Military

NATO

¨         The Wall Street Journal reports that Europe has agreed to overcome a military handicap by leasing troop-transport planes for ferrying soldiers and hardware in and out conflict zones. Most EU members of the Alliance will reportedly team up to lease 15 transport planes until the end of the decade when the French company Airbus is expected to deliver the transport aircraft ordered by the Europeans.

NATO SUMMIT

¨         Both electronic and paper media keep focusing on the NATO summit. The Financial Times suggests that NATO countries, more than ever, are facing a real threat: the menace of sophisticated terrorists targeting western lives and interests around the globe. As an organization, the newspaper adds, NATO has been largely sidelined in the war on terrorism since September 11, 2002, but in the Summit it will be trying to show its relevance to countering the new threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction by establishing a 20,000-strong NATO "response force" for counter-terrorism operations, probably in conjunction with the U.S. Washington proposed the force to give NATO a rationale, the newspaper observes, and another rationale has been to admit new east European countries into the Alliance: seven more nations will be invited to join the Alliance during the Summit but the expansion risks to transform NATO from a taut military alliance into a "talking shop" on regional security, when security threats seem to be global nowadays. Furthermore, the newspaper writes, it will be unlikely that the U.S. and Europe will agree on dispatching the "response" force, since they often have a different view on the cause of, and solutions to, terrorism and weapons proliferation. In a related article, The Financial Times argues that the limited size of the proposed response force minimizes its significance and, it adds, turning NATO into a global strike force is a non-starter. Moreover, according to the newspaper, EU members are struggling to come up with sufficient forces to handle conflicts in their own backyard and  they are neither capable of, nor interested in, new commitments in distant lands.

ESDP

¨         Lord Robertson, according to AP, on Friday, told Turkish military commanders that the European Union needs to quickly end an impasse over the creation of an European defense force that Turkey has been blocking. He reportedly said close cooperation between NATO and the EU would better prepare the two organizations to face new threats, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The dispatch reports that Lord Robertson further stressed that the EU urgently needed to form a rapid reaction force able to move to conflict zones within days adding: "We are not able to get people to the theatre of conflict quickly."

IRAQ

¨          The Guardian writes that UN disarmament experts armed with superior equipment and elaborate surveillance plans arrived in Baghdad today to begin the most extensive and intrusive weapons inspections in modern history. The chief arms inspector, Hans Blix, reportedly stated the mission would be "comprehensive, thorough and objective." Likewise, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency is quoted saying: "We are determined to be an honest organ, a subsidiary of the Security Council." Broad differences, adds the newspaper, remain between the UN and the Bush administration over how inspectors should behave in Iraq; Mr Blix has not yet agreed to a U.S. request that a senior American official be appointed to manage the flow of U.S. intelligence to the inspectors. In a related article, The Times reports  that Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Baghdad would cooperate fully with the inspectors but suggested that the Iraqi authorities still needed to discuss "modalities" regarding entry to sensitive sites and the use of interpreters for interviews with Iraqis.

¨         According to AFP, Lord Robertson was quoted saying in an interview released to the Spanish daily "El Mundo" on Sunday: "A war against Iraq should not be taken for granted, the clock started ticking when the resolution was approved by the Security Council. Now inspectors will go to Iraq and it is possible that there will not be a war." He reportedly added that President Saddam "tends to rethink things when he realizes the disastrous consequences facing him." However, The Times, Nov. 16, reports that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said that a U.S. war against Iraq would be "finished fast" and certainly last no longer than five months. The conflict "won't be a World War Three" he purportedly added and Iraq's capabilities have declined since the Gulf War.

WAR ON TERRORISM

¨         A U.S. plan for an allied force capable of being deployed within five or 15 days is expected to be agreed at the NATO summit, reports The Guardian, Nov. 16. The response force will be a "find and strike" unit targeting terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda the newspaper reported. Under this plan, NATO could respond quickly to a request to disrupt camps or places where it was suspected that terrorists were hiding biological or chemical weapons even without a request or permission from the government of the country where the target was located. According to British officials, writes the newspaper, this force will be "up and running" within two to four years.

¨         A Reuters news agency dispatch reports that the alert status at two military bases has been raised following unspecified intelligence reports. A defense spokesman reportedly said: "It concerns a slightly increased alert level," declining to comment on reports.