IRAQ: ITALY TO CONTRIBUTE MORE CARABINIERI TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L ROME 001213 SIPDIS EUR/RPM FOR CHRIS DAVY E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/29/2018 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS NATO IT IZ SUBJECT: IRAQ: ITALY TO CONTRIBUTE MORE CARABINIERI TO NTM-I BUT UNCERTAIN ON BORDER SECURITY REF: STATE 99701 Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Barbara A. Leaf for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) ¶1. (C) Poloff delivered Reftel Demarche to Italian Political-Military Deputy Director Carlo Batori on September ¶19. He said he did not believe that the GOI would be prepared to announce any new commitments at the September 26 SHAPE manpower conference beyond what has already been announced (namely the planned addition of 16 Carabinieri trainers to the 40 currently conducting the INP training at Camp Dublin). ¶2. (C) He said that the Italian Guardia di Finanza (Financial/Customs Police),who sent representatives to Baghdad recently as part of the needs assessment team for the NTM-I Border Security proposal, have still not reported their conclusions to the MFA, so he could not yet say whether there would be an Italian contribution to the Border Security program. The Italians have already heard that there is a Turkish interest in leading the program, but he did not believe that the Guardia di Finanza would want to contribute trainers to a program led by another country. Like the Carabinieri, they prefer to design and implement their own programs, but would of course agree to go if the GOI pressed them. (Note: the GdF have led border and customs police training programs in the Balkans and Afghanistan, but are a smaller institution than the Carabinieri and have only a small cadre of deployable trainers available at any one time.) SPOGLI