WASHINGTON, 20 March 2004 — President George W. Bush’s prized “coalition of the willing” — the three dozen countries that are contributing military forces in Iraq — appears suddenly to be losing some of its will.
First Spain said it was getting out, then Poland threatened to leave early, and yesterday the South Korean Ministry of Defense announced that it will not send its troops to the area of Iraq that US commanders had requested, although it said it would position them elsewhere in Iraq.
The coalition may not be crumbling, but neither is it gaining the political traction that the Pentagon had hoped for as it tackles the difficult task of finding fresh forces for the Iraq mission in 2005 and beyond.
Yesterday, the national security adviser to President Aleksander Kwasniewski said the Polish leader told Bush that Polish troops will stay in Iraq “as long as needed, plus one day longer.”
Those comments came one day after Kwasniewski said Polish troops might leave Iraq months earlier than planned and that Poland had been misled over Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction arsenal. Kwasniewski pledged to keep the troops in Iraq in a phone call by Bush to mark the anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the adviser, Marek Siwiec, told reporters.
In an unannounced visit to Iraq yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell, said: “It’s no time for civilized nations to run and hide.”
“Terrorism existed in many parts of the world before this war,” Powell said, referring to the Iraq war which has been criticized both by Spain and Poland.
A remark by a senior US defense official that Spanish bullfighting culture showed the Spaniards are brave and should not respond to the Madrid terror bombings by pulling their troops out of Iraq seems to have dented relations further.
From a fire station to a restaurant brimming with bullfighting paraphernalia, Spaniards saw the remark on Thursday by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as narrow-minded and promoting a stereotype.
“This is an ignorant comment,” snapped Juan Carlos Yunquera, a Madrid firefighter enjoying a warm afternoon on a bench outside his firehouse. “For a top official, it shows he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Yunquera, who heard the American official’s remarks on the radio, pointed out that Spaniards overwhelmingly opposed the war in Iraq, even as Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar joined President Bush’s coalition.
Carlota Duce, a waitress at a restaurant, said she had no use for such comments. “It’s drivel,” she said above the strumming of flamenco guitar on the stereo. “There is absolutely no comparison between bullfighting and Spain pulling out of Iraq.”
Oliver Iglesias, a waiter at the Retinto, said there was a kernel of truth in Wolfowitz’s words. “We are indeed very brave,” he said. “But no one here likes the war in Iraq. And there’s a big difference between killing a bull and killing a person.”
Wolfowitz’s comments even seemed to ruffle the feathers of Gustavo de Aristegui, a legislator and spokesman in Parliament for Aznar’s Popular Party.
“A top-ranking politician should be more careful about the remarks he makes, and that’s all I’m going to say about Mr. Wolfowitz,” Aristegui said in a phone interview.
