Nato agrees plans for Iraq training mission

Nato's top decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), adopted a "concept of operations" for the mission, agreed after prolonged negotiations which notably pitted the United States against France and other countries.

The plans were aimed at "substantially enhancing Nato's assistance to the Iraqi interim government with the training of its security forces, as well as the coordination of offers of training and equipment, said a Nato statement.

The mission will be led by US Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who was at the meeting of Nato ambassadors, which agreed his appointment and the terms of mission.

Petraeus is currently commander of the Multinational Force training effort, and will become "dual-hatted" in taking on the running of the Nato mission as well. He was due to give a press conference later Friday.

Under the plans senior Iraqi officers will be trained in a military academy in the Baghdad region. In all between 200-300 Nato trainers will be deployed, although the number of troops needed to protect the mission has not been set.

Nato has agreed to provide protection for the military academy itself, while the multi-national force in Iraq is to ensure a wider secure environment for the mission.

Nato leaders agreed in principle on the Iraqi training mission at a summit in Istanbul in June, but the alliance has struggled to hammer out the details.

France, Germany and Belgium -- the key opponents of the Iraq conflict, whose resistance plunged Nato into an unprecedented crisis last year -- have notably refused to deploy any troops inside Iraq as part of the training mission.

General James Jones, Nato's supreme allied commander, said last week as many as 3,000 Nato troops could be deployed to Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces.

But Nato officials have since sought to downplay that figure, saying it is far too premature to say exactly how many troops will be needed to protect the training mission.

And a US defense official admitted this week that the mission is not likely to get there until next year -- too late to have an impact on the training of security forces ahead of Iraq's January elections.

"We'd like to see it happen sooner," the official said.

Reuters adds: US military and civilian officials have identified 20 to 30 towns and cities in Iraq that must be pacified before nationwide elections can be held in January, The New York Times reported yesterday.

Recent operations to stamp out unrest in Tal Afar, Samarra and the area south of Baghdad are the first signs of a new, six-pronged strategy for Iraq that has been approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration, the Times said.

Places specifically being looked at, according to unnamed adminisztration officials, include Falluja, Ramadi and the northern Babil Province.