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| Europe |
| Poland's President Wants Peace Role |
| 2006-09-19 |
| NEW YORK (AP) - Poland's president said Monday he wants his country to be an active broker of world peace and his government could send hundreds more troops than it has already pledged to a U.N. force in Lebanon. In an interview with The Associated Press in New York, President Lech Kaczynski criticized the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, for its reluctance to commit more forcefully to peacekeeping missions around the world. He said it was ``one of Europe's maladies'' that it was not able to muster the number of troops needed to quell conflicts. ``A union of 25 rich nations should not have trouble getting ready 100,000 well-trained and well-equipped troops,'' said Kaczynski, who was in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly this week. Poland now has about 200 troops in UNIFIL and has said it will raise that number to 500. ``In Lebanon, I do not exclude a possibility of increasing the mission by another 200, 300 troops in 2007,'' Kaczynski said in the interview. That could boost Poland's total forces in Lebanon to 800, he said. Noting the strain the various conflicts are placing on the armed forces of this nation of 38 million, Kaczynski reiterated that the 900 Polish troops in south-central Iraq will serve in the U.S.-led coalition there until the end of 2007 ``and no longer.'' Despite NATO's call for reinforcements in Afghanistan, Kaczynski said Poland, an alliance member since 1999, cannot commit more than the 1,000 troops already pledged. ``No more troops can be sent to Afghanistan. We have declared the maximum that was taken into consideration,'' he said. ``We are everywhere where they need us,'' he added. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Oh, and God bless the Poles! They may not, now, be equalling what they did to save Europe from the Mongol hordes at Vienna, but give 'em time. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-09-19 14:41 |
| #2 Noting the strain the various conflicts are placing on the armed forces of this nation of 38 million, Kaczynski reiterated that the 900 Polish troops in south-central Iraq will serve in the U.S.-led coalition there until the end of 2007 ``and no longer.'' He's probably looking at the rate at which the Iraqi army and police forces are standing up, and is allowing a more than reasonable amount of time for them to take over things. Hopefully, most of our ground troops will be out, and all we'll be providing would be air support, some logistics, and some C4I. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-09-19 14:40 |
| #1 What peace ? |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-09-19 09:40 |