While much is being made of France and Germany's opposition to our Iraq policy, the support (in varying amounts) that we are getting from other nations is naturally, soft-pedalled in the media.

And yet able to be found - not soft-pedaled enough, I guess - but have a second look at what it amounts to [snipped from both of the articles linked to in the post above]:

Poland: The foreign minister said on Tuesday that Poland would take part in a war even without UN agreement. President Alexander Kwasniewski is believed to have made an offer of a contribution.

Nothing substantial mentioned, just a promise to promise...

Czech Republic: The Czechs have agreed to contribute a 400-strong highly rated anti-chemical warfare unit and open their airspace to US warplanes.

Ah, yes - but 27 of the 270 men currently in Kuwait embarrassed the [Czech] government this week by voting to come home rather than join a war.



Hungary: Budapest has

reluctantly bowed to US demands to use the military base at Taszar in the south for military training of 3,000 Iraqi exiles. [emphasis mine]

"Romania does not want to go to war against Iraq, but it will do what America says," said a Romanian newspaper this week.

Now there's a country that understands American foreign policy.

A senior Czech official said that Romania and Bulgaria, invited to join Nato last November, are anxious that doubts about their participation in Iraq could delay US ratification of their membership.

Oh, there it is: the premium offered in exchange for pledging to International Public Belligerance.

Analysts say that Washington is urging the new Nato members in eastern Europe into the war camp in order to highlight the relative reluctance of the west Europeans to get involved.



US officials in eastern Europe deny that, arguing that the timing of Washington's requests for contributions are dictated purely by logistics and military planning considerations and by the need to escalate the credible threat of military force against President Saddam.



Well, of course they deny it - don't forget, the entire adventure is predicated not on Saddam's crimes against his own people, but on the Bush Admin's "need to escalate the credible threat" allegedly posed by Saddam to the rest of the world.

400 Czech specialists, and 3,000 Iraqi exiles yet to be trained (whose logistical timetable is that item on?)... ohhh kaaaay, and the number (heard on the BBC this morning) of US forces already deployed is 37,000? That's a 91% US participation as of today, with expectations of total committed US forces eventually being more like a quarter million...

Not unilateral? Guess it depends on what your definition of is is.