Merkel Faces Call to Clarify Germans' Afghan Role

Source: NYT

BERLIN — Opposition parties are demanding that Chancellor Angela Merkel explain to the German Parliament this week the precise role of the country’s 4,200 troops in Afghanistan after NATO planes, called in by a German commander, killed scores of people and wounded dozens in northern Afghanistan on Friday.

The calls come three weeks before federal elections in which Mrs. Merkel is seeking a second term.

“We need an honest debate about Afghanistan,” Jürgen Koppelin, a defense expert in the Free Democratic Party, said Saturday. The party is considered the chancellor’s preferred coalition partner for her presumed second term.

The Free Democrats’ pronouncements on foreign policy are important because the party would almost certainly take over the Foreign Ministry if it became the junior coalition partner in the next government.

The other opposition parties, the Greens and the Left, have demanded a parliamentary debate Tuesday, the last time Parliament convenes before the Sept. 27 vote.

Mr. Koppelin, a federal legislator, said Mrs. Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, were more interested in soothing public concerns than telling the public that Germany was involved in a war.

“It is time to be honest about the whole mission,” Mr. Koppelin told the public television channel NDR.

Last month, the Free Democrats were the first political party that called on the government to “formulate a precise plan that spells out how a pullout of the German Army over the coming years would look.”

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/europe/07germany.html

Now there will be even more pressure to pull them out. I would bet money that the commander will be removed.