By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

The pro-government Uri Party on Friday showed signs of internal discord over the plan to dispatch troops to Iraq.

Canvassing Kangwon Province for votes, Uri Party chairman Chung Dong-young said his party ``will not have a big change in its policy on this issue.’’

But some of the party’s progressive members demanded the leadership change its line.

``The original aim of the military dispatch was to reconstruct a peaceful environment in Iraq, but it has become unsuitable due to the return of all-out war,’’ Rep. Im Jong-seok said. ``Even though the government will have difficulties in finding solutions, it should first delay making its decisions on when and where the additional troop will be dispatched.’’

Seoul has planned to send more than 3,000 soldiers to a yet-to-be-determined location in Iraq, adding to the some 400 medics and engineers already stationed in Nasiriyah since last year.

The minor opposition Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) has thrown itself fully into opposing the troop dispatch.

``The government should reconsider the plan from the beginning and reflect the public’s opinion in its decision-making process,’’ Chu Mi-ae, the MDP’s top electoral campaign manager, said at the party headquarters in Yoido, Seoul.

Chu argued that the war in Iraq is becoming ``a second Vietnam War’’ and the situation there is deteriorating into a full-scale battle between the United States and Iraqi militias. ``The government is irresponsibly sticking to its original plan of sending additional troops to Iraq,’’ she said.

The MDP opposed the additional troop dispatch bill when it passed the National Assembly in February.

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which supported the bill, reconfirmed its stance that the country should keep its promise to international community.

But the GNP was also taking the public’s objections into its calculations. ``As the situation in Iraq is drastically changing, the government must come up with measures to properly deal with the composition of the troops and the timing of sending them to Iraq,’’ GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye told reporters.

Meanwhile, political experts believe the troop dispatch issue is not powerful enough to change party lines.

``I think the issue is not a big factor in affecting prospective voters,’’ Kim Seung-chae, research division director of Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, told The Korea Times. ``It was a decision which had already been made by the National Assembly and the government. Parties can’t change it now.’’

im@koreatimes.co.kr