October 04, 2004

Don't Forget Poland! Long Live Poland!

In case you missed the debates, Bush repeatedly shored up his contention that "a coalition" invaded Iraq by pointing to the fact that Poland joined the US, Britain and Australia. It was kind of comical because he'd be very emphatic about Poland joining us. "Don't forget Poland! They're in there!" Well, they're leaving now, thanks. (well, 40% is leaving by the end of this year, everyone else by the end of next year . . which . . means we'll be there through the end of the decade I suppose . . )

posted by pete_best 19 years ago
  • O, wot is the Polish word for 'goodbye'?
  • По-русски?
  • Is there a list anywhere of the remaining "Coalition of the Willing?"
  • Hehe. When I went to whitehouse.gov and clicked "Iraq" and then "Coaltion Members", I got a "page you requested could not be found" message. Teehee, it's funE. Here's Disinfopedia's article on it. Poland sent us 200 troops, apparently. Don't know how up to date it is, though.
  • To Bush's credit, the Poles were/are exceptional soldiers, and suffered losses (not as many as the US, but a significant number). That said, there'll now be a gap of 2500 soldiers that the US will have to fill, which is really bad news.
  • Poland sent us 200 troops According to Global Security.org, Poland had 2400 troops. Also, it has a breakdown of the other nations and how many troops are there from coalition members. Compare that to our 170,000 troops in theater.
  • Looks like that Disinfo article is seriously out of date. Apologies. Can't google up a list of current coalition members anywhere, though...
  • This is about the best you're going to get, I think. Even though it misses crucial elements of the coalition such as Palau and the Marshall Islands.
  • Ah. From shawnj's link:
    The size and capabilities of the Coalition forces involved in operations in Iraq has been a subject of much debate, confusion, and at times exageration. As of August 5, 2004, there were 30 non-U.S. military forces contributing to the ongoing stability operations throughout Iraq. These countries were Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Rep, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Ukraine. The MNF-I website incorrectly included Honduras in the list; that country's troops returned in late May. The MNF-I website also includes New Zealand, although the New Zealand government has claimed that it had not joined the US-led force but that the deployment had been at the request of the United Nations. The Kingdom of Tonga did, however, deploy 45 Royal Marines in early July to Iraq. Thailand withdrew its contingent from Iraq in late August and flew it home in early September. New Zealand redeployed its contingent of 61 troops in late-September 2004. As a result, there are 29 countries participating in the coalition. On September 6, Armenia announced that it would deploy 50 troops to Iraq, though it was unclear when the troops would be deployed to Iraq; until such time, it is not being included in the count of countries taking part in the coalition.
    Thanks.
  • Ah, enterprising monkeys, have a round of bananas on me!
  • to the point, I hear in articles all the time "27 troops were killed . . " What makes up a "troop"? It's not synonymous with "soldier" afaik, but I keep hearing it used as such. army guy? Come in army guy, over.
  • There is already a site about it - the URL was up within hours of the debate.
  • youforgotpoland.com...it is to funny forever...I die from the joke....
  • troop = soldier
  • Don't forget Poland's Prime minister said "They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride." in 2003! Don't forget Poland's foreign minister admitted that their "ultimate objective" was direct access to Iraqi oil! Don't forget Poland's PM used to argue that despite all the above, pulling troops out would be worse, as it would just sow more chaos. I wonder what changed his mind.
  • oops, I misdated that first quote. It was in March 2004.
  • troop as defined by dictionary.com. Is it different in the army?
  • I believe that members of the U.S. Army are referred to as "soldiers" but that members of the Marines, Air Force or Navy bristle at this term because they don't want to be lumped together with the Army. The distinction between branches of the service is very important to some people. "Troops" is more general so less likely to offend. This is according to an ex-USAF friend, I don't know about other countries.