Georgia eyes troop rise to protect U.N. officials

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Georgia is actively considering a major increase in its troop deployment in Iraq to protect U.N. officials working on the country's political transition, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said in an interview yesterday.

The Georgian offer comes at a welcome time for the strapped U.S.-led mission in Iraq, which faces renewed violence and the imminent pullout of troops by Spain and other members of the international coalition.

Mr. Zhvania, on a five-day trip to the United States, which included meetings with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior U.S. officials, said the troop offer was in part a recognition of the dangers posed by international terrorism and in part an expression of support for a U.S. government that provided critical support in Georgia's peaceful "Rose Revolution" that ousted longtime leader Eduard Shevardnadze late last year.

"For us, the partnership with America is the most critical relationship we have," Mr. Zhvania said in the interview at the Willard InterContinental hotel with reporters and editors of The Washington Times.

Georgia, he said, "is one of the best success stories of American foreign policy," citing long-term U.S. support for civil society and democracy activists in the country.

"The money and the investment over all those years in our country was not wasted," he added.

The decision by Spain's new center-left government to complete a full troop withdrawal from Iraq by May 27, followed quickly by similar announcements from Honduras and the Dominican Republic, has fed fears of mass defections from the U.S.-led military mission in Iraq.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told parliament yesterday that troops from the Plus Ultra II brigade, Spain's core force in Iraq since last year, had pulled out and that the only forces remaining were support and logistics troops who would carry out the withdrawal.

A Spanish government source said Spain will ask antiwar allies Germany and France to join in a proposal calling for a U.S. exit from Iraq and a new international presence in the country.

"The idea is to see if Spain, France and Germany can help the United States find an exit from Iraq ... and devise a formula for an international presence there that would not be perceived as an occupation by most of the population," the source said.

But several critical allies in addition to Georgia appeared to be holding firm.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters on a trip to London yesterday that Italy's troops will remain in Iraq, and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made the same pledge in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

"We have started this mission, we intend to carry on," Mr. Berlusconi said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, appearing with the Italian leader, said his country has sufficient troops in Iraq for the time being but left the door open to boosting its 7,500-strong force -- the second-largest after the United States -- to make up for the departing Spanish force.

Marek Belka, the man tapped to be Poland's next prime minister, said in Warsaw yesterday that Polish troops, who command the multinational force in south-central Iraq, will be staying, although he acknowledged that pressure was building domestically for a "road map" for an eventual withdrawal from the country.

• This article was based in part on wire service reports.