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Tom Brady, Irish Independent, 4th August 2007
IRISH peacekeeping troops are expected to pull out of Lebanon - unless a significant new role is offered by the United Nations.
The soldiers have been deployed there since last October and a government decision on whether another contingent should be sent out in the autumn is due to be made shortly.
However, serious doubts about Ireland's continued participation in the south Lebanon mission are being raised.
The troops returned to Lebanon at the request of the UN after withdrawing from there in 2001 after a 23-year peace involvement.
The 160-strong unit has been mainly deployed in providing protection for Finnish troops involved in mine clearance duties.
The decision of the Finns to pull out means a new role would have to be allocated to the Irish and so far there has been no indication if anything is on offer.
Talks held by the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieut Gen Dermot Earley, during a visit to the troops this week will have a significant impact on the advice to be given by the military authorities to the Government in the coming days.
The vast majority of the troops are situated at a camp in Ebl es Saqi where they are part of the Finnish-led battalion. The rest are located at the force headquarters on the coast at Naqoura.
After the withdrawal from Liberia earlier this year, an end to Irish involvement in Lebanon would reduce the number of troops serving overseas from over 800 to a maximum of 350, including observer missions.
This would be the lowest level of overseas deployment in six years.
After agreeing last year to send the troops back to Lebanon, the Government had indicated that an initial engagement of one year only had been sanctioned and it was not envisaged that the Irish would remain there in the long term.
If the decision to pull out is taken, the Government and the military authorities will be lobbying hard at the UN headquarters in New York for a new mission.
Last June, the Government gave the go ahead for almost 300 troops to play a key role in peace missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan for another year.
From this month, Ireland will become the framework nation for the multinational taskforce in Kosovo, which means the Defence Forces take charge of a brigade-size force in a peace support operation for the first time.
The Cabinet heard this new responsibility would contribute to the development of the Defence Forces, and heighten its profile as a professional force within the global peacekeeping community.
The Government has promised to sympathetically consider any request from the UN to join the proposed new mission to Darfur. Aid agency Goal called on the Government to reject any such request, as monitoring a genocide rather than stopping it was "useless".
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