Weekly Report - 9 December 2003

Three of the four Central American and Caribbean countries that sent troops to Iraq have been having second thoughts after the bases of two of them came under attack in areas that had been considered `safe'. El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua — the only Latin American countries apart from Colombia to join the `coalition of the willing' against Iraq — provided a battalion each last August to serve for six months in the Plus Ultra multinational brigade, under overall Spanish command.