Denmark considers relocating troops to Baghdad

Nov 19, 2006, 14:04 GMT

Copenhagen - Danish officers in Iraq have criticized the lack of an overall strategy for their unit after reports that Danish troops stationed in Basra may be relocated to Baghdad, reports said Sunday.

Sunday's Jyllands Posten newspaper quoted Danish officers as saying that in the three years 500 Danish troops have been stationed in Iraq, no recognizable objective had been set for them.

The Danish troops have been stationed under British command in the area around Basra in the south of Iraq.

Officers also reportedly accused diplomats in Copenhagen charged with rebuilding projects of shifting the responsibility for difficult decisions regarding prioritizing of work on to individual soldiers.

It would be very difficult for the military to assess the possibility of a responsible withdrawal, the report said.

The report came after the Danish foreign minister said he was considering relocating the 500 soldiers to Baghdad.

Foreign minister Per Stig Moeller said in an interview on Danish TV Saturday evening that the relocation was an excellent idea which the government would evaluate.

In response to increasing calls for withdrawal from Iraq in Denmark, the foreign minister said that the Danish trooops would 'not go home until we have the feeling that the Iraqi government does not need us any more and they have told us so.'

Plans to relocate Danish troops to the Baghdad area where a lot of the fighting is concentrated were purely hypothetical at the moment, the minister said.

In a poll last week, a majority of Danes was in favour of a swift withdrawal of the country's troops from Iraq.