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US seeking new war allies

US President George W. Bush, left, and French President Jacques Chirac, right, speak to the press in the Rose Garden of the White House on Tuesday. PHOTO: REUTERS

The Bush administration is taking its first steps to expand the coalition fighting the Taliban and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, this after weeks of deflecting offers from several European allies of forces to support the US war in Afghanistan.

The shift in strategy follows signs overseas of waning popular support for the bombing of one of the world's poorest countries. Initially, some administration officials, particularly in the Pentagon, felt that expanding the military coalition beyond Britain and a small number of troops from Turkey, Canada and Australia would complicate decision-making.

In a speech to Central and East European leaders on Tuesday and at an appearance in the Rose Garden with President Jacques Chirac of France, President Bush also sought to bolster support overseas by drawing a still darker picture of Osama bin Laden.

Using a video link to address the Central and East Europeans gathered in Warsaw, Poland, the president compared al-Qaeda to the "fascists and totalitarians" with whom those nations grappled for most of the 20th century. The terrorists, he said, demonstrate "the same mad, global ambitions and display a brutal determination to control every life and all of life."

For the first time, too, Bush raised the specter that Osama bin Laden was seeking to obtain biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Asked about this later by reporters, the president said that it was essential to to stop bin Laden from realizing his declared aim of obtaining nuclear weapons.

In the past few days, the British government, mindful of wavering European popular support for the war, has lobbied for the allies' inclusion in the military coalition.

On Tuesday, Germany pledged 3,900 troops, including Fuchs reconnaissance vehicles -- which can detect nuclear, biological and chemical contamination -- naval units, flying hospitals and special forces. The deployment could become the first of German troops outside Europe since the end of World War II.

NATO diplomats meanwhile are discussing a dramatic new mission for the alliance: taking the lead role in transporting food into Afghanistan as winter approaches.

The effort to find a broader military role for America's allies is a delicate attempt to increase the Europeans' personal stake in the war while avoiding the complications that come with a multinational military operation.

"There is a strong desire," one senior administration official said, "to keep the decision-making here and in London."

On Sunday, Italy signaled the Bush administration's new willingness to accommodate European troops when the government in Rome announced that Washington had accepted its offer of 1,000 troops, including an armored regiment, transport planes, reconnaissance planes, warships and vehicles to check for biological and chemical weapons.

France has already sent several support ships to the Arabian Sea and is conducting reconnaissance flights over Afghanistan from a base in the United Arab Emirates.

France has also offered to send commandos and warplanes. But a French official said on Tuesday that Washington had previously indicated that it had no immediate need for French commandos and that France has not been able to find a base for its warplanes in the region.

Chirac, in Washington on Tuesday made much of having some 2,000 French troops in the region near Afghanistan.
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