Shocking news from Iceland: the foreign minister has announced the the immediate withdrawal of the entire Icelandic contingent from Iraq!
The Icelandic foreign minister, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir announced that while she deplores the fighting in Iraq and expressing her full support for the Iraqi people.
The icelandic contingent is a NATO information officer working with the NATO training contingent in the 'Green Zone' in Baghdad.
He will be home by the end of september.
Iceland continues operations in Afghanistan.
(Seriously: bomb disposal and air traffic control, as well as development aid people; Iceland's contingent in Iraq included bomb disposal teams in the past).
Weird shit.
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During the invasion, Denmark sent a submarine.
Denmark also had a reinforced infantry battalion group in the MND(SE) until a few months ago.
Is it still true to say that Iceland has no armed forces?
Denmark and Norway have substantial forces in Afghanistan, and I think the Danes took some casualties in an armoured battallion.
Controversial question on the Icelandic "military".
We have a Coast Guard: as a friend of mine asked a couple of years ago "What is that frigate doing in harbour?" to which the answer is "Oh, you mean the new coast guard cutter?"
The Royal Navy ought to have fond memories still of the Icelandic Coast Guard. Might have been the last occasion in which cannon were fired in the North Atlantic in anger?
There is a "Viking squad" - which is really a SWAT team - supposedly thoroughly trained but has no field experience (they have been called out a couple of times for real incidents, but they were not exactly Hollywood movie material incidents).
Currently we have a "Crisis Response Unit",
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Crisis_Response_Unit
which is a NATO affilliated peacekeeping squad.
They wear uniforms, carry guns, and have taken casualties (3 wounded in a Afghan bombing).
I gather they claim uniformed combatant status under the Geneva conventions, if anyone is still taking note of such quaint things.
However, they have no legal standing inside Iceland - no rank or authority, nor authority to take action in case of war or invasion.
They are strictly an ad hoc expeditionary unit, and quite controversial politically.
The right wing "independent" party in Iceland seems to want to establish a battallion strength standing army, supplemented by a formal intelligence service; a very hot button politically among the Icelandic left, which has bitter memories of the rights abuse of secret police powers (primarily illegal telephone bugging etc).
Constitutionally, the government can, and must, call out the militia in case of invasion.
I suspect some sort of structure will emerge, if only to keep the early warning radars operating, and it will primarily function as a integrated air/sea search rescue (the scouts and rescue units are already borderline paramilitary), with secondary role to exercise with and co-ordinate with Nordic NATO partners, primarily NATO.
I was rather shocked to read on the Net that Danish warships may now transit Icelandic waters without explicit clearance... thin end of the wedge, mate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Iceland