Bully for the Poles, among our staunchest of allies.
Poland’s president on Thursday approved extending the country’s military mission in Iraq for another year, the prime minister said.
“The president made such a decision on the government’s request,” Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said on TVN24 television during a ski trip at a mountain resort. “The issue is closed and taken care of.”
Marcinkiewicz’s government requested Tuesday that President Lech Kaczynski, the commander in chief of Poland’s armed forces, reverse plans by the previous government to bring home troops serving with the U.S.-led coalition in early 2006.
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Marcinkiewicz’s announcement offers some relief to President Bush, who has seen the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq dwindle and faced withering criticism at home and abroad over his handling of the war.
Ukraine and Bulgaria announced this week that their remaining soldiers had pulled out of Iraq.
In calling for an extension Tuesday, Marcinkiewicz called the move “a very difficult decision” but said that it was a step meant to help maintain stability as Iraq progresses toward democracy.
Though the mission will be prolonged, the number of Poles serving in Iraq will be cut from about 1,500 to 900 by March, officials have said. The Poles are based at Camp Echo in the central city of Diwaniyah, one of the nation’s more stable areas, where they mainly train Iraqi security forces.
Poland has been a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq. It sent combat troops to the country and in September 2003 took command of an international force that now numbers some 3,000 troops from 12 countries.
However, the deployment is unpopular, and some in Poland have complained that they have not seen sufficient rewards such as easier access to U.S. visas or more rebuilding contracts for Polish companies. Seventeen Poland solders have died in Iraq.
I feel that there is much merit to the idea of insufficient rewards to date, not only for Poland’s sacrifice but also for the growing importance the country seems willing to accept on the world’s stage.
Four months ago, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – a Washington-based think tank known for neo-conservative ideas – wrote a treatise urging US financial backing for further deployments of eastern European troops in Iraq, citing Poland as a particularly attractive candidate.
“The Polish military, unlike the public, is upbeat about its service in Iraq, recognising that the mission has done wonders for the army’s preparedness,” the AEI scholar wrote. “Does it always make sense to hire private contractors, with all their legal and political baggage, when you could have real soldiers for less money?”
It was a prescient suggestion. The writer, Radoslaw Sikorski, has since traded Washington for Warsaw, and in October became defence minister in Poland’s new centre-right government, which on Tuesday recommended extending the country’s deployment in Iraq for another year.
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“What Poland has done is decided it wants to be a strategic player,” said Kurt Volker, the number two official in the State Department’s European bureau. “People always make the assumption a country does this to please the US . . . Poland sees this as valuable in itself for the role it can play globally.”
Poland, along with the UK and Australia, were the only international partners to provide combat troops for the invasion of Iraq. It has since commanded a multinational division based in the south-central city of Diwaniya, now one of the most stable regions in the country. In that role, it has overseen the troops of at least a dozen countries and trained the Iraqi army’s 8th Division.
The deployment has cost Poland money and personnel, however, with 17 soldiers killed, 45 seriously wounded, and financial costs of about $600m – a high price for a country with a $6bn (€5bn, £3.5bn) defence budget.
And while the deployment has given Poland international prominence, Mr Sikorski has also attempted to use the decision to win more US military aid, making the push most recently in meetings at the Pentagon this month.
The US has already spent about $300m assisting the Polish mission. Because Poland does not have its own long-range military transports, the US helped fly Polish troops and ship equipment to Iraq. In theatre, the US has supplied fuel, food and occasionally trucks and other vehicles.
I have long argued for military assistance for Poland, not only as a reward for the nation’s willingness to sacrifice but also as an investment for the betterment of a friend that can be trusted in time of need. In February I blogged the following:
Military assistance is entirely appropriate for a country with a backbone and a willingness to stand along side its allies. Certainly, Poland and other coalition nations, particularly those whose militaries were shaped and equipped during the days of the Warsaw Pact, could stand to have some martial modernization.
In many ways, Poland was the first crack in the Iron Curtain. They are now placing themselves towards the forefront of nations to which America can turn to and see a true ally, along with the steadfast friends we have in the U.K. and Australia.