Bush, Schroeder make up, but Iraq troops elusive ( 2003-09-25 10:41) (Agencies)
President Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder drew a line under a bitter, year-long dispute over the Iraq war on
Wednesday, but Washington's quest for foreign troops to share the burden of
occupation remained elusive.
President George W. Bush hosts a meeting
with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in his hotel suite in New York,
Sept. 24, 2003. Bush and Schroeder laid to rest their dispute over the
Iraq war but the U.S. quest for foreign troops to share the burden of
occupation remained elusive. [Reuters]
A senior U.S. official acknowledged after Bush held two days of consultations
on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that a new resolution to create a
multinational force for Iraq and set up a government system might take weeks.
Bush met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee to seek help in Iraq, but officials said neither pledged
peacekeeping troops.
Bush and Schroeder, who had not met privately for more than a year, told
reporters after a cordial meeting that their past differences were over.
Schroeder made outspoken opposition to U.S. military action against Iraq the
centerpiece of his re-election campaign last year, infuriating Washington.
The German leader pledged economic assistance for reconstruction and training
for Iraqi police and soldiers in Germany, but not troops on the ground, saying
German forces were fully stretched in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
"I have told the president how very much we would like to come in and help
with the resources that we do have," he told reporters.
Bush, whose doctrine of "pre-emptive" war came under fierce criticism on the
first day of the annual U.N. gathering, said of his relations with Schroeder:
"Look, we've had differences, and they're over, and we're going to work
together."
Musharraf told a news conference Pakistani public opinion was strongly
opposed to sending troops but could be swayed if other Muslim countries joined a
U.N.-mandated force at the request of Iraqi people and they were not seen as
occupiers.
Facing continuing and increasingly deadly attacks, the United States has
131,000 troops in Iraq, and other foreign troops, most from Britain and Poland,
number about 23,000. The military costs are running about $1 billion a week.
FEW EXTRA TROOPS
At home, Bush faces sliding approval ratings and a tough fight in Congress to
win support for his $87 billion extra budget request to fund occupation and
reconstruction costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States is rewriting its proposed Security Council resolution that
calls for U.N. authorization for a multinational force in an effort to attract
troops and other aid from countries unwilling to be part of an occupying force.
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain, Washington's main
comrade-in-arms in Iraq, appeared to acknowledge that even with a new resolution
few extra soldiers might be forthcoming in the near future.
"The main purpose of the resolution is much more what I describe as
psychological-political than it is in terms of providing an extra thousand
troops here or a thousand troops there," Straw told reporters.
U.N. diplomats said Washington wanted consensus on a resolution before an
Oct. 24 donors' conference in Madrid.
But they said the Bush administration appeared divided over how far to
compromise, with hard-liners arguing there was no point in making major
concessions since few troops and little extra money was likely to be
forthcoming.
A day after French President Jacques Chirac and Bush failed to narrow their
differences on a transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi authority, Schroeder was
less insistent on the issue.
There were still divergences on the timing, he said, "but since both sides
want to transfer government powers to Iraqis, the time frame must be
bridgeable."
The senior U.S. official said no one except France was seeking an early
handover, and Washington would not accept a premature transfer of sovereignty
that might fall apart.
Chirac, Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who united earlier
this year to prevent U.N. blessing for the war, met in New York and agreed to
work together on a new resolution "in a positive and constructive spirit,"
Chirac said.
Asked whether the Schroeder-Bush rapprochement left France isolated, he
added: "There is not the slightest shadow or a difference between the French and
German positions."
Bush defended the overthrow of Saddam Hussein when he addressed the assembly
on Tuesday, and offered no apology either for the chaotic security situation or
failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
An eagerly awaited U.S. inquiry is expected to soon report finding
"documentary evidence" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programs
but no proof of actual arms, a U.S. official said.
