Germany Rules Out Iraq Mission

BERLIN — Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday ruled out sending German troops to Iraq after his defense minister said a deployment was possible.

Defense Minister Peter Struck had said Wednesday that Germany, which opposed the U.S.-led war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, could eventually send troops to Iraq, although he ruled out any immediate move. Struck made his comments in a newspaper interview and in a briefing to reporters at a NATO summit in Romania.

The chancellor, however, was quick to contradict Struck.

“The position of Germany will not change. We will not send soldiers to Iraq,” Schroeder said at a news conference in Rome, after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Schroeder was reelected in 2002 on a platform opposing war in Iraq, and public sentiment in Germany still runs strongly against Bush administration policy.

Analysts said Struck’s comments, some of them made after a telephone conversation with Schroeder on the troops issue, might signal a subtle shift in the German stance.

An official at the U.S. State Department, who asked not to be named, said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had spoken by telephone with his German counterpart, Joschka Fischer, who reaffirmed Germany’s policy on troops.