DEPLOYMENTS of Bulgarian troops to Iraq and as part of peacekeeping forces in Kosovo took place this week as debate continued about key issues related to Bulgaria's foreign military missions and the possible establishment of US bases in the country.

Three weeks after the tragic events in Kerbala, in which several Bulgarian soldiers were killed in a truck bomb attack, the first part of the second Bulgarian battalion left for Iraq.

The last inspection of the contingent coincided with a ceremony to mark the departure of a Bulgarian engineering contingent taking part in NATO peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR). Forty Bulgarian military personnel left for Prizren for a six-month mission, while about 400 troops left for Iraq for the same period of time.

However, the deployment to Iraq was not without some accompanying turbulence.

Sixty-two military personnel filed requests to withdraw from the hazardous mission. At the same time, however, more than 130 other troops said they wanted to join the battalion to fill in the gaps.

On January 8, soldiers at the Kilo base in Kerbala sent a fax to the Ministry of Defence requesting a pay rise. The petition, from 263 servicemen, said they wanted not less than 100 euro a day.

Armed forces chief General Nikola Kolev said he did not approve of the way in which the payment issues were tackled. The rangers, however, argued that the money was not enough to cover the risk. Two days later, in a surprising letter, the Bulgarian battalion to Iraq sent a letter in which they defined their reaction as "emotional and rash". The letter said that the servicemen did not know about the measures taken by the general staff, the Ministry of Defence, and the Government to increase the pay of those serving in Iraq, and to provide for a new social package for the servicemen and their families.

On Tuesday, the Cabinet officially gave the thumbs up for higher pay for the soldiers. They will get between $82 and $90 depending on their rank. The rangers who have participated in the first contingent had been getting between $62 and $75, but will also receive the increased pay on their return to Bulgaria.

Also on Tuesday, the ruling National Movement Simeon II and their coalition partners the Movement for Rights and Freedoms rejected a proposal to set up a special parliamentary committee to investigate what had happened in Kerbala.

The Speaker of Parliament, Ognian Gerdjikov, told journalists that there was no need for Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg to give an account to Parliament on the episode. Gerdjikov rejected the idea of a special parliamentary committee, saying that MPs did not have the resources of the military to assess the situation properly.

In the wake of the attack on the Bulgarian base in Kerbala on December 27 last year, President Georgi Purvanov called for the establishment of such a committee. His idea was supported by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces, who took the idea further, saying that a permanent committee should be set up as part of Parliament's committee on foreign policy, defence and security, to analyse and thus avert similar incidents in the future.

The reasons, the consequences and the measures adopted in the wake of the attack in Kerbala were discussed at a special sitting of the foreign policy committee on Wednesday. The committee has sat three times in two weeks to discuss Kerbala.

All practical decisions and recommendations will serve a role during the mission of the second contingent. The recruitment of servicemen for the third battalion is also around the corner. It is due to start at the end of January and is to leave for Iraq in late August this year.

General James Jones, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who paid a one-day visit to Bulgaria last week, also commemorated the memory of the five Bulgarian soldiers who lost their lives in "defending freedom in Iraq".

Jones visited Sofia at the invitation of Kolev, in part for discussions on the stationing of US bases in this country. Jones said the US was considering how best to deploy its armed forces to get them closer to the regions of potential tensions, to be able to react adequately to prevent crises.

He said that if Bulgaria were prepared to grant bases within the framework of bilateral co-operation, the US would welcome this. He named regions threatened by tensions as including the Middle East and Africa.

Jones said that negotiations about US bases would take place at the highest possible levels with the governments of several European countries, Bulgaria included.

Bulgaria has realised the need for transformation and had taken the right steps in reforming its army, he said.

In an exclusive interview with The Sofia Echo, Kolev said that "after the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact, after the collapse of the former USSR, the threats of the modern work moved to the East, acquired an asymmetric nature which, in turn, requires a reconsideration of the structure and location of US armed forces in Europe".



Interview with General Kolev - p.4



Interview with military academic General Valeri Ratchev on the bases issue - p. 11.