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| Europe |
| EU Will Train Iraqi Law Enforcers |
| 2004-11-03 |
| Planned Mission Marks Bloc's First Commitment To Postwar Rebuilding The European Union plans to train senior Iraqi police, prosecutors, judges and prison directors, an initiative that for the first time would commit the 25-nation bloc to Iraqi reconstruction and help narrow the transAtlantic differences over the war and its aftermath. European leaders will outline the training plan to Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, when he attends an EU summit here on Friday, EU foreign ministers said. While still scarce on details and modest in scale -- involving fewer than 100 EU trainers -- the initiative is significant because the EU as a whole so far has stayed out of Iraq, unable to muster consensus over an issue that pitted pro-war members of the bloc, led by Britain, Italy and Poland, against opponents, led by France and Germany. Still, the training initiative alone doesn't signal an abrupt shift of European attitudes toward Iraq. "It's a symbolic engagement and it doesn't mean that the EU is now ready to support a large part of Iraqi reconstruction," said Maxime Lefebvre, a fellow at the French Institute for International Relations, a Paris-based think tank. The discussion over the training mission has been difficult, European diplomats said, in part because some EU countries believe Washington first ignored their opposition to war and now is seeking help with reconstruction and security. But as violence and instability continue to plague Iraq, some of the divisive rhetoric in the EU has given way to a realization that bringing peace there is as much in the interest of Europe as it is of the U.S. "The EU could usefully contribute to the reconstruction and the emergence of a stable, secure and democratic Iraq," European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said in a written statement yesterday. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |