Poland Bids for U.S. Aid to Stay in Terror War

Poland’s new defense minister on Friday suggested that additional U.S. aid would be a crucial factor in determining whether to continue playing an active role in the war on terrorism.

A day before heading to Washington, Defense Minister Radek Sikorski said meetings with top U.S. military officials would help Poland reach a decision within the next few weeks on whether to keep its 1,500 soldiers in central Iraq or stick to the last government’s plan to bring them home in January.

Sikorski said the war on terrorism had strained the resources of this country of 39 million, which is still emerging from communism and is struggling to deal with the burdens of being a NATO member.

“We’ve invested a lot of energy ... in the mission and we certainly want to end it with success,” Sikorski said. “By success, I mean handing over our sector of responsibility to a democratically elected Iraqi government ... and I think they are actually pretty close to success.”

He said the Iraq mission had cost Poland $600 million -- 10% of its annual defense budget.

“Whereas our army has increased its readiness and we are proud to have participated in an operation to help to stabilize Iraq, to bring democracy in Iraq, we could have modernized our forces faster with those funds,” Sikorski said.