means that for the foreseeable future there will be no German involvement in Iraq, that we won’t get sucked into this disaster," said Winfried Nachtwei, a defense policy expert in parliament for the Greens.

"The government’s position remains clear: we will not be drawn into the conflict in Iraq."

In his 2002 re-election campaign Schroeder derided plans to attack Iraq as an adventure that would set the Middle East ablaze, badly straining relations with the Bush administration. The position may have helped secure his narrow victory.

Schroeder has said frequently in recent months that German troops, who are present in Afghanistan, would not go to Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28830-2004Oct13.html