Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

16 April 2003

IRAQ

• The Security Council on Tuesday asked chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to brief members next week as the United States fielded its own disarmament teams inside Iraq and Secretary-General Kofi Annan pressed for UN experts to return as quickly as possible. One council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aim of next week’s session with Blix is to try to connect what is happening on the ground with UN inspections. (AP 160243 Apr 03)
  
  
• Denmark said on Tuesday that the United States had asked it to send more military personnel to serve in Iraq, nearly doubling the 400 the country offered last week. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Washington had asked Denmark to run the headquarters of a reconstruction and security unit when fighting ends in Iraq. “The request is a recognition of our experiences with peacekeeping forces under Danish management in the Balkans,” Rasmussen told reporters. He said the latest request was for Denmark to send 360 staff to head a unit of about 3,000 people. (Reuters 151348 GMT Apr 03)

NATO

• Poland will sign later this week a US $3.5 billion deal with U.S.-based Lockheed Martin Inc. to buy 48 F-16 fighter jets, its largest military purchase ever, a senior official said Tuesday in Warsaw. Jacek Piechota, the deputy economy minister, said the government will sign the deal Friday regardless of whether an accompanying deal on terms of U.S. investments in Poland is ready by then. (AP 151628 Apr 03)
  
  
• Slovak President Rudolf Schuster signed an accession charter to NATO on Tuesday, making the ex-Soviet satellite the first of seven alliance candidates to complete the entry process. “The signing of the accession charter to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation...is the final step needed by the Slovak Republic for its definite inclusion in NATO,” President Schuster said in a joint statement with other officials in Bratislava. (Reuters 151148 GMT Apr 03)

EU

• Four European Union countries holding a defence integration summit later this month will deal with areas that do not overlap with NATO, EU diplomats said on Tuesday in Brussels. They also said the Belgian-hosted April 29 summit of French President Jacques Chirac, the prime ministers of Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg is not expected to fix specific targets for investment in military equipment. Germany last week urged its partners not to provoke any conflict between NATO and European defence policy. “The focus is on those issues where the NATO alliance as a whole is not engaged,” a spokesman for the Belgian Foreign Ministry said. (Reuters 151305 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Tuesday that Turkey would continue to seek a settlement on Cyprus as the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot side prepares to sign an European Union accession treaty. The move threatens to leave breakaway Turkish Cypriots isolated and undermine Turkey’s own ambition to join the EU. The UN Security Council on Monday said veteran Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s “negative approach” contributed to the collapse of peace talks. (Reuters 151808 GMT Apr 03)

BALKANS

• The investigation into the assassination of Serbia’s prime minister has uncovered evidence that two war crimes fugitives wanted by The Hague tribunal may be innocent of allegations that they ordered a 1991 massacre, the interior minister said Tuesday in Belgrade. Dusan Mihajlovic disputed charges linking former army officers Col. Veselin Sljivancanin and Capt. Miroslav Radic to the massacre of civilians and prisoners of war during Croatia’s war for independence against the former Yugoslavia. He said he hoped that Sljivancanin and Radic, who have been on the run since the fall of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, would “seize the opportunity and surrender to the UN court to prove their innocence.” “We will back them up with evidence,” Mihajlovic added. (AP 151900 Apr 03)

MIDDLE EAST

• Trying to calm a charged atmosphere, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States has no plans to go to war with Syria or anyone else to bring democracy to a totalitarian state. “Iraq was a unique case, where it wasn’t just a matter of a dictator being there,” Powell said Tuesday at a news conference with foreign reporters in Washington. “There is no war plan to go and attack someone else, either for the purpose of overthrowing their leadership or for the purpose of imposing democratic values.” “Democratic values have to ultimately come from within a society and within a nation,” he said, tempering heated rhetoric from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and some other senior U.S. officials. While generally avoiding the harsh words, Powell renewed the accusations against Syria on Tuesday. But he rejected any suggestion the administration had a list of countries against whom it might send troops again. “There is no list,” he said, even as he registered unhappiness with some policies of Iran as well as Syria. At the Pentagon, a U.S. defense official said Syria had not repositioned its military forces in anticipation of any U.S. attack from Iraq. Other U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syria had been helpful quietly in the war against the al-Qaida terror network and there was no evidence that help was abating. (AP 160021 Apr 03)

RUSSIA

• Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday that the ministry had to dip into its reserves to raise wages for soldiers in an experiment meant to lead the transition toward a contract-based military, lamenting the difficulty of attracting young Russians who may be able to find better-paying jobs elsewhere. “It is easier to sell beer than to do drills and combat training from dawn to dusk and then face bullets,” Ivanov said during a meeting with lawmakers, in comments televised on NTV. According to the ITAR-Tass news agency, Ivanov said the Defense Ministry used money from its own reserve to increase pay for those serving in a pilot project launched last September to make the Pskov Airborne Division an all-volunteer unit. In his comments on Tuesday, Ivanov reiterated that Russia plans to fully staff the best, high-readiness military units with paid volunteers by 2007, a plan the military has said will mean hiring some 170,000 volunteers starting next year. Ivanov said the plan involves units “that must be prepared to fulfill any combat task at any moment,” according to ITAR-Tass. (AP 152022 Apr 03)