NATO has approved a detailed plan under which it will train some 1,000 Iraqi army officers a year at a proposed military academy outside Baghdad, a senior NATO official said on Wednesday. The mission is expected to involve around 300 trainers. The plan, dogged by foot-dragging by France and other opponents of the U.S.-led war, was approved by NATO ambassadors after the alliance's Military Committee agreed it last week. The plan was approved without discussion, the NATO official told a briefing. "It sets out the details of how the training mission will take place ... both in Iraq and out of Iraq," he said. As well as the 300 trainers, a significantly larger force will be needed to protect them. The official said the number would be "a multiple of that (300)," but gave no more details. NATO countries will hold a conference from Nov. 23-25 to try to work out where the trainers, protection forces, transport and vehicles will come from, he said. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer wants the mission to start work before the end of the year, he said. "We have heard from the military authorities that initial, informal contacts have been very positive." The NATO academy will operate alongside a much larger U.S.-led training mission, which aims to train some 150,000 Iraqi security personnel before elections due in January. The 26-member alliance agreed to set up the new training scheme at a summit in Istanbul in June after overcoming French and other countries' misgivings over whether NATO should have a role in Iraq at all.
