Iraq

Bush sees no NATO soldiers for Iraq

SAVANNAH, Ga. - President Bush closed a three-day summit of the world's wealthiest industrialized nations Thursday saying he does not expect NATO to send troops to Iraq, but hopes the alliance will agree to train Iraqi security forces.

He said his two-day G-8 summit with seven major allies was a success, despite lingering divisions over issues ranging from postwar Iraq to encouraging democratic reforms in the Middle East.

Bush hailed the beginning of a new partnership on Iraq with allies who had opposed the war. But he came away from the Sea Island summit with no specifics on assistance and with a parting attack from French President Jacques Chirac, who publicly differed with Bush on several key issues.

Bush appeared upbeat after two days of meetings with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain.

He said he suggested to the other leaders that NATO could play a larger role in Iraq by training Iraqi troops, not by sending more troops. For many months the Bush administration has explored whether more NATO troops for Iraq might be obtainable, but opposition from France, Germany and other NATO members made the idea a nonstarter, so Bush aimed lower at the G-8 summit.

"That's an unrealistic expectation. Nobody is suggesting that," Bush said of NATO's sending more troops to Iraq. "What we are suggesting is for NATO to help train. That would come at the request of the Iraqi government. I found a common spirit of wanting to help Iraq progress and become a peaceful country."

But Chirac referred to the Iraq war, which Bush has said liberated Iraqis from a tyrant, as "shameful in every sense of the word." He reminded reporters that he had opposed the effort "and my opinion has not changed."

Chirac also said France believes that it would be unfair to other debt-burdened nations to forgive more than 50 percent of Iraq's estimated $120-billion in debt. The United States has pushed for nations to forgive nearly all of Iraq's debt, arguing that the step must be taken to avoid crippling the new government with debt repayments.

Chirac's sharp comments cast doubt on Bush's upbeat assessment of the summit as the place where the United States and the war's opponents - France, Germany, Russia and Canada among them - agreed to bury the past.

Bush will get two more chances this month to push for concrete help. On June 25 and 26, he plans to attend a U.S.-European Union summit in Ireland, where Iraq and Mideast peacemaking will dominate the agenda, followed by a NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey, where Bush hopes to find out just how much help the alliance is prepared to offer the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq.

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