Foreign Troops

Re "Uncle Sam Wants Tu," Commentary, Feb. 24: Well, I guess Max Boot is at it again. Does he honestly think so little of his country and is he so dedicated to a long time of war that he would seriously consider this the answer to the problem of enlisting more troops in the United States Army and Marine Corps? Namely, to recruit foreigners from the four corners of the Earth? Does he really think the answer to this ill-fated war in Iraq, and expanding it to who knows where else, is to bring more and more people to this country and promise them U.S. citizenship to boot?

For months, President Bush and other U.S. officials have heralded Iraq's election of a transitional government as a major goal in the struggle to achieve democracy and stability there. But with the vote now just two weeks away, U.S. and Iraqi officials have begun to focus on the daunting problems they will face the morning after election day -- ones every bit as formidable as those they have faced since the invasion.

U.S. Marines have scaled back plans to send hundreds of troops into Indonesia to build roads and clear debris from last month's tsunami, Marine Corps officials said Wednesday, after Indonesian officials said they hoped to have all foreign troops off their soil by late March.

The Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday endorsing the U.S. hand-over of sovereignty to the Iraqi interim government June 30 and authorizing multinational forces to stay in the country for at least a year with the government's consent. The resolution, which seeks to formally end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, gave the new Iraqi government control of its soldiers, police and oil resources and a say -- but not a veto -- on the multinational forces' operations.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell added momentum Thursday to the drive for a new U.N. Security Council statement on Iraq, telling Germany's ZDF television, "I think there will be a new resolution." Spain and France are among the nations that have urged adoption of a new resolution to spell out the international role in the country. The U.S.

As Marines in Humvees began patrolling this capital, rebel leader Guy Philippe declared his mission accomplished Wednesday and said his forces would lay down their arms now that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had fled into exile. More than 2,000 soldiers from nations including the United States, France, Canada and Chile have arrived in Haiti since Aristide left the country Sunday, but Port-au-Prince has continued to be plagued by looting, destruction and revenge killings.

The world's most powerful leaders may be seeking a united strategy on Iraq, but they apparently came to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday unwilling to cede major ground to find it. As a result, the best-case scenario is likely to be eventual passage of a new Security Council resolution that neither brings the world together nor quickly produces large numbers of troops or funds from other countries, American officials and foreign diplomats said.

As American authorities investigated a suicide car bombing that targeted a regional U.S. military office, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council called Wednesday for the most rapid possible restoration of the country's sovereignty. A U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad while trying to disarm an improvised bomb, and U.S.-led forces pressed operations across the country in search of supporters of deposed President Saddam Hussein.

Two Senate Democrats running for president defended their support for the war in Iraq on Sunday but faulted President Bush for not bringing in the United Nations to help win the peace. "I do not want more American troops in Iraq. I want foreign troops," said Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, who this week hopes to reenergize his campaign with a kickoff announcement in South Carolina on Tuesday. "We have to reduce the sense of American occupation.

In a relatively modest but welcome bit of relief for American forces, troops from 21 countries including Spain, Poland and four Central American nations will begin taking over duties from U.S. Marines in south-central Iraq this week. The changeover involving about 10,000 fresh troops comes as President Bush renews efforts to enlist more countries' help in Iraq, hoping that last week's bombing of the U.N.