Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

8 April 2003

IRAQ

• At a joint news conference in Northern Ireland Tuesday, carried live by CNN, Prime Minister Blair and President Bush said the UN would have a “vital role” in all aspects of post-war Iraq, from humanitarian aid to a future interim authority. Blair said it was a “false choice” to debate whether Iraq should be run by coalition forces or the UN, adding: “The key is that Iraq in the end should be governed by the Iraqi people.” He reiterated his pledge that British and U.S. forces would not stay in the country “a day longer than necessary.” Bush told the news conference Iraq would “move as quickly as possible” to an interim authority made up of Iraqis from inside and outside the country. He added that the interim authority would rule until a new government could be elected by the Iraqi people.
  
  
• Reuters quotes a Foreign Office spokesman saying Foreign Secretary Straw will meet his Spanish and French counterparts Wednesday for talks on post-war Iraq with a view to finding common ground that could lead to a UN resolution. The spokesman reportedly said the talks would cover the broad principles of post-war Iraq but that ministers would not discuss the specific wording of any draft resolution. The talks could, however, lay the groundwork for a future UN mandate. The spokesman added that Straw had similar talks on Iraq with Foreign Minister Fischer last week.

The question of whether Saddam Hussein was alive or dead after a U.S. warplane bombed a building where he was believed to be meeting with his sons, coupled with the advance of coalition troops in Baghdad, are contributing to keeping the media focus on post-war Iraq.
A commentary in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 7, suggested that the post-war era offers an opportunity for a new beginning in relations between Germany and the United States. The newspaper advocated a return of relations between the German government and the U.S. administration at least to a sensible business-as-usual level. “We must make sure that this relationship is more than a mere relic of the past that is vanishing behind jabbering of multipolarity and the feeling of having all-pervading powers,” stressed the daily.
In a contribution to Le Figaro, a group of French Conservative parliamentarians, who opposed the French government’s stance on Iraq, advocate the need to “rebuild alliances” once the war is over. Arguing that France, the EU, NATO and the UN must be fully associated to the reconstruction of a democratic Iraq and a post-war Middle East, the parliamentarians suggest that the best way for France to promote this is to quickly take up with the “fundamental alliance which links us with those whose moral and human values are the closest to ours, i.e., the countries taking part in the coalition (against Saddam Hussein).” While acknowledging that “we must not follow the United States or others blindly,” the parliamentarians stress that in future, “we must offer a common front in resisting fundamentalism, terrorism and proliferation of all kinds.” Together, they continue, “we must install peace in the Middle East and the world, in a multipolar world in which the influence of the United States and the EU is balanced and prominent.” They insist, however, that this requires, among other things, a foreign and defense policy, proportional to Europe’s importance as a continent with 450 million citizens. Calling for France’s reconciliation with Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, as well as former East European nations, the parliamentarians conclude: “Friendships can evolve, but we must retain the core which linked us for two centuries and which enabled us to defeat Nazism and Communism…. We will need this western alliance in the future in a world more chaotic and dangerous than what we had been used to during half a century of Cold War.”

BALKANS

• Oslo’s Aftenposten, April 7, quoted a Defense Ministry press release saying the government is to reduce the number of Norwegian soldiers in KFOR as a result of a need to balance Norway’s military contribution in the Balkans with involvements in other international operations, mainly in Afghanistan and the Mediterranean. The adjustment means that Norway will reduce its contribution to the force from 760 to 500 soldiers, said the article, adding that the Defense Ministry believes that the danger of war in the Balkans is past and that today KFOR is larger than necessary. The newspaper noted that NATO is planning to considerably reduce the size of the operation in Kosovo.

ESDP

• According to Warsaw’s Trybuna, April 5, Gen. Piatas, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, has announced that Poland will commit 1,200 service personnel from various types of units to EU forces. The article added that the head of the EU Military Committee, Gen. Haegglund, visited the Polish General Staff Friday and said that once Poland signs the accession treaty in Athens on April 16, it will gain the status of active observer within the EU military forces. Gen. Haegglund stressed that the EU has no intention of establishing forces that would rival those of NATO, said the article, continuing: The EU will use the Alliance’s command and communication structures in the same way that it is currently doing in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In Gen. Haegglund’s opinion, NATO is far better prepared to carry out offensive operations as it can draw on the military potential of the United States.