France blocks U.S. on elite force for Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29218594.htm

ISTANBUL, June 29 (Reuters) - France has blocked a U.S. bid to deploy NATO's new strike force to safeguard Afghanistan's elections, stoking tension between the two allies that fell out over the Iraq war, diplomats said on Tuesday.

"France, and to a lesser extent others such as Spain, are suspicious about using the NATO Response Force (NRF)," said one envoy at the alliance summit in Istanbul.

"It says the force is not ready for this kind of environment and should not be used simply as a sticking plaster for troop shortages on routine operations."

France's opposition to a proposal that could help resolve NATO's problems finding troops to make the September polls safe exasperated U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who pushed the idea hard at a meeting of allied defence ministers.

more...Back to the Freedom Fries I guess?

[ugarte]

1. 'Exasperated...Donald Rumsfeld'...

Oh, no, we wouldn't want that.

[MattNC]

2. there are plenty of other troops available

I agree with France on this one. While I support sending more troops to Afghanistan, we do not need elite units acting as nothing more than policemen. There are several NATO countries that could provide the requested troop presence, so I'd like to see a country such as Turkey - while already playing a major role in ISAF - step up to the plate and offer something like the 10,000 troops it did for Iraq to go to Afghanistan. I know it had more self-interest to consider with Iraq, but I think deploying those kind of troops to Afghanistan would go a long way possibly in further shoring up EU support.