The Commander of NATO Mission to Iraq, Lieutenant General Lucas Schreurs, visited the American University of Iraq-Baghdad (AUIB), where he met students and engaged them in discussion at AUIB’s American Space that teemed with an excited young audience.
Lt. Gen. Schreurs spoke on NATO’s inception in the aftermath of World War II and its expansion to include thus far 32 countries, also forging partnerships with 40 other countries, among which being Iraq. The commanding officer stressed that NATO Mission to Iraq came to be by the request of the government of Iraq, with a mandate to help the country build its capacities in a wide array of fields, encompassing counterterrorism, cybersecurity, crisis management, critical energy infrastructure, and even political dialogue and issues of “Women, Security, and Peace”. The Mission advises the Ministries of Defense and Interior on how to make Iraq’s security architecture compatible with NATO’s, he added.
In his exchange with students, Lt. Gen. Schreurs highlighted the long-term character of NATO’s partnership with Iraq, citing objectives as far reaching as developing policy that would diversify the Iraqi economy away from dependence on oil revenue. However, the basis upon which such development would be achieved is security, he maintained, citing in this context projects to assist in building the capacities of the Iraqi federal police, enabling it to tackle drug-trafficking, as a prominent example, thus allowing the army “back to its barracks”.