EU: The ambassador to the EU says there is work to be done in Iraq, writes Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
The US was not going to walk away from Iraq, a senior American diplomat said during a visit to Dublin yesterday.
"The task at hand is a very complex, very serious task. We are not going to walk from that task. We will be there," the US Ambassador to the European Union, Mr Rockwell Schnabel, said.
Speaking before the news of the latest bombing, Mr Schnabel said: "Naturally there are many things happening that are not good, there's no question about it, but overall the people are much better off today than they were."
There were "a lot of very positive things happening" in Iraq. "People are going back into business, children are back in school. The Iraqis are writing a constitution."
However, some problems remained. "There is a lot of work to be done. We have no illusions about this being a short-term proposition, it's something that's going to take time.
"But we believe that having taken Mr Saddam Hussein out of a position of torturing his own people was something that was very important and, in the long term, we believe that an Iraq in the Middle East that is free of that sort of dictatorship will have a positive influence in the area."
Pointing to the recent donors' conference in Madrid, he said: "There was a great deal of participation, a great deal of money raised, which was needed to rebuild Iraq. And we, together with the EU, will play a major role in that, along with other countries in the world."
The US and the EU were "addressing the issue of the reconstruction Iraq together".
Of course, some EU countries had opposed the war, "but people recognise today that we need to have some sort of a Marshall Plan for Iraq and that's what we are working on together".
Mr Schnabel took over as US ambassador to the EU in 2001, two weeks after the September 11th attacks.
"I am a believer in what the EU is trying to do. Long-term, as it grows into a more cohesive unit with the help of additional countries, a constitution, the \ single currency and single market, of course ultimately, Europe will be more prosperous."
He added: "We are very hopeful that the constitution will work out and will be put into place in the next couple of years" because the US believed that "what's good for Europe is good for us . . . and for the world".
It is his usual practice to meet members of the government which is about to take over the European presidency and during his Irish visit he met the Tánaiste, Ms Harney; the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell.
Ireland and Spain were good examples of how a country benefited from EU membership. "Ireland has been an incredible success story." In the past, "Ireland was exporting people, now it is importing people".
The US welcomed EU efforts to develop a rapid reaction force, as long as it was "within the context" of NATO, which would supply "a number of the different services, including planning and transportation and the like". Setting up a separate force with its own headquarters "could eventually mean that it would undermine NATO". (The EU and NATO are holding their first joint crisis management exercise next week.)
On the transatlantic relationship, he said: "There have been problems and there continue to be problems, but they are problems within a family. We believe that we all are smart enough to work through those problems, for the benefit of the rest of the world as well."