NATO to open training centre in capital

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has announced the opening of a new training centre in the capital, Baghdad, for Iraqi security forces. The move comes as daily attacks continue inside the country and the US steps up measures to deploy Iraqi troops in the front line against the insurgency. “We have reached a consensus that it will be a better way to serve the Iraqi forces with a better equipped and specialised centre inside the country,” NATO spokesman Robert Pszczel said from the Belgian capital, Brussels. The centre will be located in the Rustmiyah district, southeast of the capital. NATO advisers will be offering training and education on human rights law to Iraqi officers. “We expect that the centre will be fully equipped and ready for work at the end of September and as soon as it starts, it will be training more than 1,000 Iraqi officers annually,” Pszczel added. A US force spokesperson in the capital told IRIN that nearly 200,000 Iraqi soldiers had been trained by them so far. However, there are reports that hundreds of Iraqi troops had deserted the new force due to the risks they face with increasing insurgency in the country. Since the new government assumed power in April 2005, it has insisted on the importance of the presence of Coalition forces inside the country. Insecurity remains the biggest challenge to reconstruction and economic and political development. According to Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials, there are now about 60 NATO advisers in Baghdad, working with senior Iraqi generals to establish a national military command structure. With the opening of the new centre this number is going to triple. “Iraq still requires the presence of foreign security forces in the country and this will be the best way to decrease our need by training our officers with the best people such as NATO advisers, so that soon we can take control of security in Iraq,” Ra’ad Sami, a senior official in the MoD, said. Sami added that more than 4,000 officers had already been trained by NATO in Iraq or in courses conducted outside the country. The Iraqi government will build the centre with NATO playing half of the force protection, training staff and management of costs. The other half will be met by Coalition forces.