Turning the pages back... March 23, 2003 (03/21/04)

Turning the pages back...

March 23, 2003

Last year, as the first U.S. bombs fell on Iraq on March 20, the Verkhovna Rada approved the deployment to Kuwait of an army battalion that specializes in the clean-up of chemical, biological and nuclear contamination.

The Verkhovna Rada supported the decision by President Leonid Kuchma to offer the NBC battalion for "humanitarian" support by a comfortable voting margin of 258 to 121, while 253 lawmakers ratified the agreement between Kuwait and Ukraine on the details of the deployment.

Ukraine proposed the expertise and equipment of the 19th Special Battalion, usually stationed near the city of Sambir in western Ukraine, for service in the Iraqi conflict after a request from the United States in early February, which was followed by an appeal from Kuwait on March 6, 2003. Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council approved the request from the United States on February 20, 2003, while President Kuchma signed a decree supporting the Kuwait invitation the day it was received.

The two bills passed easily after a heated debate in which representatives of the Socialist, Communist and Tymoshenko factions opposed the call to action, while Our Ukraine joined the pro-presidential factions in support of a deployment.

"We seem to want to decide here whether there should be peace or war, so let me tell you that at 4 a.m. war began," stated Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko. "Any normal person longs for peace, but war has begun. Already there may be those out there who need the help we can offer," added Mr. Yushchenko as shouts of protest broke out from among the lawmakers opposed to deployment.

National Deputy Petro Symonenko, leader of the Communist faction, said: "Our responsibility is to defend the people of Iraq. ...The U.S. has already sent tens of thousands of Iraqi mothers and their children to their graves. The only point here is to take the oil in Iraq. The 550 or so troops we send, our own sons and daughters, will perish."

Yevhen Marchuk, head of the National Security and Defense Council, which gave the initial approval for participation of the 19th Special Battalion in the humanitarian effort in Iraq, emphasized repeatedly during his address to the lawmakers that none of the 531 Ukrainian soldiers that are part of the contingent would become combatants. He also vowed that they would not enter Iraq.

Several months later, Ukraine became involved in Iraq after the war officially ended, sending a stabilization force of some 1,800 soldiers to Iraq.

Sources: "Rada approves battalion's deployment to Kuwait," by Roman Woronowycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, March 23, 2003, Vol. LXXI, No. 12; "Ukraine's foreign affairs: crisis management" in "2003: The Year in Review," The Ukrainian Weekly, January 11, 2004, Vol. LXXII, No. 2.

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