Spooks always make for good stories. But the two German spies who spent the Iraq war in Baghdad  -- even as the government under then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder continued denying any German participation in the war -- are getting more attention than many members of Schröder's ex-government might like. On Tuesday, the opposition in the Bundestag -- Germany's parliament -- voted to establish an investigative committee to look into the matter.

Specifically, the committee will examine whether the German spies aided the US war effort by helping identify bombing targets. The German foreign intelligence agency -- Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) -- has said that spies only remained in Baghdad to help protect German properties. However, according to BND sources, they also provided information to the Americans to help them avoid targeting such buildings as embassies, hospitals and schools during bombings. But an anonymous former Pentagon levelled a more damaging charge on German public television, alledging that German agents actively assisted in choosing targets  -- such as the failed April 2003 bombing raid in Baghdad that sought to kill Saddam Hussein, but killed at least a dozen innocents instead.

The investigative committee, which was approved by the Free Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party -- but which former Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer voted against -- will also take a closer look at CIA flights in Europe (so-called "extraordinary renditions") and whether German intelligence profited from CIA abductions by interviewing prisoners in Damascus and Guantanamo. Green Party head Reinhard Bütikofer has speculated that witnesses called before the committee could include Schröder, Fischer and former chancellery chief of staff and current foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

But will the investigative committee succeed? That's the question the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung seeks to answer in its commentary on Wednesday. Before the committee can even be formed, the paper notes, there are those who are already trying to limit what can be investigated. Intelligence is by its very nature, they argue, secret. "People who really want to bring the truth to light, talk differently," the paper concludes.

The lefty Berliner Zeitung too is concerned about the will to exercise government control over Germany's intelligence services. The Bundestag has a permanent committee charged with keeping an eye on the BND -- called the Parliamentary Control Board -- but it was apparently uninformed about BND activities in Iraq. The board, two-thirds controlled by members of parties making up the governing coalition, denies that BND was involved in Iraq. "The Control Board," the paper writes, "is in danger of degenerating into a government-controlled instrument."

There are, however, larger questions raised by the forming of an investigative committee, and it has been left on Wednesday to Germany's two financial dailies to point them out. Handelsblatt shows understanding for the at times hypocritical positions taken by the Schröder government -- and reminds its readers that, by allowing the US military flyover rights and by hosting bases, Germany hardly had its hands clean in the war. But the seemingly contradictory positions of being vocally anti-war on the one hand and offering minimal support on the other comes because, "Germany still finds itself in a phase of self-definition as to its roll and activity in the world." Indeed, the current scandal over the BND agents in Baghdad would hardly make waves in countries with more experience in world affairs.

The Financial Times Deutschland sees the larger implications as well. Investigative committees, the paper writes, are the opposition's sharpest swords. But here, it is aimed at a former government, which may actually allow real debate to take place. And what should the subject of that debate be? "There is an opportunity to actually clear up an important question: The republic can come to an agreement about what the role of its intelligence agencies should be in a new geo-political situation."

-- Charles Hawley
1:00 p.m. CET

Almost ever since Angela Merkel took over as German chancellor in late November last year, commentators have busied themselves with praising Germany's rising political star. Fresh into office, she ended last year by helping broker a deal on the European Union budget. The "behind the scenes negotiator" quickly became the "talented diplomat," capable of strengthening relations with the US while at the same time criticizing the Bush Administration on Guantanamo last week, before dashing off to Moscow for a quick no-nonsense talk with Russia's President Putin on Monday.

On Wednesday, with international distractions temporarily over, attention returned to domestic issues and, as usual, the outlook was gloomy. Merkel's honeymoon seems to be over.

"Angela Merkel will repeat Gerhard Schröder's mistakes" warns the Financial Times Deutschland, by mistiming the introduction of necessary reforms. The paper reminds that reforms take time to kick in and are best introduced at times of economic upturn. Ex-chancellor Schröder enjoyed the boom years of 1999 and 2000 but put the country through nearly five years of economic stagnation before finally pushing for reforms. 2006 is expected to bring a slight improvement on Germany's lagging economy and the paper urges that now is the time for crucial reforms. Yet "if you take the coalition agreement seriously, as Merkel seems to do, then you have to conclude that in this legislative period neither the energy market, nor the job market and least of all corporate governance will be reformed."

The right leaning Die Welt likewise outlines the difficult situation that faces Merkel. As head of government she must push through economic reforms, yet as "Staatsfrau" she must "therapeutically help the Germans to overcome the neurotic fears and inhibitions, infantile welfare state fantasies and chronic weak-will that stop many Germans from getting their own lives together."  How can she possibly play these dual roles and successfully untangle two issues that are so deeply intertwined? After pondering how Merkel might best walk this political tightrope, the paper concludes that what is needed is a double leadership to split the task. "Without Moses, Aaron would never have been able to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, yet without Aaron, Moses and his people would have died in the desert." Who should Merkel be relying on? Franz Müntefering, the vice chancellor from Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partners.

The real critique of Merkel, though, comes in the form of a broadside from across the Atlantic. In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, fearful of the imminent threat of Iran producing nuclear weapons, tears into Merkel. The object of his ire is a Merkel statement on Friday in which she praised the approach of the European Union troika (Britain, France and Germany). "They stood together and had one uniform position" in their negotiations with Iran.

Krauthammer mocks Merkel's appraisal of a success, pointing out that "one day earlier, Britain, France and Germany admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program had collapsed." He goes on to point the figure squarely at the Europeans:  "Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government."