CZECH ON FUTURE OF IRAQ COALITION; POSSIBILITY OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L PRAGUE 000169

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2015
TAGS: MARR MOPS PREL IZ EZ NATO
SUBJECT: CZECH ON FUTURE OF IRAQ COALITION; POSSIBILITY OF
CONTRIBUTION TO NATO TRAINING MISSION

REF: A. STATE 15400


B. PRAGUE 111

Classified By: Political-Economic Counselor Michael Dodman for reasons
1.4 B+D


1. (C) Pol-Econ Counselor and DATT raised ref A points on
future of Iraq coalition with Czech MFA and MOD Security
Policy Departments. The Czechs welcomed the information
provided about current thinking on the coalition. They
noted, of course, that the Czech parliament had just approved
the extension through the end of 2005 of the Czech military
police forces training Iraqis near Basra under MNF-I (ref B).
They also noted the comments of Czech ForMin Svoboda on Jan
30 that Czech troops would remain in Iraq after 2005 if the
Iraqis indicated a need.


2. (C) While the legislation authorizing the extension calls
for the current Czech MP operation to move from MNF-I to the
NATO Training Mission-Iraq, it does not contain details about
when this should or must happen, only that this will take
place "in accordance with the NATO planning process." MOD
staff noted that the vagueness was intentional, in part
because there is no firm date for NTM-I Phase III to begin,
but also because they want to keep their options open. That
said, they made clear that the Czechs expect that their
existing MP operation will be rehatted under NTM-I (i.e.,
will remain in their current location). They reiterated
their previous assessment, based on discussion during last
month's voting, that the NATO aspect was critical to the easy
passage of the extension.


3. (C) In terms of the specific points raised in Ref A, MOD
and MFA staff both inquired about the plans for the Feb 22-23
Bucharest coalition conference (note: we now understand that
Czech Major General Emil Pupis, who overseas Czech foreign
deployments, will attend the Bucharest conference). They
looked forward to discussions in Bucharest and elsewhere on
the future of the coalition and the role that Czech troops
can play.


4. (C) We asked about possible Czech response to the NATO
SYG's call for NATO members not currently contributing to the
first stage of the NTM-I to urgently fill a fifty-man gap.
MFA staff indicated they were investigating whether the
recently passed resolution provided the GOCR the authority to
contribute to this mission. MOD suggested this authority may
exist, as the resolution authorizes "up to 100 troops" and
only 97 MPs are currently serving near Basra. They said the
GOCR wants to be responsive to the NATO request, there are
practical problems: the Czech Army wants to maintain the
three reserve slots in case emergency circumstances require
additional deployments to Basra; more important, the Czechs
are not sure that they have the sort of experts required for
the training envisioned in the first stage. But, MOD staff
made clear that while this is the staff consensus, Defense
Minister Kuehnl may decide to overrule their recommendation
and make a firm offer of Czech staff for NTM-I at the Nice
Ministerial.
CABANISS