LONDON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- When the U.N.-mandated multinational security force for Afghanistan was first proposed last month, there was talk of strong participation by Islamic countries, including Jordan , Malaysia, Turkey and Bangladesh. But the 5,000-strong International Security Assistance Force that has taken shape is overwhelmingly European, leading to criticism that the European Union hijacked the ISAF as a dry run for the planned EU rapid reaction force,
This was the view of Art Eggleton, Canada's defense minister. When his offer of some 1,000 troops for Kabul was turned down by the British organizers of ISAF, he remarked: "A number of European countries said, 'Well, this is a European Union kind of mission.' So I think quite clearly European politics became a part of this decision-making process."
As a result, about 750 Canadian soldiers will instead go to Kandahar to support U.S. forces.
Eighteen European nations will send contingents to Kabul to maintain security. True, there is Turkey, Europe's only Muslim country. But for the purposes of the ISAF, NATO-member Turkey is considered European.
As representatives from ISAF signed up formally to their contribution at a meeting in Britain's Ministry of Defense Thursday night, Canada's charge put the British government on the defensive. British Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon in the House of Commons denied that the EU had deliberately limited the ISAF to European units -- but not before British Conservative Party defense spokesman Bernard Jenkin repeated and expanded on Eggleton's criticism.
Jenkin quoted two German press reports in December that overall command of ISAF was awaiting overall European Union approval, and another that suggested the ISAF procedure was being done at the expense of NATO. In December the Belgian foreign minister declared this would be the first effort of a European force.
"This has unnecessarily upset the Canadians," Jenkin told Hoon.
Added another Conservative Party source: "I am concerned that perception becomes reality. I don't want to see a situation where perception is that the North Americans stick together on their operations, and the Europeans on theirs. This is not a good precedent." The United States will not contribute troops to ISAF, but the U.S. commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, will have overall command of it.
Wednesday night's agreement for the 18 nations was as follows:
BRITAIN: 1,800 troops. Force headquarters, brigade HQ, an infantry battlegroup, explosive ordnance demolition (EOD) and others. AUSTRIA, 30 troops, infantry; BELGIUM, 50 plus, air transport ; BULGARIA, 10, mobile bath and laundry unit; DENMARK, 10, explosive ordnance; FINLAND, 30, liaison and civil-military coordination. FRANCE, 550, headquarters staff, battalion HQ, infantry company and others. GERMANY, 800 plus, light infantry battalion, medical, air transport, helicopters, others.
GREECE, 100, engineers, air transport; ITALY, 300 plus, infantry, engineers, others; NETHERLANDS, 10, infantry, air transport; NEW ZEALAND, 20, HQ, support; NORWAY, 30, EOD, support; PORTUGAL, 20, medical; ROMANIA, 30, military police, air transport; SPAIN, 300, EOD, engineers, support, helicopters; SWEDEN, 40, general; TURKEY, 100 plus, HQ staff, infantry company, others.
A clearly irritated Hoon blasted Jenkin as having a "continuing obsession with all things European" and making a "cheap point" about Europe. ISAF was simply the most practical force available for deployment in the least amount of time, he said.
He called it a "coalition of the willing" in which the offers of a number of countries, not just Canada, didn't work out for one practical reason or another. Canada, he said, offered a complex battlegroup which duplicated forces already being planned.
Other defense sources said Jordanian forces could not be accepted because they would take too long to organize. It does have a military hospital at Mazar-i-Sharif, however. Argentina has certain domestic problems of its own right now, and Malaysian troops were just too poorly equipped for the Afghan winter.
"The Canadian military have been entirely content with this," said one senior British officer. "Turkey also offered a battlegroup of similar size. We were offered 12,000 infantry, but the requirement is only for 1,200. We asked the Canadians if they could send us 200 engineers, but they didn't want to do it piecemeal. They wanted to come for a six-month deployment, whereas we're only there for three months."
The British hinted that Canadian politicians knew in advance their offer of 1,200 troops would not be acceptable and that they would get more publicity by attaching an entire battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry to Kandahar, where they would be part of a more aggressive anti-terrorist campaign under U.S. Central Command.
But a perception persists that the line-up of ISAF forces suits European politicians very well, particularly with the EU's 60,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force due to be declared operational -- in name if not fact -- by the end of this year. When asked to comment on the quip "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck -- then it's a duck" in relation to the charges of an EU political fix, a senior British officer smiled and did not reply.
The British plan is to have initial operational capability of ISAF declared by the last week of January. There are currently about 750 ISAF troops based at Bagram airfield, 500 of them British. A lead company of Britain's 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment has just arrived and most of the rest of the battalion, including about 120 Gurkhas, are expected by the middle of next week. The Gurkhas, while part of the British Army, are expected to be popular with the Afghans because they are Asians from a nearby country, Nepal.
The force is slow in gathering because of aircraft restrictions into Bagram. All aircraft are under the control of U.S. Central Command, which has a "desired order" of planes to arrive at the base. With the Americans still conducting offensive operations against al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban, and almost every bit of ammunition, fuel and food having to be flown in, assembling the force is taking more time than planned.
Britain has, however, moved 300 airfield experts to Kabul International Airport, which is much closer to Kabul and has far better roads to the capital. British officials said the airport should be opened by the end of next week, doubling the number of planes able to serve the capital.
According to the plan, most British troops will leave the country by April 30, and are expected to hand control over to Turkey for the second half of the six month ISAF deployment mandated by the United Nations.
Exactly how the ISAF will handle problems in their joint patrolling with Afghan security forces, however, remains open to question. The Conservative's Jenkin, questioning Hoon in Parliament Thursday, cited a sourced British newspaper report -- unconfirmed by the Ministry of Defense -- that one British patrol had already stood by doing nothing while an Afghan woman was stoned for adultery.
"These are difficult issues that are best resolved there, not here," said one senior defense official. "You might not like what you see, but this is their country and you don't want to put yourself in a position where you end up being stoned yourself ... We are invited there, we are working with the grain. There will be all sorts of situations like this. I think we have had a lot of experience of things like this around the world."
