PARIS, Feb. 9 -- After launching wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while largely bypassing NATO, the Bush administration is now pressing for an expanded role for the alliance in both countries and signaling a new readiness to work more closely with its NATO allies.
That message was delivered Wednesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who held a working lunch with her 25 NATO counterparts in Brussels and afterward declared, "It was clearly a unified alliance."
Rice speaks at NATO headquarters in Brussels; Rumsfeld was in France.
(Yves Logghe -- AP)
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"Our differences, I think, are really behind us," she said at a news conference, "because it is so clear what the future holds for us."
The same message came later from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who arrived in Nice, France, for a meeting of NATO defense ministers. Rumsfeld told reporters that persuading more NATO countries to take part in training and equipping Iraqi security forces was high on his agenda.
The American secretaries' consultations came in advance of President Bush's planned visit to NATO headquarters on Feb. 22, when he is to confer over lunch with the leaders of the other NATO countries.
U.S. and NATO officials pointed out that Bush's first meeting with a foreign leader after his November reelection was with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
"I have never doubted the president's commitment to NATO," de Hoop Scheffer said in an interview Monday at his office in Brussels. "That he is coming to NATO so shortly after his inauguration shows his continued commitment."
A senior U.S. official, who under briefing ground rules could not be named, said: "This is a period of intensive American engagement with NATO. . . . The intention obviously is to reach out to our most important allies."
The practical reasons for the outreach are clear: The Bush administration wants NATO members to step up plans for training Iraqi security forces, both inside and outside the country, and is seeking financial contributions to a new fund to help purchase and transport equipment to the nascent Iraqi military.
In the interview, de Hoop Scheffer said he would like to see all 26 NATO members participate in some form -- either through training or financial contributions -- by the time of Bush's visit in two weeks.
"I see very positive signals coming," de Hoop Scheffer said. "The president is coming; the sounds and noises I hear from Paris and Berlin and everywhere else are good." Although some countries, such as Germany and France, have insisted for now on training Iraqi officers outside the country without the alliance's involvement, he said, "I would hope in the longer term what is being done outside Iraq could be brought more and more under a NATO umbrella."
In Afghanistan, NATO members have already pledged more troops to expand the 8,000-member foreign peacekeeping force there, which operates mainly in and around the capital, Kabul. The goal is for the force to extend its area into the west of the country in coming months. De Hoop Scheffer said he hoped NATO could also expand into the south and Kandahar province.
Offensive operations against Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are the job of Operation Enduring Freedom, most of whose 18,000 troops are American. The Bush administration would like to see that force merged with the NATO-led peacekeeping force. But a merger is being resisted by some NATO countries that do not want their troops drawn into combat operations.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States, NATO for the first time in its history invoked its self-defense clause, allowing it to assist the American military -- but the Bush administration ignored NATO and launched airstrikes in Afghanistan with only select allies.
