Political turmoil swamps Berlin over Afghan cover-up (2nd Roundup)

By Jeff Black Nov 27, 2009, 16:16 GMT

Berlin - The most serious political crisis in the four-year tenure of German Chancellor Angela Merkel engulfed Berlin Friday, following allegations of government dishonesty over a botched Afghan airstrike.

Former defence minister Franz Josef Jung became the latest top official to step down, giving up his job as labour minister, after a newspaper report said he had misled the public while in charge of the defence ministry about civilian casualties in the September 4 strike in Kunduz.

The resignation of Jung, 60, a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is the latest setback for the newly formed centre-right coalition, which has been beset by internal disagreements since it took office less than one month ago.

'I take the political responsibility for the internal information policy in the defence ministry' Jung told reporters in Berlin.

The report by the Bild newspaper which appeared Thursday, claimed that the German military had passed information up the chain of command which detailed civilian casualties on the same day as the attack ocurred.

However in the days after the airstrike Jung maintained that 'to the best of my knowledge, there were only terrorist Taliban killed.'

The opposition have accused him of either not being honest with the public, or not having his own ministry under control.

   However in his resignation address Jung said 'I have correctly informed the public as well as the parliament about what I knew.'

The civilian casualties in the airstrike caused outrage in Germany, where support for the military deployment in the Hindu Kush is shaky.

Jung's resignation followed those of top army officer Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Peter Wichert, a state secretary in the defence ministry, who stepped down on Thursday.

Their resignations, according to new Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, were a direct result of their failure to pass on nine classified documents relating to the Kunduz attack upon his arrival in the ministry last month.

Social Democratic opposition leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier repeated calls for a full parliamentary investigation.

   'It's about more than just the misconduct of a few individual people, its about a basic question of parliamentary democracy. The people of this country have a right to clarification,' he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper.

On Friday evening Chancellor Merkel announced that family minister Ursula von der Leyen is to replace Jung in the labour ministry.

Von Der Leyen, from Merkel's CDU, is a popular politician who previously introduced generous state child-benefit payments, but has little experience in labour issues.

Her place in the family ministry is to be taken by Kristina Koehler, a 32-year-old CDU representative from the south-western state of Hesse.

Since taking office in October, the coalition of Merkel's CDU and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) led by Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has staggered from one internal rift to the next.

The most serious of which, still unresolved, concerns a controversial appointment to a foundation representing Germans expelled from eastern Europe after the Second World War.

The coalition has also been unable to agree on tax cuts intended to stimulate the only weakly-recovering economy, and a new social security payment scheme.

Pressure over a full parliamentary inquiry into the events following the Kunduz airstrike are set to continue in the days ahead.

'We will demand that these events be comprehensively explained,' said Green party leaders Renate Kuenast and Juergen Trittin.

The examination of the government's conduct with regard to the Afghan conflict could hardly come at a more awkward time.

Next week US President Barack Obama is set to announce his country's new strategy for the conflict, and is expected to ask European allies for up to 10,000 more troops.

Germany, with the third largest contingent there behind the US and Britain, must also vote in parliament next week on an extension by one year of its existing mandate of 4,500 soldiers.

A conference on the Afghan conflict is planned for January 28 in London next year, before which date Chancellor Merkel has said she will make no committment on additional troops.