The
occupation forces in Iraq
Labour MP,
Paul Flynn, asked the following question in the House of Commons recently:
“To ask the Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what countries have promised to provide troops
to the coalition force in Iraq; how many were originally promised; and how many
are deployed in Iraq from each country.”
He
received the following written reply
from Foreign Office Minister, Bill Rammell, on 15 September 2003:
”In addition to 11,000 UK and
140,000 US forces, over 30 countries are committed to join the Coalition in
Iraq. The following countries are already deployed; Italy (3,000), Netherlands
(1,100), Denmark (420), Lithuania (88), Czech Republic (330), Romania (510),
Norway (140), Bulgaria (480), Dominican Republic (300), Hungary (300), Mongolia
(250), Poland (2,300), Slovakia (120), Spain (1,250), Thailand (26), Ukraine,
(1,800), Albania (70), Kazakhstan (25), Uzbekistan (135), Georgia (69),
Macedonia (25), Azerbaijan (150), Moldova (42), Estonia (43), Latvia (142),
Honduras (366), El Salvador (415), Nicaragua (111), South Korea (675) and the
Philippines (55).
“Portugal will send 130 military
police and New Zealand 44 engineers (for humanitarian and reconstruction
assistance) later this month to assist the UK area. Tonga are also expected to
deploy troops and Thailand and Denmark are committed to send further forces at
a later date.”
These
states are nearly all members of the “coalition of the willing”, who supported
the US/UK attack on Iraq. Despite the best efforts of the
US/UK, opponents of the invasion are, broadly speaking, not supplying
occupation forces.
The
following 49 states are part of the “coalition of the willing”, according to
the White House website:
Afghanistan, Albania, Angola,
Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras,
Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall
Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama,
Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon
Islands, South Korea, Spain, Tonga, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom,
United States, Uzbekistan
A state didn’t need to assist the
US/UK in any way in their invasion in order to get on the list. All they had to do was say Yes, when the US
Government asked if they wanted to be on the list.
The degree to which these forces
are being paid for in cash or in kind by the US (and possibly the UK) is not
clear. It was reported on CBS
television that the US is paying both expenses and salaries for the Kazak contingent,
but that will hardly break the US Treasury since there are only 25 in it.
Senator
Edward Kennedy thinks that the US is paying out a fortune to get foreign troops
for Iraq. The Washington Post reported
on 19 September 2003:
“Kennedy said a recent report by
the Congressional Budget Office showed that only about $2.5 billion of the $4
billion being spent monthly on the war can be accounted for by the
administration. ‘My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these
political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops’,
he said.
That seems
farfetched, but maybe there’s some truth in it.
Labour
& Trade Union Review
October
2003