NATO struggles as global cop

If this week's NATO summit in Istanbul offers only help in training Iraqi troops, rather than sending actual soldiers, it will be less of a rebuff to Washington than a sign of how hard the Western alliance is finding its new role as global policeman.

Two years after deciding to extend its reach beyond Europe and the North Atlantic, NATO is unable to match its ambitions with effective firepower, alliance leaders acknowledge, calling its credibility into doubt.

"NATO's political clout is directly related to its military competence," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said recently, complaining that member states are not coming up with the men and machines the alliance needs to do its job.

Nowhere is that clearer than in Afghanistan, the other country topping the summit agenda, where NATO has been struggling for months to assemble a few thousand soldiers to meet its promise to help provide security for September's elections.

"If the elections don't take place because of insecurity, or if they ... are not free and fair, the blame will rest squarely on the heads of the US and its NATO allies," said Sam Zarifi, an official with Human Rights Watch. "The Istanbul summit is NATO's last real chance to show that it takes its responsibilities toward the people of Afghanistan seriously."

At their two-day summit starting Monday, NATO leaders are expected to pledge the alliance's help in training Iraqi soldiers and policemen, as requested last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

NATO ambassadors in Brussels "reached an initial agreement to respond positively to the request of the Iraqi interim government for assistance with the training of its security forces," Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement Saturday.

Even France and Germany, the most outspoken European opponents of the war in Iraq, have signed on to the plan. After meeting US President George Bush in Ireland Saturday, European Union leaders promised they would "support the training and equipping of professional Iraqi security forces, capable of assuming increasing responsibility for the country's security."

It was unclear, however, where the training would be done, or exactly what role NATO would play in it. Germany, for example, has said it will send no troops into Iraq, but seems ready to extend a training program it runs already in nearby Gulf countries.

Washington had initially hoped for a fresh influx of NATO troops to help US soldiers try to keep the peace in Iraq, but lukewarm or hostile reactions to that idea from US allies killed that idea.

Though 16 of NATO's 26 members have sent some soldiers to Iraq, the organization as such plays a limited role there, providing logistical support to a Polish-led division in central Iraq.

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