GMA: RP should send 500 peacekeepers to Iraq

WASHINGTON (via PLDT) — President Arroyo insisted Monday that the Philippines should send at least 500 Filipino policemen and soldiers, along with truck drivers and security guards, to help in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

The President’s declaration is contrary to what was recommended by a task force she earlier created to determine the Philippine participation in Iraq’s reconstruction.

The recommendation was to scale down the original 500-strong humanitarian and peacekeeping contingent to Iraq to just 175 because of budgetary constraints.

"I still believe that a good number to send will be 500, and the good composition is still policemen, security guards, truck drivers," she said in a press conference at the Philippine embassy here located at Bataan Street, following her meeting with United States President George W. Bush.

The Iraqis already have medical doctors and nurses — earlier thought to be needed there, just after the war ended — and "what they need is to build their hospitals," the President said.

Mrs. Arroyo, however, clarified that there is yet no final decision on the size and composition of the contingent.

"We will let you know at the appropriate time," she said. "But I believe that… we can see it on (television that) what they need are policemen, truck drivers, security guards."

Though she did not mention it, the President apparently saw the need to augment police and security forces in Iraq to prevent massive looting and civil disobedience that followed the fall of the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Mrs. Arroyo said truck drivers are needed to man trucks that transport logistics to various parts of Iraq.

The downsizing of the Philippine contingent to Iraq was first recommended by Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, co-chairmen of the public sector task force on the Philippine humanitarian mission to Iraq.

Ople and Reyes are with the President during her ongoing US state visit, when the post-war reconstruction of Iraq was among the topics she discussed in a meeting with Bush.