Roger Cohen: Now recruiting: coalition of the reluctant [View All]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/14/opinion/edcohen.php

A senior Pentagon official has spent this month on a magical mystery tour of little-known European and Eurasian capitals trying to deliver a dribble of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The low-profile trip reads more like a geography test than a geo-strategic foray. It has whisked Debra Cagan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for coalition affairs, from Tirana to Skopje, and on to Chisinau and Astana, among other luminous world metropolises.

In Chisinau - you guessed it; that's the capital of Moldova - Cagan asked for more sappers in Iraq. Moldova currently has 11 bomb-disposal experts there. Yes, 11.

In downtown Tirana, hub of a 20th century exercise in communist folly and now a place in need of American money, Cagan pressed the Albanians to go beyond their 120-strong contingent in Iraq. Albania is considering another 125 to 150 troops.