NATO Chief Says He Supports Role in Iraq

[Khephra]

February 17, 2004, 7:47 PM EST


BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO's top diplomat on Tuesday indicated he supported an alliance peacekeeping role in Iraq if its asked to do so by the mideast nation's government.

Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made his assertion despite political doubts in France and Germany about any deployment to Iraq.

"Under the right conditions we could do it," De Hoop Scheffer said in a speech to the German Marshall Funds' Trans-Atlantic Center, a Brussels think tank.

He said that if the Iraqi government with U.N. support were to ask for NATO's help, it would difficult for allied nations to "abrogate our responsibilities."

more.........................

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-nato-iraq,0,7969404.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[Voltaire99]

1. His marching orders come from Washington

"NATO's top diplomat" is a .25-cent term when a .5-cent one will do: lackey.

Yet another attempt to formalize this illegal brutalization. Poor Iraq.