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List of Allies in Iraq Shrinks
Nations Still There Toil in Relative ObscurityWhat more proof do you need that the war is folly? What's worse than toiling in obscurity? Working for the WaPo? KUT, Iraq -- The commander of the Kazakh soldiers in Iraq, all 29 of them, keeps a stack of English-language instruction books on his desk inside Forward Operating Base Delta. He already speaks Russian, Turkish and Kazakh, and after English, he plans to learn Chinese. He has the time. Kazakhstan has two main missions here on the geographic and strategic periphery of the war, and both of them could be going better. The Kazakh troops are sappers, trained to dispose of explosives. They were ordered by their government not to leave the base after one of those bombs, nearly three years ago, killed the first and only Kazakh soldier to die in Iraq. The soldiers also run a water purification system but find less use for that these days, too. "It's not necessary," said Capt. Samat Mukhanov. "There is bottled water here." {Photo caption}Georgian troops search a vehicle at one of their six checkpoints. The former Soviet republic has sent about a quarter of its army to Iraq. Some nations hope their participation will be rewarded one day. The achievement is its' own reward. When asked how he felt about working in Iraq, the commander, Maj. Shaikh-Khasan Zazhykbayev, barked in his thick accent: "Not so comfortable! . . . But we are military. Our government sends us to serve in Iraq, and we are serving in Iraq." President Bush once called it the "coalition of the willing," the countries willing to fight alongside the United States in Iraq. The list topped off in mid-2004 at 32 countries; troop strength peaked in November that year at 25,595. The force has since shrunk to 26 countries and 11,755 troops, or about 7 percent of the 175,000-strong multinational force, according to mid-November figures provided by the U.S. military. The war is ending. Some folks are going home. Only the Spanish - and the Democrats - cut and ran. Posted by: Bobby 2007-12-08 |
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