U.S. Asks NATO for Assistance in Iraq War

WASHINGTON —  WASHINGTON -- The United States on Wednesday formally requested military assistance from NATO in the event of a war with Iraq, as the Pentagon stepped up preparations for an invasion.

U.S. military leaders also moved to begin training Iraqi exiles who want to join in any campaign against Saddam Hussein.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the U.S. asked the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to provide Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft and other support, but he would not elaborate.

Officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels said the request included access to airspace, bases, ports and refueling facilities, none involving direct involvement by the 19-nation alliance in any attack on Iraq.

NATO sources said the allies were asked to deploy the AWACS aircraft and Patriot missiles to protect alliance member Turkey, a possible base for any U.S.-led airstrikes, from Iraqi missile or air attack. The request also included using standing naval forces and minesweepers, the NATO officials said.

NATO officials called the preparations “prudent defense and contingency planning.”

As part of the planning for a campaign against Iraq, hundreds of Iraqi exiles have been told by the Pentagon to gather at sites in the U.S. and Europe this month to be flown to an air base in Taszar, Hungary, in early February for training by American military forces.

It is the largest known U.S. effort to train Hussein’s enemies since passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which called for his overthrow and authorized $97 million to train and equip his opponents.

The training is going to be “real basic training so they could potentially fit in with some U.S. units and provide assistance with language skills, perhaps, or local knowledge and so forth,” said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Myers did not say how many are in the first group of trainees or where they are gathering before the training. Other U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that as many as 3,000 volunteers are expected to take part. Myers did not rule out the possibility that some of the recruits could be used in combat positions.

Myers said several hundred U.S. Army trainers, led by Maj. Gen. David W. Barno, arrived in Hungary late last week. He said the training was planned with the cooperation of the Hungarian Defense Ministry.

Involving Iraqi opposition groups in any campaign against Hussein has been controversial in Washington because of their inability to present a unified front and U.S. fears that their ranks have been infiltrated by Baghdad.

Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen prepared to deploy to the Persian Gulf region.

Seven Navy ships will leave Southern California on Friday with 6,000 Marines and 4,000 sailors bound for the Persian Gulf. The ships are the Boxer, Bonhomme Richard, Cleveland, Dubuque, Anchorage, Comstock and Pearl Harbor.

And at Ft. Bragg, N.C., military intelligence and artillery units began to move out on deployment orders they received over the weekend.

Rumsfeld said the request to NATO was made in the same spirit as the current deployments of troops to the Persian Gulf -- deliberative planning.

“We have to begin with the fact that the president has made no decision on the use of force, but it does take time to plan, and just as we’re planning with individual countries, it seemed appropriate, to the extent NATO wished to, to begin that planning process,” Rumsfeld said.

Visiting Brussels, Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.), the head of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, said the United States might also seek a peacekeeping role for the alliance in a post-Hussein Iraq.

“It’s potentially possible that NATO would have a role in peace enforcement, perhaps even governance, until a new Iraqi administration is able to run the country,” he told reporters.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.