NATO to Boost Training Effort

NATO members Wednesday approved detailed plans to send as many as 300 military instructors backed by hundreds of guards and support staff to Iraq in an expansion of the alliance’s military training program.

The approval sets up a meeting of officers from the 26 allies next week at NATO’s military headquarters in southern Belgium to muster troops for the mission, which would run a military academy outside Baghdad for Iraqi officers.

Alliance commanders want to have the expanded mission operating before the end of the year.

But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top general said the refusal of nations such as France and Germany to allow their troops to participate was causing difficulties.

German Gen. Harald Kujat, chairman of NATO’s military committee, said he did not expect difficulties in raising troops for the initial deployment. But he said some nations’ refusal to allow their NATO officers to participate could cause longer-term problems.

NATO’s top operational commander, U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, has said 16 of the 26 allies have agreed to join the operation, which aims to train about 1,000 officers a year.

Opponents of the Iraq war, including France, Germany and Belgium, have said they will not send troops to Iraq, though they have offered to help with training Iraqi forces outside the country.