Weekly Report - 8 July 2003

'The more [foreign troops] there are, the fewer of US troops we have to have.' That was US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talking last week about Iraq. Plans are under way to increase the number of non-US troops to about 20,000. 

The US asked 70 countries to send troops, but only 24 have accepted (in some cases with small token units). Of the 24, four are from Central America and the Caribbean (see table below); they have agreed to send a total of 1,260 soldiers to serve in a 9,000 contingent under Polish command. Their contribution is of the same order of magnitude as those of Poland (2,300) and the Ukraine (1,800). 

The participating Latin American countries were, with Colombia, the only ones in the region to sign up for the 'coalition of the willing' mustered by the US for its war against Iraq. 

During the war itself they did not send troops, but a large number of Central Americans were there serving in the US military. The Nicaraguans alone are estimated to have numbered about 400. 

The first US casualty of the war, Marine Corporal José Gutiérrez, was a Guatemalan. 

It is expected that the US will cover at least part of the cost of the deployment of Central American and Caribbean troops in Iraq, particularly after Daniel Fisk, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, publicly proclaimed on 20 June, in an address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that 'the Central American states would benefit from even lower levels of [military] spending.' Two of the Central American countries involved, Nicaragua and Honduras, are among the very poorest in the hemisphere.