Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

21 January 2003

IRAQ

Britain will send a land force of 26,000 troops - one-quarter of its army - to the Persian Gulf in preparation for possible military action against Iraq, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said Monday in London. He said the deployment, which will take place in the coming weeks, would provide "the right group of forces for the sort of tasks that may be necessary." Additional reservists also will be called out to support these troops, he added. A deployment on this scale is "no ordinary measure," Hoon said, but he also emphasized that "none of the steps we are taking represents a commitment of British forces to military action. A decision to employ force has not been taken, nor is such a decision imminent or inevitable." (AP 202105 Jan 03)

Top UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Monday that Iraq had refused to allow reconnaissance flights by U2 aircraft over its territory to aid inspectors in their search for any weapons of mass destruction. "We've not had Iraqi agreement on flying the U2 planes that we wanted. They put up a number of conditions that were not acceptable to us," Blix told reporters on his arrival in Athens from a two day visit to Baghdad. Blix said while he and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, won some pledges of better Iraqi cooperation in searching for any weapons of mass destruction, not all issues were solved. (Reuters 201908 GMT Jan 03)

BALKANS

Kosovo's top UN official said on Monday that there will be no discussions this year about the future status of the UN-run province. Michael Steiner, the chief UN official in Kosovo, said "the time for solving Kosovo's status will come, but not in 2003" in a televised speech broadcast on Monday evening. Earlier Monday, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic reiterated his stance that Kosovo issues must be discussed "before it becomes too late." (AP 201943 Jan 03)

RUSSIA

Russia needs more financial assistance to help it secure its Soviet-era stockpile of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, an international conference on weapons of mass destruction said Monday in London. Security experts from think-tanks in North America, Europe and Asia said world leaders should consider waving Russian debt repayments in return for greater efforts by Moscow to secure or eliminate such weapons. "If terrorists gain access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, they can destroy lives, destabilize economies and change history," said former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charity that helped sponsor the London-conference. The conference, organized by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a closing report that Europe and the United States should help Russia upgrade the security of its nuclear materials. The report said the international community must treat Russia "not as a dependent client but as an equal partner" in the process. (AP 201701 Jan 03)