Quotes of the Day

Wanted: troops to patrol Iraq. experience thwarting terrorist attacks and guerrilla insurgencies a plus, but not required. Political control remains with U.S. Those seeking broad U.N. mandate strongly discouraged. Apply to G.W. Bush, The White House, Washington, D.C. Sound like an offer you can't refuse? France, Germany and some others in so-called old Europe didn't think so — they're having no difficulty staying out of postwar Iraq as long as the U.S. remains the top authority there. Last week a top State Department official suggested that Washington might consider a United Nations-sponsored multinational force as long as it was led by an American commander. That trial balloon was proof that an overburdened U.S. hasn't entirely given up on luring old Europe aboard. And success isn't out of the question: a TIME/CNN poll last week found that 62% of French citizens surveyed would support their troops being sent to Iraq; 44% of Germans questioned would support a deployment of German soldiers. Nothing of the kind will happen, though, without delicate negotiations to calibrate a level of American control acceptable to Paris and Berlin. But in the meantime, some help is on the way.

This week, some 10,000 soldiers from more than 20 countries — many of them in "new Europe," that loose amalgam of young, hungry, former Soviet-bloc states planning to join the E.U., and those in the West who are uncomfortable with the Gaullist tilt of the Franco-German axis — will be fully mustered in Iraq under the command of Polish General Andrzej Tyszkiewicz to help the Yanks and Brits shoulder what looks like a long and hazardous occupation. Serving alongside 2,300 Polish soldiers will be 1,600 soldiers from Ukraine, 1,300 from Spain, 470 from Bulgaria, 300 from Hungary, 220 from Romania and 100 from Latvia, as well as about 1,200 from countries in Central America. The Multinational Division Central South will control — nominally, at least — 80,000 sq km and 3 million people in south-central Iraq.

Will the force make a difference? The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza called it "Babel in Babylon." Common military doctrine, equipment, even a shared language in this disparate "coalition of the willing" won't be possible. The numbers are a drop in the bucket compared to the 150,000 troops already deployed by the Americans, and don't pack the wallop of the 10,500 British troops. NATO is organizing the headquarters and communications. The Americans will provide airlift, sealift, training and equipment to many of the troops, and cold cash to make the whole thing work. And the folks back home in many contributing countries are actively hostile. So what's the point?

First, it's a start: the beginning of what the Americans hope will become a larger contingent. Second: politics, of course. Helping to share the heavy load seems a smart business move to many governments — because Uncle Sam is willing to make some sweet deals to dispel the impression that the U.S. and U.K. are stranded. "The biggest advantage is to demonstrate the U.S. is not alone," says a senior U.S. intelligence official. "If all the promises materialize, it will still be only one-fifth of the U.S. forces deployed there."

America's needs are creating big opportunities for some unlikely allies. Take Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. A year ago, Washington might have viewed him as an apprentice member of the axis of evil. The U.S. believed he had approved the sale of a sophisticated air-defense system to Saddam, and he was publicly accused of ordering the kidnapping and murder of a crusading journalist. Washington gave public support to thousands of demonstrators who demanded Kuchma quit last September. That was then; now Washington has another view. In February, Ukraine sent a 448-strong chemical-defense battalion to join coalition forces in Kuwait, and Americans are training the Ukrainians now deploying in Iraq. The first group flew out on Aug. 7. And criticism from Washington about Ukraine's corruption and democratic deficit has all but vanished.

For Poland, the country in charge, the mission — its largest military deployment since World War II — is seen as a declaration of the country's arrival as a power to be reckoned with. Even though a July poll showed 55% of Poles are opposed, the National Assembly overwhelmingly supported the mission as a matter of national prestige. "It's giving our armed forces a new esprit de corps," says a Defense Ministry official. "People realize it's a big challenge and a big opportunity for us to show we can handle a responsibility that hasn't been offered to many other, stronger NATO nations. We are moving into a closer circle of allies, whom the U.S. really trusts as military partners."

Slovakia, sending 85 experts at disposing of mines and weapons, is also expecting a prestige boost. "We want to have credibility," asserts Milan Vanga, a Defense Ministry spokesman. But credibility that may be purchased in blood provokes some disquiet. "Hopefully, after the Yankees are gone, the locals will not understand that we are few and weak," a Bulgarian soldier now based in Karbala told a reporter for Trud, Bulgaria's largest daily. "This is my first mission and I am already scared." That concern is not limited to Central Europe. In Japan in July, Diet members attached to its pacifist tradition came to blows with those who ultimately won a precedent-shattering vote to authorize putting Japanese troops into Iraq without a U.N. mandate. And in Spain, Prime Minister José María Aznar accused opposition leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of "laying his hopes on the coffins of Spanish soldiers" to prove that Spain's involvement is unwise.

But despite the death of Spanish naval captain Manuel Martín-Oar, 56, in last month's bombing of the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters, the Spanish public remains quiet — and Aznar, like other leaders, hasn't budged. If anything, politicians in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic say, the suicide attack strengthened their resolve. The first of 400 Danish soldiers sent to Iraq in July was killed last month, but Denmark has no plans to remove its forces. That determination could fade if Iraq claims large numbers of European lives. The day after an attack on Czech vehicles on Aug. 10, Czech Defense Minister Miroslav Kostelka said, "If the situation were suddenly and sharply to worsen, it is possible that measures would be taken that would involve at least some of the personnel being withdrawn."

In some places, such as Karbala, forces are thin to begin with. Bulgarian troops now charged with patrolling that holy city will do so with less than half the manpower that the Americans committed to that task. Politicians in new Europe have plenty to worry about. Polish troops took mortar fire in Karbala last week, and in Sofia the government is already worried that it may soon have to send more soldiers, putting an onerous burden on the country's strapped finances.

France and Germany agree that Iraq would profit from more international peacekeepers — but only if the U.N. replaces the U.S. in running the show, which Washington still won't countenance. France has drawn up contingency plans for sending 8,000 to 10,000 troops, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman says, "We will not go to Iraq without a precise mandate from the U.N." Asked if France would want to go if it had the mandate, he doesn't say yes: "Let's first define the mandate." German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has ruled out sending his soldiers, not only because the U.N. isn't in charge but because Germany lacks the manpower: it already has some 9,000 troops on duty in Afghanistan and the Balkans and needs three times that many to fulfill the military's other missions, while also rotating troops regularly back home.

Paris and Berlin know that Washington is sending them a message by relying on Poland to run the occupation zone, signaling it can find allies from the upstarts of new Europe, and perhaps even make good its veiled threat to move its big NATO bases eastward. But anxiety over this prospect is largely outweighed by quiet, even smug, confidence that the U.S. won't be able to transform its motley Iraq coalition from political window dressing into real military heft. "Altogether we're not talking about anything but modest numbers of troops, and frankly they're not the greatest," says Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris think tank. "If this is all the new Europe has to offer, I assure you there is no sense of nervousness in the French government. Power is based on capacity, and I'm sorry, these countries just don't have it." Some officials in the German Defense Ministry have similar disdain for the multinational forces, says Frank Umbach of the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, but "this is inappropriate, since Germany too has problems with its armed forces."

Because occupation is labor intensive, the U.S. is seeking much bigger commitments than the 10,000 troops now arriving or the perhaps 20,000 more already pledged (the Pentagon won't break down who has promised what). India and Pakistan have so far refused major contingents, but the pressure is still on. Turkey has reportedly been asked for 10,000 to be sent to areas outside Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, where they would be resented, but anti-Americanism has been powerful since the Iraq war and the Turkish government isn't sure it can swing the votes, and won't risk it before October. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee that the number of foreign troops "had to be higher" or the U.S. won't be able to cut its own forces in Iraq for months or years to come. But without a U.N. mandate, it's hard to see old Europe helping — especially since leaders are talking about sending more forces to Afghanistan to speed up reconstruction before elections in June.

Elbows are flying on many transatlantic military disputes. The U.S. is angry that Britain and France proposed in February that the E.U. take over NATO's mission in Bosnia without consulting first, which it sees as part of a creeping French-led effort to build a European military force separate from NATO. Washington also worries that the "all for one, one for all" defense clause in the draft E.U. constitution will undercut NATO. Until it becomes clearer just how far Bush is willing to go toward giving the U.N. a bigger role in Iraq, many politicians on both sides of the Atlantic point to NATO as a route to compromise: an organization that combines military power with political legitimacy, though still under American primacy, to more or less satisfy all concerned. If the U.S. really does want others to share a significant burden in Iraq, NATO is likely to be its best vehicle, with real military assets and plenty of soldiers; even superpowers have to compromise to get others to do unpalatable things. But that puts NATO's old European members at the wheel — and the question of a U.N. blessing for the voyage still shimmering on the horizon, just out of reach.

• J.F.O. McALLISTER
• A multi-national force sets up in Iraq, including troops from 12 European countries.