CAnnoneer
Member
Well, isn't that nice?
600mil/1.5k = 400k per soldier. They must be real good!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051202/ap_on_re_eu/poland_us_iraq
By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 4 minutes ago
Poland Says Iraq Mission Strains Budget
WARSAW, Poland - 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 terror.
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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 whether to keep its 1,500 soldiers in central Iraq or stick to the last government's plan to bring them home next month.
Sikorski, however, said the war on terror has 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.
President Bush, meanwhile, faces increasing pressure from critics. The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is also facing obstacles, with Bulgaria and Ukraine to begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops this month, and six other countries, including Poland, considering bringing their soldiers home.
"We've invested a lot of energy — both blood and treasure and government attention, and political capital — 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 has cost Poland $600 million — 10 percent of the country's annual defense budget — money that could have gone to modernizing the military, as NATO requires. He indicated that Poland could use U.S. help as it modernizes, but would not say whether an extension of Poland's mission in Iraq was directly contingent upon it.
"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 told The Associated Press.
Sikorski, the first member of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz's new government to travel to the United States, has close ties to the Bush administration and hopes to build upon the strong relationship the previous government developed with Washington.
Marcinkiewicz's socially conservative government took office on Nov. 10 after defeating the center-left government of Prime Minister Marek Belka.
Sikorski worked until earlier this year at the American Enterprise Institute, the same conservative Washington think tank as Vice President Dick Cheney's wife.
Still, he said the new government, seen as strongly pro-U.S., also wants to maintain good ties with Europe.
Sikorski, speaking in fluent English at a Defense Ministry office in Warsaw, also referred to a plan, still provisional, for Poland to take command of the entire NATO operation in Afghanistan next year, suggesting that without U.S. aid, Poland could not afford it.
"Poland has proved itself as an ally, as an ally that the U.S. has been able to count on in times of need," said Sikorski, who is scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday. "So we would like to be in a position to be helpful in the future as well — but it depends on whether we can actually do it."
600mil/1.5k = 400k per soldier. They must be real good!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051202/ap_on_re_eu/poland_us_iraq
By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 4 minutes ago
Poland Says Iraq Mission Strains Budget
WARSAW, Poland - 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 terror.
ADVERTISEMENT
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 whether to keep its 1,500 soldiers in central Iraq or stick to the last government's plan to bring them home next month.
Sikorski, however, said the war on terror has 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.
President Bush, meanwhile, faces increasing pressure from critics. The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is also facing obstacles, with Bulgaria and Ukraine to begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops this month, and six other countries, including Poland, considering bringing their soldiers home.
"We've invested a lot of energy — both blood and treasure and government attention, and political capital — 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 has cost Poland $600 million — 10 percent of the country's annual defense budget — money that could have gone to modernizing the military, as NATO requires. He indicated that Poland could use U.S. help as it modernizes, but would not say whether an extension of Poland's mission in Iraq was directly contingent upon it.
"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 told The Associated Press.
Sikorski, the first member of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz's new government to travel to the United States, has close ties to the Bush administration and hopes to build upon the strong relationship the previous government developed with Washington.
Marcinkiewicz's socially conservative government took office on Nov. 10 after defeating the center-left government of Prime Minister Marek Belka.
Sikorski worked until earlier this year at the American Enterprise Institute, the same conservative Washington think tank as Vice President Dick Cheney's wife.
Still, he said the new government, seen as strongly pro-U.S., also wants to maintain good ties with Europe.
Sikorski, speaking in fluent English at a Defense Ministry office in Warsaw, also referred to a plan, still provisional, for Poland to take command of the entire NATO operation in Afghanistan next year, suggesting that without U.S. aid, Poland could not afford it.
"Poland has proved itself as an ally, as an ally that the U.S. has been able to count on in times of need," said Sikorski, who is scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday. "So we would like to be in a position to be helpful in the future as well — but it depends on whether we can actually do it."
