PARIS: European officials seem agreed that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US and British forces rule the two countries out of an international peace initiative. But they stop short of considering a European policy independent of the United States.

At the least the pictures of abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners have further undermined the already weak European backing for the war and occupation. Earlier supporters of the United States are now in withdrawal mode.

Leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union in Germany Angela Merkel who had strongly backed the US-led invasion of Iraq last year said this week that the images of torture "put the credibility of democratic values at risk."

The support her party gave to a US invasion lost it the elections in October 2002. Mr Merkel's criticism of US conduct in Iraq is seen as a first step in distancing her party from the United States.

Members of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) who supported the United States are also beginning to step back from Washington. The torture photographs have "permanently damaged the international reputation of the United States," the right-wing foreign policy expert with the SPD parliamentary group Hans- Ulrich Klose said in a statement.

"I am not sure that the United States will ever again be capable of acting internationally as a superpower that commands respect," Mr Klose said. If the instances of torture are a part of systematic procedure, Germany's relations with the United States should be "reconsidered intensively".

This is the closest a European official has come to a call for a European foreign policy that is run independent of the United States. German foreign minister Joseph Fischer asked the United States during a visit to Washington this week to restore its "moral leadership" by carrying out a full investigation of the Iraqi prison abuse scandal.

The French opposition to the war stands vindicated even more, and French leaders are determined to keep their distance from the Iraq mess. "What we have seen and learnt (about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners) is shocking and dishonourable," French foreign minister Michel Barnier said.

Only a legitimate Iraqi government can offer a way out of the "present tragedy", he said. After a "real, sincere transfer of sovereignty" an interim government must supervise free elections in January next year, Mr Barnier said.

That government could authorise use of a multinational military force replacing the present coalition, he said. But Mr Barnier declared that France will not send troops to Iraq even if the United Nations replaces the US-British coalition.

France would at most train the Iraqi police, renegotiate the country's foreign debt and assist a new government build relations with Europe, he said.

In Poland new Prime Minister Marek Belka is up against increasing pressure from the public and his own coalition partners who oppose Polish participation in the coalition force in Iraq. They want a timeline for withdrawal of Polish troops.

Mr Belka is not giving in. "The withdrawal of our 2,400 soldiers from Iraq wouldn't bring us honour," he said in a statement. Mr Belka, in office only since May 2 after his predecessor Leszek Miller quit, has the backing of President Aleksander Kwasnieski.

"The Polish troops will stay in Iraq until a certain order reigns," Mr Kwasnieski said during a visit to London. "We have to fulfil our mission, and not do anything that would increase the chaos in Iraq." But with the decision of new Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also to pull his forces back from Iraq, much of Europe is beginning to distance itself further from the United States, if not break with it yet. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.