Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

31 March 2003

IRAQ

• U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles pounded central Baghdad early on Monday, hitting a presidential palace used by President Saddam Hussein’s son, as U.S. military leaders fended off growing criticism of their war plans and insisted the campaign was still on course. In Washington on Sunday, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld rejected criticism that he had launched the war with insufficient ground strength, but predicted Iraqi resistance would stiffen even more as U.S. troops approached Baghdad. Rumsfeld, facing scrutiny over his influence on a war plan that involves far fewer troops than the number used in the 1991 Gulf War, flatly denied reports that he had rejected advice from Pentagon planners for substantially more men and armor. “That is not true,” Rumsfeld said on Sunday. “I think you’ll find that if you ask anyone who’s been involved in the process from the Central Command that every single thing they've requested has in fact happened.” Gen. Myers, head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the campaign was going according to plan, with U.S. and British forces already in control of 40 percent of Iraq, but he gave a clear signal that there would be no swift ground assault on the Iraqi capital. The aim before going in, he said, was to isolate Iraq’s leadership and cut it off from the rest of the country. “We’re not going to do anything before we’re ready,” Myers said. “We’re certainly not going to do anything to put our young men and women in danger precipitously. We’re also not going to put Iraqi civilians in danger as well.”(Reuters 0337 310303 GMT)
  
  
• President Chirac and British Prime Minister Blair agreed on the importance of the United Nations' role after the war in Iraq, the French president’s office said Saturday. Blair telephoned Chirac to give him a rundown of his talks with President Bush last week, the presidential office said. Chirac expressed his “concern over developments in the war” and what is to follow, Chirac's office said. However, the two leaders “agreed on the importance of the role to be conferred on the United Nations after the conflict,” Chirac’s office said. France vehemently opposed any military action in Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council, while Britain backed the United States pro-war stance and sent troops to fight alongside American soldiers. Chirac, in his telephone conversation with Blair, conveyed his condolences for the British losses in the war and reiterated his wish that military operations “end as quickly as possible and with the least damage possible,” his office said.(AP 291249 Mar 03 GMT)
  
  
• British public support for the war against Iraq has fallen for the first time since the conflict began, an opinion poll published on Monday showed. The YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph also revealed a growing feeling among Britons that the war was going to take much longer than they initially believed and that British and U.S. troops were not doing as well as expected. The poll, conducted on Sunday, found 54 percent of Britons believed it was right to take military action against Iraq -- down from 59 percent on March 27. Most of the 1004 people polled said they believed Iraqis wanted to see Saddam toppled but still viewed U.S. and British troops as enemies. Fifty six percent said they now believed it would take a few months to defeat the bulk of the Iraqi army, against 37 percent on March 27 when more people were optimistic the war could be concluded within a month. People were also less positive about the progress of the war so far with 30 percent saying they felt it was going “fairly badly” compared with 10 percent on March 23.(Reuters 0206 310303 GMT)
  

BALKANS

• A raid by NATO-led peacekeepers has unearthed evidence that Bosnian Serb military intelligence had been spying on international peace officials in Bosnia, a senior Western diplomat said on Friday. “They found evidence of anti-Dayton activities, which includes espionage on international officials in the Serb Republic and the federation,” the diplomat, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. He was referring to the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-5 war and divided Bosnia in two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation, each with its own government, parliament, army and police. Top Western official in Bosnia, international High Representative Paddy Ashdown, confirmed that SFOR had found evidence of Bosnian Serb intelligence espionage and said it was the gravest violation of the Dayton deal since the end of war. A communiqué by the Council’s Steering Board said that the affair “gravely undermined the international credibility” of the Balkan country. The Banja Luka-based Nezavisne Novine newspaper reported that SFOR had found evidence that military intelligence had wiretapped witnesses of the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. An SFOR spokesman declined to comment on the findings.(Reuters 1859 280303 GMT)
  
  
• The EU launches its first military operation on Monday but this ground-breaking if modest new venture for the 15-nation economic bloc may draw scant attention because of the Iraq war. To the intense frustration of EU officials, the launch of Operation Concordia, taking over a 300-soldier peacekeeping mission in Macedonia (sic) from NATO, has been overshadowed by the giant military action in the Gulf. “In normal times, this would be front page news. Now, we’ll be lucky to get a line in the briefs column,” one official said. The force, known as EUFOR, will be under the command of German Admiral Rainer Feist, who is also NATO’s deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe. A French general will be in charge of the 300 lightly armed peacekeepers drawn from 27 nations. EU officials said the Rapid Reaction Force might also carry out missions in Africa or the former Soviet republic of Moldova in future. Military sources said the main threat the EU force could face in Macedonia (sic) was a resurgence of ethnic tension, as well as problems related to corruption and organized crime, rather than a full-scale guerrilla offensive.(Reuters1006 300303 GMT)

ISAF

• A rocket landed inside the headquarters of the international peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday evening, but there were no injuries, peacekeepers said. It was the latest in a series of attacks on foreign troops and aid workers in Afghanistan since the start of war in Iraq, and Afghan government officials blamed it on remnants of the ousted Taliban militia. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lobbering, spokesman for the ISAF said the 107-mm rocket had damaged some unoccupied buildings inside the headquarters compound, including a barber shop. “There were no injuries,” he told Reuters. (Reuters 2045 300303 GMT)

OTHER NEWS

• The German government likely will decide in the next week whether to take part in a naval deployment in the Strait of Gibraltar meant as a precaution against terrorist attacks, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. A ministry spokesman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, declined to comment on details of the possible deployment. The newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday that the government was considering sending three torpedo speedboats to Gibraltar, where they would be deployed alongside Norwegian and Danish patrol boats to protect shipping. Germany already has a frigate participating in NATO’s Active Endeavor operations to patrol the eastern Mediterranean, set up following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.(AP 291322 Mar 03 GMT)