NATO Leaders Agree on Iraq Assistance

But old rifts remained unhealed on Bush's second day of bridge building in Europe as France and Germany pressed the US leader for reform of transatlantic ties during EU and NATO summits attended by the US president.

The NATO agreement follows Monday's announcement by EU foreign ministers that they had agreed on a support package for Baghdad's newly elected authorities that will include training police and judges and offering help to write a constitution.

Bush thanked NATO for its plans to help train Iraqi security forces, calling it "an important mission" that will help bring democracy to that war-torn country.

"The NATO training mission is an important mission," said Bush.

"Every life is precious and we are thankful for the efforts," being made by NATO to help restore democracy in Iraq, Bush told a press conference at the military alliance's headquarters, adding he was sincerely grateful.

"NATO is providing a training mission which is vital ... every country should be proud of the fact that they are contributing to the world's newest democracy," Bush said at the press conference with NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Bush asks Europe and the US to move on

Bush acknowledged the divisions caused by the US-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq to topple leader Saddam Hussein but said: "The key now is to put that behind us and to focus on helping the new democracy to succeed. It's in our interest, it's in your countries' interest, to let democracy take hold in Iraq."

While NATO officials trumpeted the agreement of all 26 allies to make some contribution to the Iraq training mission as a token of the alliance's rediscovered unity, the unanimous agreement hid discrepancies.

"We have the 26. As far as we are concerned, that is everyone working in the same direction," a NATO official told reporters. But in reality it was unity in name only.

The United States agreed to provide around 60 trainers out of a total close to 160 while France, the most vocal European critic of the US-led invasion in Iraq, agreed for just one of its officers at NATO headquarters to help coordinate offers of equipment to the Iraqi military.

The French, along with the Germans and Belgians, also reiterated their decisions not to send their personnel to serve inside Iraq.

Chirac endorses Schröder's plans

French President Jacques Chirac also reminded President Bush that conciliatory language would not mend all the broken fences between them by endorsing a call by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for a reform of NATO, initially rebuffed by Washington, to take into account new realities such as the rise of an enlarged and increasingly integrated EU.

"Europe and the United States are real partners," Chirac told the NATO leaders. "So we need dialogue and to listen to each other more."

"We must also, as the German chancellor has underlined, continue to take account of the changes that have occurred on the European continent," Chirac said, referring explicitly to Europe's growing defense integration and implying that the EU, rather than NATO, should become the main partner in transatlantic cooperation. This idea would be in direct contrast to the US view of the primacy of the defense alliance which it founded in 1949 and still dominates.

A strong Europe is important, Bush says

Earlier in the day, Bush underlined this view but continued with his current line of wooing the Europeans at every opportunity.

"NATO is a vital relationship for the United States and for Europe," Bush said after breakfast with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "A strong Europe is very important to the United States, and I really meant that."

Bush then met Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (photo) to discuss the possibility of Ukraine's future membership before moving onto NATO headquarters.