Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

22 April 2003

IRAQ

• A senior official in the U.S. administration, Marc Grossman, said in an interview on Sunday that UN inspectors could not be sent back to Iraq and suggested NATO instead might take on a role in Iraq’s disarmament. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman also told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that UN sanctions on Iraq were no longer justified and had to be lifted. “The situation in Iraq has completely changed.... The inspectors’ mandate is still in force but they cannot be sent back en bloc to Iraq,” Grossman was quoted as saying. Asked whether he believed some international arms experts were needed in Iraq, Grossman said: “We don’t exclude it. On a visit to NATO, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested involving it (NATO) in Iraq’s disarmament.” The NATO military alliance could take on a role to oversee dealing with the banned weapons, which he said he had no doubt were somewhere in Iraq. (Reuters 201152 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• The United States has no interest in keeping military forces in Iraq longer than it takes to stabilize that country, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday in Washington. Rumsfeld denied reports that the United States has discussed establishing a long-term military relationship with Iraq that would grant American access to air bases in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. “It’s flat false,” he said. He added that the subject has not even been raised with him. Rumsfeld said he could not speculate about a future U.S. military relationship with Iraq, because there is no Iraqi government to discuss it with. He said, however, that the future U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region is going to be considered once the Iraq war is over. Although no decisions have been made, Rumsfeld said it was possible over the long term that the United States would withdraw some forces from the Persian Gulf region rather than add some in Iraq. (AP 212205 Apr 03)
  
  
• Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Sunday that Ankara had agreed in principle to a U.S. request to send Turkish soldiers into Iraq for postwar peacekeeping duties. Ankara will now await further details from Washington on the size of Turkey’s possible contribution and whether the force would operate under a UN mandate or within a coalition of peacemakers led by the United States or NATO. Foreign Minister Gul said Washington had requested help in humanitarian work and reconstruction as well as troops to help bolster security. “We are saying yes to all of these but it will become clear in the coming days how things will proceed and under what conditions,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run Anatolian news agency. (Reuters 201459 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• Saddam Hussein remains in Iraq and is moving around the country, the leader of a U.S.-backed Iraqi opposition group said in an interview broadcast on Monday. Ahmad Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi National Congress, told BBC radio that his movement was tracking Saddam, but with a delay of at least half a day on his latest position. In the BBC interview, the INC leader repeated previous claims that he has no political ambitions in Iraq. He also said that he believed the United Nations should not play a major role in postwar Iraq, because Iraqis see it as having opposed military action to dislodge Saddam. (AP 212015 Apr 03)

NATO

• A senior American military commander denied on Friday that the United States would shift its bases from Germany to the newest NATO members in eastern Europe because of Germany’s opposition to the war in Iraq. “Germany has significantly supported behind the scenes what we did in Iraq,” said Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, the deputy commander of the U.S. European Command. But some changes were ahead, Gen. Wald said. The United States will establish bases in the new East European NATO members - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia - while keeping its presence in Germany, Gen. Wald said. “There is no doubt in my mind that as NATO moves east our presence and our participation will have to be where NATO is,” he said. “It is recognized that these areas are strategically important to NATO and the U.S.” (AP 181809 Apr 03)

EU

• European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana has called on the United States to work in cooperation with the international community, rather that impose its decisions. “The superpower tends to want no limitations,” Solana said in an interview published Sunday by the Madrid daily ABC. “Wrongly, it thinks that if it finds itself in the minority in multilateral institutions it will see its capacity for action limited. This is a little shortsighted. Important powers also have the ability to lead multilaterally,” he was quoted as saying. He added: “It is better to convince others of what you want them to do rather than impose it.” On postwar Iraq, Solana said that a new Iraqi provisional government needs “a blessing” from the United Nations. (AP 201258 Apr 03)

BALKANS

• Serbia’s interior minister said in remarks published on Sunday that police have fully solved the case into the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. “We know who ordered, organized and carried out the assassination,” Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said in an interview published in the Vecernje Novosti daily. “We know who aided it, and how it was done.” “There are no more secrets,” he added. (AP 201238 Apr 03)
  
  
• An ethnic Albanian leader, Arben Xhaferi, said Saturday that he had given up hope for multiethnic harmony in Macedonia (sic), accusing the ruling coalition of paying only lip-service to commitments made in a peace deal. Arben Xhaferi, the leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians – the main opposition ethnic Albanian party - offered his resignation during a party congress in an action to express dissatisfaction with the implementation of the Western-brokered peace agreement. The deputies refused to accept the resignation offers by Xhaferi and a deputy, and instead agreed to suspend the party’s political activities, meaning the party’s seven legislators will not participate in parliament. The suspension was open-ended. (AP 191937 Apr 03)
  
  
• A former captain of the then Yugoslav army, Miroslav Radic, long sought by the UN war crimes court for alleged atrocities in the 1991 Croatian war, has surrendered to Serbian authorities, police sources said Monday in Belgrade. Capt. Miroslav Radic, accused along with two other former officers for a massacre of more than 200 civilians and prisoners, turned himself in in Belgrade, said a report carried by the Beta news agency. Police sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the report. He is expected to be extradited to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. (AP 211400 Apr 03)