Poland said late on Monday it would send up to 200 soldiers to join a U.S.-led campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein

Poland said late on Monday it would send up to 200 soldiers to join a U.S.-led campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein, maintaining its position as bedrock of Eastern European support for Washington in the Iraq crisis. "We are prepared to use the Polish military contingent to force Iraq to respect UN Security Council Resolution 1441," Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told a news conference alongside Prime Minister Leszek Miller. Speaking ahead of a speech by President George W. Bush that set the clock ticking to war, Kwasniewski said the Polish troops would lend logistical support to U.S. forces in the Iraq region for a period limited from March 19 to September 15. Poland, a NATO member on course to join the European Union on May 1, 2004, has emerged as one of Washington's staunchest supporters in the Iraq crisis. Its declaration came after the PAP news agency said Kwasniewski held a round of telephone calls with counterparts in Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic's President Vaclav Klaus, Lithuania's Rolandas Paksas, Slovenia's Janez Drnovsek, Slovakia's Rudolf Schuester and Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma. Poland late in January angered France and Germany when it signed a letter with seven other European countries backing the U.S. hardline stance on Iraq. France and Germany have led European opposition to the U.S. stance in the crisis.Ten other Eastern European countries signed a similar declaration in early February.