Useful advance guard
BERLIN/BAGHDAD (Own report) The German Federal Department of the Interior keeps a paramilitary squad on standby that is supposed to be deployed to the support of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Berlin gives a total strength of 75,000 troops for the agency (Technisches Hilfswerk, THW, German Federal Agency for Technical Relief), established in 1950. ,,Special sections"of the THW were already mobilized during the Afghanistan conflict. The organization is active worldwide and has at its command a logistical base in Africa. Reacting to an inquiry, Berlin confirms that Secretary of the Interior Schily offered the U.S. administration a considerable number of THW forces for Iraq.
The American side of the negotiations, including members of high-level bodies of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of ,,Homeland Security", appreciate the offer and reserve to themselves the German units' deployment. According to international constitutional experts, Berlin's offer concerning Iraq violates the intervention ban which prohibits a participation in the illegal occupation of foreign nations.
Silence
Since, even according to official Berlin interpretation, the occupation of Iraq is at least judicially controversial, offering to deploy THW units to the occupation powers' support also violates the German constitution. In the FRG, there is neither a public debate about the questionable circumstances of the offer, nor about the constantly expanding THW activities in the forefront or the post processing of international military aggressions.
Paramilitary
The THW is the direct successor organization of the so-called ,,Technische Nothilfe"(TeNo, Technical Emergency Aid), a paramilitary scab squad that was created in the early 1920s against the workers' revolts of those times. During the Nazi era, the TeNo was integrated into the ,,Organisation Todt", which was deployed at military construction projects of all kinds. After World War II, the new name ,,Technisches Hilfswerk"was chosen in order to obscure this organizational continuity.
An alleged ,,relief agency"with a ,,humanitarian mission", the THW was exclusively created for domestic operations - in order to overpower rebellious movements. Corresponding to this purpose was the decentralized structure of several hundred ,,local sections"whose ,,technical platoons"were supposed to flank military operations against civilian uprisings locally. Bomb squads as well as construction and rescue sections were established especially for this purpose. Today, the THW has at its disposal more than 660 local sections with 810 technical platoons, 1,620 ,,rescue and salvage sections", 264 ,,special sections general infrastructure", 132 ,,special sections debris clearance", 66 ,,special sections electric supply", and others. Since these sections operate under the label ,,civilian"they may be deployed for civil war-like riots, as forward and accompanying forces for the Bundeswehr - without Berlin believing to risk political and constitutional collisions.
Aim: Occupation force
Since unified Germany has been expanding and does not have to be afraid of domestic riots, these paramilitary units are increasingly deployed abroad, where they fulfill operational duties. The character of these activities is unambiguous. Thus, the THW was active in the field of ,,international police assistance"during its recent operation in Afghanistan. This scope of duties is supervised by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, Federal Intelligence Service) and includes an ,,intelligence component". The planned Iraq mission thus expands the related operational areas and is suitable to make Germany into an occupation force in the Middle East - even without army contingents.
Sources:
Das Technische Hilfswerk (THW): Behörde mit ehrenamtlichen Mitgliedern; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 17.06.2003
THW im Ausland; www.thw.de
T wie Technik, H wie Hilfe und W wie weltweit; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 08.07.2003