Military

NATO SUMMIT

¨         President Bush, in Prague for a NATO enlargement summit, will lay out on Wednesday a post-Cold War mission for the alliance that tackles global terrorism and confronts threats such as those posed by Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction.   He is to make his case for a new NATO in an afternoon speech to the Prague Atlantic Student Summit after a series of meetings with leaders gathered here for a NATO summit where seven Eastern European nations will be invited to join the defense club.  In his speech, he will say new threats posed by terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and rogue leaders require NATO and the world to come together to operate in different ways.  "NATO countries have to no longer be concerned about threats within their own borders," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said.  "They understand as we do that threats now lurk outside their borders and they have to have capabilities in different ways and different capacities to confront those threats."(Reuters 0504 201102 Nov 02 GMT)

¨         President Bush flew into the Czech capital on Tuesday for a landmark NATO summit, saying he hoped to persuade hesitant allies to support his campaign to disarm Iraq.  The two-day summit which opens on Thursday will invite seven states to join the alliance in 2004. But its main focus will be Iraq and how NATO can reshape itself to face new security threats after last year's attacks on the United States.  The leaders will also agree to overhaul NATO's increasingly obsolete military command structure and will back proposals to set up a 20,000-troop strike force for high-intensity warfare.  The summit is likely to attract some 12,000 anti-NATO activists and anarchists set to square off with as many police, as U.S. fighter planes patrol the skies over the Czech capital.  Police said they defused a small bomb on a railway in a Prague suburb on Tuesday, prompting Czech President Havel to warn that risks would remain throughout the summit.    "Terrorist attacks can happen wherever and whenever. Our security forces have prepared as best as they can," he told reporters." But 100 percent certainty cannot be found in the world today in this respect."(Reuters 2111 191102 Nov 02 GMT)

EU

¨         EU defense ministers said on Tuesday they hoped a special reaction force of 60,000 would be up and running by next summer and ready to take on peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Greek Defense Minister Papantoniou, who presided over the meeting, said the EU expected a breakthrough in talks with NATO-member Turkey over the coming weeks which would clear the way for smooth cooperation between the two groups. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was hoping "we can have an agreement before the end of the year on Turkey and NATO." "We hope that in June, at the end of the Greek presidency, the reaction force will be up and running," Papantoniou said.(AP 191733 Nov 02 GMT)

IRAQ

¨         Iraq vowed to meet the first big test under a UN Security Council resolution by providing a full account of its arms program, and insisted it had not developed nuclear weapons capability over the past four years. President  Bush, in Prague for a NATO summit, is due to kick off his campaign to win political support for his hardline policy against Iraq with a series of meetings on Wednesday with world leaders, including Turkish President Sezer and British Prime Minister Blair. "thin 30 days, as the (UN) resolution says, a report from Iraq will be submitted on all the files -- nuclear, chemical, biological and missile files," President Saddam Hussein' adviser General Amir al-Saadi told reporters on Tuesday.(Reuters 0212 201102 Nov 02 GMT)

MISSILE DEFENSE

¨         The United States will have an effective missile defense system up and running within five years, possibly in partnership with NATO or a European agency, the U.S. military officer leading the project said on Tuesday.  Lieutenant-General Ronald Kadish said extensive tests had shown the technology behind the missile shield -- designed to knock out incoming missiles launched by "rogue states" with interceptor missiles -- genuinely worked. "We no longer need to experiment, to demonstrate or prevaricate. We need to get on with this and I'm confident we will," Kadish told a conference on missile defense in London. "Some time in the next five years or so we will have effective defenses against a multiple range of threats." He said allies could come under its protective umbrella without a hefty cash payment. "We have offered potential partners government-to-government agreements, in-kind investments -- not necessarily monetary," Kadish said. "Or we could cooperate with entities such as NATO or a European missile defense agency, or some other construct that might arise out of this discussion," he said.    "Our invitation is real for people to join us."(Reuters 1941 191102 Nov 02 GMT)