(via Niraj)  Given relationships with our European pseudo-allies of late, this article makes for some really bizarro reading -- Iceland is angry that we're planning to pull military OUT of the island nation:

A move by the Bush administration to withdraw the last several U.S. Air Force fighter jets from Iceland has drawn strong objection from Icelandic authorities and threatened to disrupt relations with yet another NATO ally.

Pentagon officials contend the planes, remnants of an operation started four decades ago to guard the North Atlantic against a Soviet threat, no longer need to be based in Iceland and can be used better elsewhere. But Iceland, which has no military, regards the aircraft as essential to its air defense and, even more important, as a symbol of a U.S. commitment to defend the nation.

The article's worth a good chuckle.   Something tells me that CNN / BBC won't be running with this story

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UPDATE: Egill Guðmundsson writes from Iceland with some of the backstory (some minor edits on my part to his email) :

Both Iceland and USA are a founding members of NATO.  More than 50 years ago the two countries made an defnce agreement because of the unstable situation in the world at that time and because of the position of Iceland which has a very big airspace. 

 

This defence agreement has alway been contreversial in Iceland because most of Icelanders don´t want to have an army based here.  We have never had an army and define us as a country without weapons.  In world war II Iceland was a neutral country. (It was under the Danish crown in WWI)

 

The defence agreement is mostly about letting the USA have an army based here but they have to protect the country instead.  In past years the USA has been taking away jets and stuff and for a while there have just been four planes to defend Iceland.  The Icelandic government defines this four jets as a minimum air defence.

 

Now the USA wants to take this jets away but still keep the rest of the army here.  The Icelandic government says that if they do so the defence agreement spoiled and there is no reason for the base to stay.

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