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The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**At Headquarters, Secretary-General Opens Meeting with UNAMSIL Troop Contributors

This morning in the Trusteeship Council, the Secretary-General opened the meeting of the Chiefs of Defence Staff of the Troop- Contributing Countries for Sierra Leone. He noted that this was the first time in the history of United Nations peacekeeping that a Secretary-General has had the privilege of addressing the Chiefs of Staff of Member States participating in a peacekeeping operation.

You'll recall that the Secretary-General had invited the Chiefs of Defence Staff or their deputies from the nine countries contributing troops to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) to meet here to discuss ways to improve that Mission's operations.

He said that the traditional model of peacekeeping, involving lightly armed soldiers operating with the consent and cooperation of responsible parties, has been making way in recent years to a more robust type of peacekeeping. In Sierra Leone, he said, the United Nations Mission faced open hostilities since last May, and, although the situation has since stabilized, he added that the United Nations must "remain vigilant and be prepared for worst-case scenarios".

He said that the events that began in May exposed serious problems with the Mission which need to be addressed, including the importance of unified command and control, equipment shortfalls and clarity about the mandate and rules of engagement. He urged the delegations present, saying, "Let us solve our problems together. And let us emerge with a renewed and common sense of purpose."

The Secretary-General's comments were open to the press and are available in the Spokesman's Office. The rest of the meeting, however, was closed.

**Questions and Answers

Question: The last resolution on Sierra Leone authorized deployment of a technical team of legal experts if the Secretary-General felt it was necessary. Has such a team been authorized?

Spokesman: I don't know. I'll have to look into that for you. [He later clarified that a new technical team had not been composed, although a United Nations legal expert had been sent to Sierra Leone.]