Karsten Voigt, coordinator for German-US relations in the German government told the Tagesspiegel daily Tuesday that the Bush administration was not expecting a quick German contribution in Iraq and was aware that the German military was stretched to the limit.

Voigt added Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, currently in the United States, would not be "pressurized" by US President George W. Bush on the issue.

With about 9,000 soldiers scattered in the Balkans, Afghanistan and as far as the Horn of Africa, the German army has its hands full.

At present there is a discussion in Germany over an Iraq deployment following a request last week by the US Senate to the NATO military alliance for support to reinforce the American troops serving as occupying forces in Iraq.

Continuing resistance from Iraqi groups, mounting American and British casualties and rising costs of maintaining a huge peacekeeping operation in Iraq has forced the United States to seek broader international support.

Though no concrete request has come in as yet from the United States, German government spokesman Bela Anda said over the weekend that it was possible a request would be received at the NATO Council in Brussels after the summer break.

So far the reaction from NATO countries, prominently Germany and France, has been lukewarm. Both say there is no adequate United Nations mandate to legitimize their presence in Iraq.

France, like Germany, is also heavily involved in foreign military deployments in the Balkans, Ivory Coast, Congo and Afghanistan.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose antiwar and pro-UN stance when the United States invaded Iraq strained relations with Washington, said in a television interview last week that his government would not send troops to Iraq except in a NATO context and only with a specific mandate from the United Nations.

(Xinhua News Agency July 16, 2003)