Bush Wins NATO Backing on Missile Shield

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was "a breakthrough document on missile defense for the alliance." At Bush's first NATO summit in 2001, "perhaps only two allies gave even lukewarm support for the notion of missile defense," Rice said.

This was Bush's final meeting with members of the 26-nation alliance, and White House officials described it as a day of freewheeling talks in which leaders and their foreign ministers got off script and gathered in crowds to debate the wording of a statement. "It doesn't happen in NATO meetings a lot," said Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

He said a group of leaders "men in suits" gathered around German Chancellor Angela Merkel to talk about putting former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia on a path toward NATO membership, a step she opposes. Moscow heatedly opposes any further eastward expansion of the alliance.

Summit leaders refused to grant the two countries a membership plan now, but said they would look at the issue again in December and they empowered their foreign ministers to decide it. The Balkan nations of Albania and Croatia were invited to join the alliance. Macedonia was turned aside at the insistence of Greece, which says the country's name implies a territorial claim to a northern region of Greece, also called Macedonia.

France helped resolve a sensitive issue for NATO by pledging to send as many as 1,000 more combat troops to Afghanistan's eastern part. That would free up U.S. forces to move into the south, home of fierce fighting with Taliban and al-Qaida forces. Canada had threatened to pull its soldiers from the south unless it received 1,000 reinforcements from another ally.

Some allies, notably Germany, Italy, Turkey and Spain, refuse to send troops to the Afghan front lines because of the unpopularity of the war at home. Hadley said military commanders in Afghanistan are pleading for more forces.

Already the largest contributor to NATO's 47,000 troops in Afghanistan, the United States is dispatching an additional 3,500 Marines and readying plans to send in more in the south next year, Hadley said.

Putin, in the last days of his presidency, arrived Thursday evening and joined the leaders at dinner. Putin planned to meet more formally with NATO chiefs Friday.

With U.S.-Russian relations in a deep chill, Bush and Putin will meet Saturday and Sunday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in their last talks before the Russian leader steps down in May. Bush's term ends in January.