Polish Troops
On Parade
Poland To Extend Stay Of Polish Troops In Iraq
Classified Polnews
Warsaw, Poland - 26 November, 2007 The new Polish Government will extend stay of Poland's troops on their current mission in Iraq for almost another year and may agree to keeping troops beyond 2008 working in a different form. Poland has already exceeded its committment and is committing to more.
Poland had announced a withdrawal of its 1500 troops by the beginning of 2006. But that did not happen.
Elections changed things. After he was elected, President Lech Kaczynski said that he would withdraw only 600 troops and keep the remaining 900 in Iraq until sometime in 2006. He said they might even stay until sometime in 2007. "I hope that in the general course of changes in Iraq, they won't be necessary," he said. "We could extend it for a period. I do not exclude it as a possibility, but it would only be for a short time."
As part of that extension, he looked for the United States to reward Poland with, among other things, increased trade and military aid. See article on web site of http://www.president.pl/x.node?id=3542657 President Of Poland.
The Tusk Government now supports an extension of that mission until the end of 2008. And troops may remain in Iraq longer since Tusk carefully said that he wanted to troops to end their operations in their current form by the end of 2008.
The western press and anti-bush critics have ballyhooed that Poland is getting out of Iraq as some major shift in Polish policy and ignored both the history of Poland's committment of troops and the finer points made by Tusk. Their writings are little more than reflections of their agendas and wishful thinking.
Tusk and his people clearly said that if elected they expected that they would not withdraw troops until late 2008. That was an extension of Poland's committment that was only until late 2007.
Tusk has also left himself significant wiggle room by adding that troops would end their mission in the current form by 2008.
In any case it was a minor election issue with the vote being turned in Tusk's favor by the younger ant-Kaczynski voters whose motivations were well beyond being single issue on Iraq.
Tusk was quite correct in stating that Poland has far exceeded its original committment. At the same time, he goal to keep troops there through 2008 increases that excess.
Opinion polls show that many Poles feel their backing of the United States has not paid off as much as they would like. Perhaps by extending the stay for another year will get Poland more from the United States.
Any extensions will require agreement between President Kaczynski who is the Commander In Chief of the Polish Armed Forces. The President cannot unilaterally extend the mission. So Tusk and Kaczynski will have to work together to see if what they can get from the United States makes it politically rewarding for them to extend the stay in its current form.
What continuing in a different form means has not been specifically defined.
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