• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

NATO

• Leaders of the U.S. Pacific and European commands said Wednesday that the war on terrorism has overtaxed troops and equipment, leaving dangerous shortages that ultimately could hurt Americans. "We do not have adequate forces to carry out our missions for the Pacific if the operations in the Central Command (Afghanistan) continue at their recent past and current pace," Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, commander in chief of the Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee in Washington. Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, commander in chief of the European Command, gave a similar response. "The answer to your question as you posed it is: I do not have the forces in EUCOM today to carry out these missions," Gen. Ralston told Ike Skelton, the committee’s top Democrat. But if more operations are assigned, Gen. Ralston said, "I will come back to the chairman of the joint chiefs and the secretary of defense and ask for additional forces. Then they are going to have to come up with a choice: Where are they going to take them away from?" (AP 202044 Mar 02)

• NATO denied on Wednesday that its negotiations with Russia on a new joint council had hit a snag and said a new round of talks on a closer partnership between the Cold War rivals had been set for this week. An alliance official said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Gusarov and a team of experts would meet NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs Guenther Altenburg in Brussels on Friday. (Reuters 201555 GMT Mar 02)

• NATO officials want Romania to bar some former communist secret police staff from holding sensitive positions in intelligence before it can join the military alliance, a diplomat said on Wednesday. The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said NATO officials were concerned about the presence of some former Securitate - or secret police - officials in key intelligence positions, saying it harmed Romania’s chances of joining NATO. Radu Podgoreanu, the head of the Parliament’s foreign policy committee, told a parliamentary meeting Tuesday about NATO’s request. An editorial published on Wednesday in the daily Evenimentul Zilei argued Romania has "tried to cover up the former Securitate officers. We repainted them, we rearranged them to look democratic, but then propelled them into important positions. Either the Securitate officers step back ... or we have a big problem with NATO." (AP 201452 Mar 02)

BALKANS

• The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal wants NATO troops to send a plainclothes squad after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and the Belgrade government to capture wartime general Ratko Mladic. "It’s just the political will to arrest him and to transfer him," Carla Del Ponte said of Mladic during a visit to UN headquarters. She said she was not surprised at the failure of two recent raids by SFOR seeking Karadzic in the Bosnian villages where he is hiding. "I tried without success to explain to SFOR that you cannot arrest a fugitive if you move with 200 soldiers in uniform, from their headquarters to a village," she added. Instead, Del Ponte suggested a plainclothes squad be organized so that villagers would not tip off suspects in advance. But this had been rejected by the United States, France and other SFOR continents as beyond their purview. Del Ponte said the Belgrade government, especially President Kostunica, has balked at handing over Mladic and other indicted suspects as well as needed documents. "We have no access to the archives of the army, particularly fugitives from the army, like Mladic," she said, adding that Serbia’s government gave investigators documents but not necessarily the ones they needed. (Reuters 210306 GMT Mar 02)

• Macedonian (sic) authorities said on Wednesday they were planning a new arms amnesty to try to rid the volatile country of the thousands of illegal weapons which threaten its fragile peace process. "There is a large amount of weaponry among the population due to last year’s war and if we want to preserve peace and avoid incidents we must immediately collect it," a senior government official was quoted. The government official said he expected a formal proposal from the interior ministry very soon and that a collection might begin within a month. It will likely be accompanied by threats of harsh punishment for those who do not comply and are caught. (Reuters 201530 GMT Mar 02)

• Most countries whose nationals are being held on allegations of having terrorist links aren’t interested in getting them back, a U.S. general said Wednesday. "These are different than enemy POWs (who) come back as heroes when they return to their country of origin, and in this particular case, a majority of the countries are not interested in getting these people back," said Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert, the outgoing general who has been in charge of the detention mission at Guantanamo. (AP 202238 Mar 02)

 FINAL ITEM