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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Italian journalist Sergio Romano about the news that Italy will be sending more troops to Afghanistan.
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MARCO WERMAN: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be at NATO headquarters in Brussels tomorrow. She’s going there to talk about troop levels in Afghanistan. The U.S. wants NATO to send more soldiers to the country to supplement the extra 30,000 American troops headed there. NATO officials say they’ll come up with perhaps 5,000. About a thousand of those extra soldiers will be Italian. Italy’s Defense Minister said so in an interview today with the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Just a couple of months ago after six Italian soldiers were killed by a bomb in Kabul, the country’s Prime Minister suggested Italy would pull out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Sergio Romano is a political commentator for Corriere della Sera. And how are Italians reacting to this news that Italy will be sending more troops rather than pulling troops out?
SERGIO ROMANO: For the time being, of course, the answer is on the Obama plan and the way Obama is dealing with the matter. After all, you’ve got to express some confidence for a man who has taken three months to say what he wanted to do, and seems to think that something can be done, that you can leave the country by 2013. In other words, I mean, it’s a question of alliance. Lots of people have doubts about Afghanistan, but at one point the crux of the matter is simply does the alliance only work when everybody agrees, or does an alliance have to work also when there are divergences and differences? After all, this is a new president and every country; every ally that decides not to do what he would like to do is a difficult situation. I mean, he takes upon himself a certain responsibility.
WERMAN: Well, let’s talk, Sergio, about Italian’s confidence in their Prime Minister. In September, Silvio Berlusconi told reporters; quote “We are all convinced that it’s better for everyone to leave Afghanistan soon”. So, I mean, how does Mr. Berlusconi get away with a move like this with his credibility intact? Now, he’s going to send a thousand troops.
ROMANO: Well, you know, Berlusconi has done it before. He’s done it on other occasions simply because he lives on polls, and polls reflect the mood of the day. And Berlusconi cannot resist the temptation to go with the mood of the people, which doesn’t mean, of course, that he will necessarily do what he says today, tomorrow, or the day after, when it comes to the point of making a decision. But Berlusconi feels that now probably after the speech by Obama you can have the country do what would have been difficult a few weeks ago.
WERMAN: Now, I’m not sure if this made news in Italy yesterday or today, but yesterday U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham pressed U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to rate NATO forces’ performance by giving them a grade from A to F. And Gates didn’t really like the question. All he had to say was that he’d give an A to all those who had been fighting with the U.S. in the south, and he named the Australians, the Brits, the Dutch, the Danes, the Canadians and the Poles. Do people in Italy feel overlooked when Italian troops don’t get mentioned in a discussion like that?
ROMANO: Well, to begin with, this was not really in the Italian press, and it wasn’t a matter for a public debate. And now he mentioned that if had been let out for a public debate, I think that there would probably be greater resistance than there is now to send in more troops. And probably the government will have greater difficulties.
WERMAN: Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera’s Sergio Romano. Thank you very much for speaking with us.
ROMANO: Thank you.
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