Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

2 April 2003

GENERAL JONES

Media continue to echo remarks by Gen. Jones during a meeting with reporters at SHAPE Tuesday.
Under the title, “Closure of military installation no act of revenge,” Die Welt focuses on statements by Gen. Jones indicating that the background for plans for an overhaul of the U.S. troop basing in Europe was military not political. According to Gen. Jones, stresses the newspaper, the plan to reduce the large, cumbersome bases and instead establish fewer, smaller and more mobile facilities, is part of a concept that both the U.S. military command and NATO had been pursuing for many years. “The future U.S. and NATO bases are designed to be set up and taken down quickly, they are meant to be camps rather than fortresses, their service personnel are seen more as transients than residents with a permanent establishment,’ the article explains, adding: “According to current planning, no more than 500 military personnel are to be stationed at a base…. In each of the seven future NATO countries the Alliance will be present in some form or another –to ‘leave a footprint,’ as Gen. Jones describes it, be it for operational deployments or exercises. Because they occupy a position of great geostrategic importance, Bulgaria and Romania will gain special significance.”
A related AFP dispatch highlights Gen. Jones’s remarks on plans for a Rapid Response Force. “Gen. Jones said NATO will undergo a sea change to meet the challenges of the 21st century, starting with the deployment of a rapid response force with global reach,” notes the dispatch, adding: “Gen. Jones confirmed that the first elements of this force would be operational by the end of the year, a full year earlier than the planned launch date of October 2004.”

NATO

• Secretary of State Powell’s planned talks Thursday with NATO and EU counterparts are generating high interest. Stressing the importance of Powell’s visit, a commentary in Corriere della Sera suggests that he remains the Europeans’ best card for rebuilding their dialogue with the United States. “He is going to arrive in Brussels with a needle and thread ready for use. He is plainly going to attempt to import a fresh boost to NATO’s new tasks as approved at the Prague Summit (and maybe even to extend them to include the aftermath of the Iraqi war,” claims the newspaper, adding: Powell should be able to perceive that a drive is already afoot to mend the rift among the allies, and that drive is based on three specific sectors: reconstruction in Iraq, European defense, and the resumption of peace negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amid further expectations that Powell will take up the issue of Iraq’s reconstruction in his meetings in Brussels, the Wall Street Journal writes: “(Brussels) is headquarters of the EU and NATO. The question naturally arises as to which will be Powell’s preferred interlocutor. The secretary no doubt will want to pay proper respect to the EU, an institution where many U.S. allies are forging a common identity. But it is NATO that will be the proper forum to address Iraq’s restoration to the community of nations. Powell should start discussions on giving NATO a role in post-war Iraq, either as peacekeepers or as the official military administrator. The world could benefit from having NATO become either the venue to deal with many issues that in the past have been referred to the ineffectual Security Council, or a transitional body that leads to a permanent replacement. The Security Council has failed repeatedly to perform the mission it was assigned over a half-century ago, the preservation of world peace and security. It has demonstrated that it is not capable of dealing with the kinds of threats that arise in today’s post-9/11 world. NATO is a grouping of democracies that have eschewed neutrality as an option in a dangerous world. It is also the only organization that links the U.S. and Europe. It has broad experience in providing a secure environment for the recuperation of wounded societies.”

IRAQ

• In a news conference with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Ankara Wednesday, carried live by CNN, Secretary of State Powell said he had discussed with Turkish officials the possibility of moving supplies for U.S. forces in northern Iraq through the country. “We discussed … needs we have now to sustain the coalition forces that we have operating in northern Iraq to keep the situation in northern Iraq stable,” Powell indicated.
  
  
• In a CENTCOM news briefing carried live by CNN, a spokesman said U.S. troops had destroyed the Baghdad division of the Iraqi Republican Guard near the town of Kut, 170 kilometers from Baghdad. In another development, CNN reported that U.S. forces in the vanguard of an advance on Baghdad from the southwest were just 30 kilometers from the southern edge of the Iraqi capital.

With media continuing to focus on the impact of the Iraq war on transatlantic relations, the Financial Times reports that Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, has become one of the first senior French public figures to warn that President Chirac is leading France into a diplomatic cul-de-sac over Iraq.
“We cannot accept the Messianic vision of the Americans, but nor can we limit ourselves to simply opposing it,” the newspaper quotes Delors saying in an interview and adding: “My position is between the two…. We have to find the basis for an acceptable partnership between Europe and America.” The newspaper notes that many French business leaders and Atlanticist politicians are critical of Chirac’s opposition to the U.S. and hope for a rapid rapprochement, but only a handful of center-right deputies have so far raised their voices. It suggests that the comments from Delors, one of the most influential European politicians of the past decade, are likely to stimulate more debate in France about how the country can best exercise its influence. “Delors believes the Iraq crisis has highlighted the problems of forging a common EU foreign policy out of divergent national interests, warning that such a concept is a vain hope ‘in the next 20 years,’” the article further says. It adds that he was equally cautious on Belgian proposals for a renewed push on EU defense cooperation, including France and Germany, quoting him saying: “We need a period of calm before trying to build a common European defense policy.”

ANTI-TERRORISM

• According to The Guardian, an unprecedented level of intelligence cooperation between Britain and America to combat the threat of simultaneous terrorist attacks on both countries was agreed Tuesday. The agreement, struck in Washington, will reportedly involve the creation of a joint contact group of senior officials to develop a program of work to counter the domestic terrorist threat in both countries. The cooperation will extend to joint intelligence assessment of the threat facing both countries; closer working on new techniques to verify identity using face and eyeball scanners; and protecting borders by sharing visa and passenger intelligence.

OTHER NEWS

• AP reports the House of Representatives approved amendments Wednesday to Belgium’s universal jurisdiction law for war crimes, making it tougher for cases to be filed against leaders of democratic nations. The dispatch adds that the amendments now go to the Senate for a final vote later this week. Approval is expected, according to the dispatch.