07 September 2003
The terrorist attack that ripped through Baghdad’s police headquarters last week has wonderfully focused American minds. In a far-reaching move, Pentagon planners intend to train 28,000 Iraqi police recruits, and teach them the rudiments of democratic policing at an isolated Hungarian air base at Taszar, 125 miles south-west of the capital Budapest. But the bold US scheme, set to resolve the chaotic security situation in Iraq within 18 months, has run into difficulties in Hungary. Budapest is not playing ball.
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Istvan Simicsko, the national security spokesman of the right-of-centre Fidesz opposition party, strongly objected to the secret US plan saying that “the training of Iraqi policemen at the Taszar base would pose grave security risks for the country”. He also took exception to the fact that his party had learned of America’s Taszar plan from a series of leaks.
Karoly Szita, the mayor of Kaposvar, situated close to Taszar, has come out strongly against the training of any Iraqis in Somogy county. Local officials at Taszar have also voiced the community’s objection “to this second Iraqi invasion”.
Earlier this year, well before the allied invasion of Iraq, American special forces trained hundreds of Iraqi dissidents at the sprawling Taszar base in guerrilla warfare, battlefield guide roles, interpreter duties and the finer points of military administration in the post - Saddam period.
http://www.sundayherald.com/36545Oh well, time to send in a relative......
September 12, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C. - On September 10, five leaders of the Hungarian American Coalition met at the State Department with Ambassador-Designate George Herbert Walker, who has been appointed by President George W. Bush to serve in Hungary.
http://www.hacusa.org/ghw.html