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NOTE: Due to PIO’s participation in Exercise "Strong Resolve 2002," the SHAPE News Morning Update will not be published until March 16. Significant news items are incorporated in the SHAPE News Summary and Analysis.

BALKANS

• Gen. Ralston has recommended to Congress a sharp reduction in U.S. troops sent to Bosnia, reports AP. According to the dispatch, Gen. Ralston told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday 3,000 Americans are stationed in Bosnia and that number will drop to 2,500 next month. He further said he had recommended to the NAC a further reduction to about 1,800 Americans in the fall. Gen. Ralston said the cutback is a sign of progress in Bosnia-Herzegovina, adds the dispatch, quoting him saying: "Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of the progress that has been made."

• Electronic media report NATO troops failed Friday for the second time in 24 hours to hunt down former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic. AFP quotes SFOR saying Friday’s raid on Celibici was launched in response to new intelligence that Karadzic was still holed up in the area. AP observes that it was not clear whether the sudden surge in efforts to seize Karadzic—and the relative openness exhibited by NATO in talking about the operations—was the start of a concerted campaign to apprehend him and other suspects still at large before the NATO presence is reduced in the country. "America and its western allies with troops in Bosnia are keen to cut back. Gen. Ralston … has recommended to Congress that the 3,000 Americans in Bosnia as part of SFOR be slashed to 1,800 by fall," notes the dispatch. Commenting on Thursday’s raid, The Guardian stresses that the active hunt for Karadzic appears to be a fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. "The U.S. is planning to pull its remaining 3,000 troops out of SFOR and Washignton apparently felt it would look embarrassing to withdraw while Karadzic was still at large," the daily continues. The Financial Times cites Gerald Knaus, head of the European Stability Initiative, saying: "The Americans are increasingly interested in turning the Balkans over to the Europeans. They can do so much better if they can say that they have carried out all the major parts of the Dayton agreement." Another AP story reports NATO Secretary General Robertson said in Brussels Friday the hunt for Karadzic would continue despite a second failure to capture him. Karadzic and others running from the ICTY would come up against more "high profile and low-profile (raids) in the days and weeks ahead," he reportedly said. According to the dispatch, he stressed that the raids would continue unless Karadzic did the "honorable thing" and turn himself in. "NATO is closing in on him, there is no escape, there is not place to hide," he told reporters.

Media reactions to Thursday’s hunt for Karadzic appear to be mixed.

"It’s good to see NATO making the effort. For a long time, the chief concern of NATO commanders in Bosnia has been ‘force protection,’" says an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. "We say try, try again. NATO missed yesterday, but the odds are in its favor. After all, Karadzic has to escape 100% of the time to evade prosecution. NATO needs to get it right only once," the newspaper insists.

Striking a less positive note, Sueddeutsche Zeitung notes that the hunt for Karadzic is an embarrassing succession of "flops, slip-ups and bad luck," but Thursday’s attempt to grab him has nevertheless shown that there is a serious will to arrest him. "He is being hunted and will hopefully be captured soon," concludes the newspaper.

In contrast, The Daily Telegraph considers that "the bungled operation is a serious embarrassment to NATO, which has failed to catch Karadzic or Mladic in more than six years." Claiming that witnesses and journalists at the scene described an unwieldy and poorly planned raid doomed to failure, the newspaper stresses this was in marked contrast to similar British operations in north-western Bosnia. "Whereas the SAS have preferred to use small numbers and keep the element of surprise, the operation used four helicopters and several heavily armored vehicles…. The Montenegrin border … is barely half a mile from Celibici and surprise was essential to the success of the operation. But witnesses said local people reported being woken by a convoy of armored cars racing through Foca. Accomplices would have had plenty of time to tip off Karadzic that an attempt to grab him was under way," says the newspaper.

The Times asserts meanwhile that NATO commanders fear Karadzic was tipped off just before NATO troops raided his hideout. The suspicion is that locals working for the international peacekeeping mission informed the fugitive that NATO was mounting its biggest operation to end his six years on the run, says the newspaper, adding: NATO sources in Sarajevo said they had sound intelligence 24 hours before the raid that Karadzic and his entourage had arrived at a factory compound in Celibici. Commanders were also passed details of sightings of Karadzic Wednesday night and finalized their attack plan using a multinational contingent from SFOR. Two hours before the mission there was a final confirmation that Karadzic was still there.

The Independent notes that it was not clear Thursday whether Karadzic had made a dramatic last-minute escape, or NATO’s intelligence had been wrong.

• Moscow’s ITAR-TASS, Feb. 28, reported that a Russian parliamentary delegation which recently paid a visit to SHAPE headquarters concluded that "our cooperation with NATO in the field of peacekeeping operations in the Balkans is developing successfully on the tactical level …, but the same cannot be said about cooperation on the operational level." The report quoted Viktor Ozerov, the chairman of the Federation Council Security and Defense Committee, noting that for example, the Russian side had not been notified of Thursday’s operation by SFOR forces aimed at capturing Karadzic. "Russia is currently not allowed to take part in making important decisions, and without its participation in that, it finds itself in an auxiliary role. We are absolutely dissatisfied with this and we will state this openly at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Robertson," Ozerov reportedly stressed.

• The Financial Times reports senior Republican senators Thursday challenged NATO’s planned enlargement, suggesting that the move would leave the Alliance over-stretched and under-funded. Republican senators reportedly suggested that enlargement would make the Alliance cumbersome and would extend U.S. military commitments to countries which had little support in Washington. According to the newspaper, John Warner, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked: "Are the people willing to risk U.S. military troops and expend significant taxpayer dollars to defend the nine additional nations seeking NATO membership?" The newspaper notes, however, that administration officials told senators they were more concerned at the growing divergence between the U.S. and its NATO allies in terms of military technologies and capabilities. They also insisted that the administration remained committed to NATO’s enlargement.

GEORGIA-EUCOM

• According to AFP, Gen. Ralston told a U.S. Senate subcommittee Thursday that a final decision on sending military advisers to Georgia had not yet been made. "I have not be given any order to carry out that order. To my knowledge, that decision has not been made because I have not been given that order," Gen. Ralston reportedly said. The dispatch further reports that Marine Corps Gen. Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed that discussions between EUCOM and its Georgian counterparts were in the "formative stage" of plans to equip and train Georgia to assist with its international security problems.

IRAQ

• AP reports the state-run al-Iraq newspaper reported Friday that three people were injured in a U.S.-British air strike in northern Iraq Thursday. Noting that U.S. military officials said in Washington Thursday that Iraqi forces north of Mosul in northern Iraq fired anti-aircraft artillery at allied planes in the no-fly zone, but they were not hit, the dispatch quotes Gen. Ralston saying: "Our pilots were fired upon and we responded by taking out some of their air defense sites." The dispatch further reports that Iraq has challenged Britain to prove it is developing weapons of mass destruction, saying it was ready to receive "right now" any British team in the country. "Iraq is ready to receive right now any British team sent by (Prime Minister) Blair and accompanied by the British media to show the world where and how Iraq is developing such weapons," an official Iraqi spokesman reportedly said Friday. According to the dispatch, his comments appeared to be a response to Blair’s statement on Thursday that Iraq’s accumulation of weapons of mass destruction poses a threat to the world.

 FINAL ITEM