Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

14 March 2003

NATO

• Opinion polls published Thursday showed that temporarily low Slovenian support for entry into NATO was bouncing back ahead of the country’s referendum on membership into the alliance on March 23. More than 48 percent of Slovene respondents voted in favor of entry into NATO, according to a poll conducted by the Faculty of Social Science at Ljubljana University. The result was a 10 percent jump on last month. The poll, which was carried out nationwide with 1,000 respondents over the phone, has a 2.5 percent margin of error. No period of polling people was given. Political analyst Vlado Mihaljek said the rise in support reflected success of an unobtrusive public campaign and a series of encouraging visits from top international leaders, such as NATO Secretary Robertson, President, Prodi, the president of the EU Commission, and German Foreign Minister Fischer. “The rising trend was to be expected considering the more dynamic efforts undertaken by the government and foreign diplomats,” Mihaljek said.(AP 131807 Mar 03 GMT)

IRAQ 

• Forced into a diplomatic retreat, U.S. officials said President Bush may delay a vote on his troubled UN resolution or even drop it and fight Iraq without the international body’s backing. France dismissed a compromise plan as an “automatic recourse to war.” Amid a swirl of recrimination and 11th-hour posturing Thursday, the White House began planning for a possible overseas meeting this weekend between Bush and his two staunchest allies on Iraq, British Prime Minister Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar. Senior U.S. officials said the meeting, tentatively planned for a neutral nation overseas, would allow the leaders to review final diplomatic and military strategies. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said all three leaders and the host nation had not signed off on the summit Thursday night, and there would be no final word on the prospects for a meeting before Friday.(AP 140410 Mar 03 GMT)
  
  
• The United States is moving about 10 Navy ships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean to the Red Sea, senior U.S. officials said Thursday. The move indicates weakening U.S. confidence that Turkey will grant overflight rights for U.S. planes and missiles. From the Red Sea the cruisers, destroyers and submarines would be able to launch their Tomahawks typically fired in the opening hours of a war for flights over Saudi Arabia to targets in Iraq. No decision has been made to move the carriers from the Mediterranean, but that could be a next step, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.(AP 140035 Mar 03 GMT)
  

EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY 

• EU defense ministers gathered in Athens on Friday for a drive to keep the Bloc’s security ambitions alive, but disarray over Iraq looked set to cast a long shadow over their efforts. British Defense Secretary Hoon decided to stay at home to join eleventh-hour efforts to win over neutral nations for a UN Security Council resolution to authorize a looming invasion of Iraq, leaving his EU colleagues to discuss other issues. EU diplomats said that, irrespective of the continent’s disunity over Iraq, the defense ministers would still find reasons to be cheerful as they put the finishing touches to a plan to take over NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Macedonia (sic). On Friday EU foreign policy chief Solana and NATO Secretary-General Robertson will sign a security pact -- -- making the exchange of classified information between the institutions automatic -- as part of long-winded negotiations to provide the 15-nation bloc with the military backup it needs. “ESDP remains important,” a British Defense Ministry spokeswoman said, explaining that Hoon would be represented in Athens by Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram. “It won’t be destabilized by current pressing and very important issues: France and the U.K. are leading the way together to improve European defense capabilities,” she said. (Reuters 0312 140303 GMT)

BALKANS 

• Serbian police swept through the underworld on Thursday in their hunt for the killers of Prime Minister Djindjic, making dozens of arrests. But three prime suspects remained at large. Police arrested 56 people, a government statement said, including eight key members of a criminal group it said was behind the assassination of the reformist premier. Three of them had asked for protected witness status and were giving statements to a special prosecutor. But the government said police were still looking for the three leaders of the so-called Zemun gang, including a former commander of a special police unit that saw action in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Acting prime minister Nebojsa Covic said the perpetrators were set on changing the whole nature of the government. But the finance minister said reforms would continue and Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, another leading reformer, told a news conference the government would not be cowed. “We will arrest all those who planned this and those who resist we will liquidate,” he told a news conference.(Reuters 2113 130303 GMT)

OTHER NEWS 

• The United States has stationed about 1,000 troops at a Romanian Black Sea air base acting as an “air bridge” for equipment and personnel going to the Gulf, the U.S. Air Force said on Thursday. Allowing a rare glimpse of U.S. troop deployment in the Balkans, officials at the the Kogalniceanu Air Base near the port of Constanta said their role in Romania and neighboring Bulgaria was to forward troops, cargo, fuel and vehicles from Germany. “This is an air-bridge for equipment and personnel going to CENTCOM (Central Command in Qatar),” public affairs officer Tim Nye told reporters at the base. U.S. base commander Colonel Steven Dreyer said on average three to four planes daily transported equipment in and out of the base. Although the base was capable of hosting fighter jets, only transport planes such as C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifters and C-17 Globemasters had used it so far, he said. “We have no plans for fighter planes,” he said.(Reuters1208 130303 GMT)