NATO Reports All 26 Nations Are Aiding Iraq With Training

[ECH1969]

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 21 - European countries have overcome their differences with the United States over Iraq, and all 26 members of NATO now provide training and equipment to Baghdad, the secretary general of the group said this week.

The official, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a former Dutch foreign minister who backed the war while many Europeans opposed it, said in an interview on Tuesday that he would soon raise the flag over a huge "state of the art" complex in Baghdad where NATO is training 1,000 military officers.

He said that NATO had also arranged for Iraqi troops to be trained in Germany, Italy and Norway, and that shipments of equipment were being airlifted from Eastern European countries that use Russian-built equipment compatible with the Iraqis' Soviet-era matériel.

Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said that he was concerned that most European countries still invested too little in military preparedness, and that he was trying to persuade allies of the importance to European security of actions taken far afield.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/international/middleeast/22nations.html