U.N. To NATO: More Afghan Effort

NATO defense ministers struggled Monday to plug gaps in their peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, despite an appeal from the United Nations and warnings that failure could destroy alliance credibility.

"Governments must have the political will to deploy and to use (their) forces in much larger numbers than at present," said NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson.

"We must stay the course in Afghanistan … if we don't Afghanistan and its problems will appear on all of our doorsteps," Robertson told the meeting as he made an urgent appeal for more troops and helicopters for the NATO force there.

Despite the problems mustering troops for Afghanistan, Robertson and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed optimism the allies would come through.

"My estimate is that within a reasonable period of time (Robertson) will be able to encourage, persuade … NATO nations to provide the forces necessary," Rumsfeld told a news conference.

The failure to fully equip the NATO force of 5,700 in Kabul is preventing the alliance from making good on a pledge to the United Nations and Afghan authorities to expand the operation outside the capital.

Robertson has warned that a failure of the Afghan mission could "shatter" NATO's credibility and see the country again becoming a base for international terrorism.

He is demanding ministers offer over a dozen helicopters and around 400 specialist troops to the existing NATO force of 5,700 operating in Kabul.

Although the Netherlands tentatively offered three attack helicopters and other nations offered intelligence units and other specialists, the ministers did not fill all the shortfalls.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called Robertson over the weekend to appeal for more alliance troops, which are scheduled to gradually to fan out from the capital to provincial cities.

In the longer term, Rumsfeld suggested the alliance could further expand its operation in Afghanistan, perhaps eventually taking over the entire military mission.

Robertson suggested NATO may begin talks next year on a wider alliance role in Iraq too, perhaps taking charge of the central zone currently managed by Polish troops.

On Bosnia, the ministers agreed to cut the NATO-led peacekeeping force from 12,500 to 7,000 by March in a reflection of increased stability in the Balkan nation. The troop reduction is expected to be quickly followed by NATO ending the mission it launched in 1995, handing control to a European Union force of soldiers and police. About 3,000 Americans were in Bosnia as of last March.

The two-day meeting that opened Monday gave European allies a chance to discuss with Rumsfeld a plan agreed to last weekend to boost the EU's ability to mount its own military operations.

The latest EU plan modifies a French-German proposal to give the bloc its own headquarters, which Washington saw as a threat to NATO unity and waste of resources. Backed by Britain, the new plan would set up an EU planning cell at NATO's military headquarters in southern Belgium and add staff to an existing European strategic planning unit in Brussels.

Rumsfeld's first reaction was cautious. "I'm confident and hopeful that things will sort through in a way that we end up with an arrangement that is not duplicative or competitive" with NATO, he said

Two years after the fall of the Taliban, there are still around 11,600 U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan trying to track down anti-government forces. The international peacekeepers under NATO command number about 5,500.

Tension in Kabul is high ahead of a meeting of hundreds of Afghan delegates to ratify a new constitution and pave the way for elections scheduled for next June. There are worries about the re-emergence of Taliban guerillas, the power of regional warlords and burgeoning drug production.

U.S. and Afghan officials on Monday inaugurated a new joint military-civilian reconstruction mission in western Afghanistan, part of an effort to bring stability to the country's troubled provinces.

About 60 U.S. troops are being deployed in the city of Herat to foster security and carry out relief projects in four western provinces close to Afghanistan's borders with Iran and Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, in Washington, just three days after President Bush returned from a surprise trip to Baghdad, his wife Laura disclosed that she is considering a trip to Afghanistan next spring. She said: "I'd really like to go. I hope I'll have a chance."