most dutch not in favor

Dutch split over Afghan mission
Thu 12 Jan 2006
news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=51962006

A POLITICAL row over the sending of up to 1,400 troops from the Netherlands to Afghanistan was threatening to topple the Dutch government last night.

The cabinet says it supports the deployment of a NATO force in the spring, but it has had to seek approval from a strongly divided parliament at the insistence of the Democrats 66, the smallest party in the coalition government.

It has said it would not support the mission, and Bert Bakker, one of its MPs, announced on his website that "D66 remains opposed to the government's plans to join a new mission to the Afghan province Uruzgan".