Word: german
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...began its investigation in June 2005, but it was the first issued by the new chief investigator, Daniel Bellemare, a Canadian. Its contents were keenly awaited to see if he would be more forthcoming than his tight-lipped Belgian predecessor, Serge Brammertz. The original investigator, Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor, produced two sensational reports during his six-month tenure that read more like crime thrillers. A draft version of the first report in October 2005 even named four leading Syrian security officials as suspects. Mehlis also advised the Lebanese authorities to detain four top Lebanese generals who were close...
...horse trading - is down. Sure, Brown and Sarkozy are getting along just fine; time spent working together as national finance ministers at the European level has done them no harm. And Sarkozy's plans for a Mediterranean union and criticisms of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank have irked German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But "to do anything major in Europe, France needs the support and solidarity of Germany - at times, in the face of British resistance," says Delafon. "It's fantasy to believe that the U.K. would somehow take the place or join Germany as France's principal partner...
Among those that are not, the result is no serious capability at all. The most recent parliamentary audit of German preparedness, for example, found problems ranging from a lack of spare parts for armored vehicles to uniforms that are insufficiently camouflaged. German soldiers have taken to buying their own gun holsters because the army-issue variety do not fit properly under their bullet-proof vests. German helicopters, according to a source at the International Security Assistance Force (NATO's military arm in Afghanistan), can't fly at night because they do not have the required navigation equipment. "They are fundamentally...
Germany has the third largest contingent in Afghanistan. But by an act of the German Bundestag, those troops are confined to the comparatively peaceful northern part of the country, where they are engaged in reconstruction efforts. From Washington, Gates has urged Berlin to lift the restrictions on German troops, but any such change will have to wait at least until after elections in 2009 - and probably longer. "Only through a great political effort will we be able to convince the German public that we are engaged in Afghanistan in order to protect our security in Germany," says Ruprecht Polenz, Christian...
...morale will continue to fall while Europe avoids an honest debate about what its men and women in uniform are supposed to do. That lack of clarity can manifest itself in unexpected ways. Winfried Nachtwei, a German Green Party defense expert and critic of his government's policy in Afghanistan, believes nonetheless that Germany's lack of military capacity "restrains German foreign policy." The Bundestag has failed to debate the situation in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, he says, because it is nervous about feeling obliged to dispatch German troops to help out. Most Europeans acknowledge that...