Liberators of ‘concentration camp Iraq’ promise to preserve close links with US

Date: 11/09/03

Poland's decision to deploy 2,200 troops in Iraq puts the country among the US' top allies. But, as David Cronin reports from Krynica, the pro-White House mood could quickly evaporate if the Poles sustain casualties

VODKA and whisky are flowing as the band brings The Sound of Silence, an old Simon and Garfunkel favourite, to its maudlin close. A few moments later Christopher Hill, the US envoy to Poland, makes his excuses and leaves his guests to tuck into a lavish buffet. It is a dreary evening as he heads towards a waiting car, but a group of locals has braved the elements and is applauding warmly.

The idea of an American diplomat greeting his 'fans' in France or Germany is unthinkable at the moment. But this is Poland, the heart of what Donald Rumsfeld called 'New Europe' and reputedly Washington's 'Trojan horse' in the EU.

Have a lengthy conversation with any Polish politician, and you will doubtless be told that Chicago is considered Poland's second city because of the number of its emigrants who live there. And two years after the atrocities of 11 September 2001, Poland may even have a stronger case than the UK for the title of America's top ally.

Although Tony Blair is enmeshed in a deep crisis over allegedly trying to dupe the British into war, the Polish government's emphatic support for the military action in Iraq has proven to be nowhere near as contentious on the domestic front. True, opinion polls conducted before the first bombs fell on Baghdad in March revealed a large majority of Poles against the war. But anti-war protests in Warsaw were tiny, compared to those in London, Paris or Madrid.

A new survey suggests that - despite the inability of US-led forces to find the weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein allegedly hoarded - Poles now think the onslaught was justified. The German Marshall Fund of the US, which conducted the study, calculated that 58% of Poles are in favour of the foreign policy pursued by the Bush administration. Poland was the only one of seven European countries surveyed in which a majority viewed Bush positively.

Nevertheless, there is considerable unease about what could happen if events take an unsavoury turn for the 2,200 Polish troops currently deployed in Iraq. There was speculation that the recent car bomb, which killed 95 people in Najaf, would hurt their plans to take command of a 21-country division, comprising 12,000 soldiers, in central and southern Iraq. But the US has now handed over responsibility for that operation to the Poles.

Warsaw's Europe Minister Danuta Hübner admits that the public could turn against her country's involvement in Iraq, if Polish troops are ambushed in the way many of their US and UK counterparts have been. "We have never had a victim before even though we have participated in various peacekeeping operations," said Hübner, attending the Krynica Economic Forum - which is billed as Poland's answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"So if this [the killing of Polish troops] happens, we can expect the reaction of Polish society to be quite serious."

Tadeusz Iwinski, a foreign policy advisor to Polish premier Leszek Miller, has elaborated on the possible consequences: "The mission is the most risky decision this government has taken. If there are major casualties, it could lead to a parliamentary rebellion, an erosion of the government majority and an end to this administration."

The debate in Poland has been focused less on the minutiae of the weapons of mass destruction claims than on the brutal nature of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. "Although I am a pacifist, I support that decision [to side with America]," remarks Barbara Labuda, who was imprisoned as a political dissident during the communist era and now serves as a state secretary to President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

"I thought the support was necessary because we were liberating a nation that had lived in a concentration camp. To me, Iraq was like one big concentration camp; it was like Auschwitz."

While Poland has spent some EUR 30 million on equipping and insuring its troops, the Americans have agreed to foot the bill for transporting them there and part of the bill for feeding and equipping them during their stay. Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski has stressed they are not due to take part in combat but instead have been charged with developing cordial relations with the native population. For example, Shia Muslim leaders have been invited to receptions held at the Polish headquarters in Iraq, Camp Babylon.

Asked if he has any regrets about Poland's involvement in the war, ex-premier Jozef Oleksy says: "My government was not wrong. But it is true that public opinion was 75% against the war. We are not occupiers. We are only a partner, ready to help Iraq develop an independent democracy."

Another Polish politician says that Americans feel let down by the antipathy of many western European countries towards their foreign policy. Many European governments, he adds, have been hampered by their electorates from spending more on military assets, for example, to try and deal with the threat posed by 'the new enemy', terrorism, and the geopolitical problems caused by the end of the Cold War.

"In a bipolar world, the enemy was well defined," the politician declares. "But today the enemy - terrorism - is vague. For the US, it was less abstract after 11 September 2001. But Europe does not share the American perception. Americans were expecting Europe to offer not just words, declarations and warm feelings of sympathy but something more than that."

Poland is promising to do its utmost to preserve close links between the EU and the US, once it joins the Union next year. Indeed, there have been some suggestions that Washington is relishing Warsaw's entry. As the largest of the ten incoming states (population: 39 million), it could be in a position to weaken the Franco-German alliance, the Union's traditional motor and the most powerful opponent of recent US foreign policy.

"Without France and Germany, the European Union does not exist," says one Polish analyst. "Having said that, it would be wrong to say that Europe should be under the directorate of these two great powers. Europe also has the UK and Spain, whose views are very similar to ours."

In particular, the Poles have vowed to resist the plan by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to establish a multinational headquarters for European military missions, where NATO is not involved. Warsaw views any sidelining of NATO as tantamount to lifting two fingers towards the Euro-US alliance.

"We cannot accept a situation where a group of states could establish a defence group with their own special forces, without the possibility of other countries to take part," says Jozef Oleksy.

"For us NATO has got a very effective system for European security and every new initiative should respect the fact we are all in NATO. Poland is in favour of a reunification of Euro-Atlantic unity after the conflict in Iraq."

The Poles seem to take pride in their tacit status as leaders of New Europe; Polish think-tanks, for example, have prepared a raft of studies where the term New Europe is used without any sense of irony. Yet Marc Ellenbogen, who worked as an advisor to Bill Clinton in the White House and has served for the US Army in Iraq, both in the first Gulf War and earlier this year, considers Rumsfeld's distinction of states on each side of the war debate as 'new' and 'old' Europe as both offensive and unhelpful.

Ellenbogen attributes part of the blame for America's failure to secure a broader participation in the war on Rumsfeld's infamous tirade and says it is telling that senior military figures, such as Wesley Clark, the ex-commander of NATO forces in Europe, are turning against him.

"He was trying to create a wedge," remarks Ellenbogen. "What he did served no purpose other than to create tension."

The Poles have proved willing to support the US in Iraq but their willingness may be weakened if many Polish casualties are sustained.