May 13, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 10, 1424

BRUSSELS: NATO could eventually help to stabilize Iraq, but is in no hurry to commit itself after being almost ripped apart by the crisis before the war began, diplomats say.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Richard Myers will visit the 19-member alliance’s Brussels headquarters this week, but no announcement seems imminent about a NATO role.

“It’s not beyond imagination that NATO would get involved, but it’s not a question for today,” said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t see people jumping at it,” he added.

The United States initially broached the possibility of a post-war role for NATO late last year, when it was included in a package of proposals for the Alliance’s involvement in the looming Iraq war.

But the suggestion was rapidly shelved as the former Cold War bloc was engulfed in a crisis sparked by a trio of anti-war countries — France, Germany and Belgium — over whether the Alliance should boost NATO member Turkey’s defences in preparation for the war.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell then revived the idea during a trip to Brussels shortly before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

But, a month after the toppling of the giant Saddam statue in a Baghdad square, NATO chief George Robertson still says it is too early to seek consensus on a role for the alliance.

“Certain countries believe that NATO could have a role within post-conflict Iraq but we need to have a more stable and more comprehensible situation before us before decisions can be taken on that,” Robertson said last week.

For many, the diplomatic bruises of the February crisis — the worst in NATO’s 54-year-history — are still too fresh.

“We had a bad February and March. We were holed below the waterline. Now we are more optimistic,” said one source closely involved in the marathon talks which eventually resolved the row.

Officially no formal talks have been held on the US request for a post-war role, and Washington has been careful not to force the issue up the agenda.

France, which has pledged to take a more “pragmatic” role over Iraq, still insists that any NATO mission would need the stamp of approval of a UN mandate — an issue which is being thrashed out in New York, although conclusions don’t appear likely any time soon.

Paris is ready “to examine favourably a NATO involvement which would have to be within the UN framework,” said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin in a newspaper interview last week.

Suggestions for what exactly NATO could do in Iraq are wide-ranging: from a minimalist planning role to a fully-fledged peacekeeping role on the lines of the Afghan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which NATO will take over in August.

NATO is also watching closely talks on a multinational stabilization force, which could divide Iraq into three zones to be overseen by the US, Britain and Poland.

Diplomats say Poland, a recent NATO member but a key member of Washington’s favoured “coalition of the willing,” might particularly need help, given the size of its armed forces and economic woes.

“If the Poles were to come along and say we need NATO involvement of course we would say yes,” said one.

Above all the Alliance wants to avoid a repeat of the February diplomatic crisis. “There’s a common wish not to have any more bloodletting,” he said.—AFP