Bulgarien: Rückzugsmethoden

Das Parlament Bulgariens hat beschlossen, seine Truppen aus dem Irak abzuziehen. Aber wird dies auch wirklich geschehen? Diese Fragt stellt Polia Alexandrova  in Transitions Online.

On 5 May the Bulgarian parliament approved a government proposal to reduce the country’s contingent in Iraq to 400 by June and to withdraw it completely by the end of 2005. 

The Bulgarian unit in Iraq, which serves under Polish command in Diwaniya province south of the capital Baghdad, currently numbers 450 soldiers.

The vote in favor of the phased withdrawal was 110 to 53; 45 deputies abstained. The vote came just two weeks before parliament will be dissolved ahead of a general election to be held on 25 June. The phased withdrawal is widely seen as an act of electioneering by the government, especially by the opposition, even though it hasn’t received much coverage in the press so far. 

Phasing out the country’s troop deployment to Iraq is a popular idea. However, the decision in effect only affects the 50 Bulgarian soldiers who will be withdrawn in June, since the 31 December pullout coincides with the end of the UN mandate for the multinational force currently in Iraq. 

The left-of-center Coalition for Bulgaria called the decision “a classic mixture of demagoguery and pre-election populism.” The Bulgarian Socialist Party said it could only support the measure if the withdrawal were completed at the end of May instead of the end of the year. 

Ivan Kostov, the leader of the right-leaning Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, characterized the Iraq mission as “poorly organized and executed” and the decision to withdraw as “meaningless and unfounded.” The party’s deputy chairman, Dimitar Abadjiev, said the government wanted to have it both ways: it “wants to say that it is withdrawing the contingent on the one hand, but on the other it is actually not withdrawing it.” 

A growing casualty list

The day after parliament’s vote, the U.S. administration lauded the country’s contribution to the coalition efforts in Iraq and expressed its hope for continued cooperation in the reconstruction of Iraq. At a press briefing on 6 May, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, “we’ve been very, very happy and pleased with the fact that Bulgaria has been such a strong supporter of our operations in Iraq.” 

Casey did not comment on the planned withdrawal.

The government’s decision, which has now been confirmed by parliament, was made on 31 March under pressure from the Socialists and Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov after a Bulgarian soldier in Iraq, Junior Sergeant Gurdi Gurdev, was killed by U.S. forces in a “friendly fire” incident. It happened when combat patrols from each country opened fire in the dark in response to what each side believed was an enemy attack. 

The toll of Bulgarians killed in Iraq has now reached 10 soldiers and five civilians. The latest victims, Private Preslav Stoyanov and Junior Sergeant Valentin Donev, were killed on 3 May, when their car crashed in a heavy sandstorm. 

Three Bulgarian pilots were among the 11 people killed on 21 April when a Bulgarian commercial helicopter was shot down by a missile. The pilots were employed by Heli Air, a Bulgarian subcontractor for a Toronto-based company. The helicopter was used to move personnel involved in the reconstruction effort under a contract with the U.S. Defense Department. 

The initial five Bulgarian victims were soldiers from the country’s first contingent in Iraq killed in terrorist attacks in Karbala in December 2003. 

Then, in the summer of 2004, two Bulgarian truck drivers were abducted and later executed. Their headless bodies were pulled from the river Tigris north of Baghdad. Their deaths shocked the nation and highlighted the tough decisions many ordinary Bulgarians are forced to make amid high levels of poverty and unemployment in the country.

According to public opinion polls, over 70 percent of Bulgarians disapprove of the Iraq deployment. Many believe that the poor economic conditions in the country were the main impetus for soldiers to volunteer for duty in Iraq. Many of the soldiers themselves admit that they see a tour of duty there as their only opportunity to earn a decent salary.

To read the full text of the article, visit the Transitions Online website.