Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

25 April 2003

IRAQ

• France may face consequences for opposing the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Britain’s foreign secretary said Thursday as he echoed warnings from Washington. Jack Straw did not detail what the consequences would be, but said the country’s stand on Iraq had been “simply Inexplicable” to most people in the United States. Straw also said the war could have been avoided if France and Russia had joined Britain and the United States in giving Saddam Hussein “a really tough ultimatum” on getting rid of his weapons of mass destruction. “My criticism of my colleagues in France and elsewhere in Europe ... is that they all willed the end, which was the disarmament of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his compliance with the UN, but they failed to will the means,” he told a BBC phone-in show. While White House officials are reviewing relations with France with an eye to punishing the nation, Germany, which also opposed the war, is not targeted for punitive measures, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press. Straw said he was optimistic relations could be repaired between Washington and Berlin, but could not say the same about France. “So far as France is concerned, it is much more complicated,” the BBC quoted him as saying. He said France wanted to set itself up as a “separate pole” and warned such a stance could cause “great instability.” (AP 250032 Apr 03)
  
  
• France is ready to study a role for NATO in Iraq peacekeeping but is awaiting U.S. proposals before forming a view, an official said on Thursday in Paris. The comment is a further sign that Paris is keen to repair relations with Washington damaged by France’s anti-war stance. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said France would form a view “based on detailed proposals due to be presented to the North Atlantic Council (NAC) and on factors including the nature of the mission, the command chain and the legal basis for the operation.” The French ministry spokeswoman did not comment further on what conditions Paris would require for its backing for a NATO mission. (Reuters 241706 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• British forces returning from the war in Iraq will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies, defense officials said Friday in London. The Ministry of Defense said troops involved in operations where depleted uranium was used would be offered urine tests. A spokesman said the move was precautionary. (AP 250034 Apr 03)

NATO

• The first 2,000 troops of NATO’s embryonic rapid reaction combat force should be in place by October, the alliance’s top soldier said on Thursday. Supreme Allied Commander Europe General James Jones told reporters at NATO’s military headquarters in southern Belgium that the size of the combined air, land and sea force was still being considered. But allies would get a glimpse of its capability in October, a year ahead of schedule. Describing the high-readiness force as “the vehicle for...the transformation of NATO and its military capability,” the U.S. general said it should be logistically sustainable in a war theatre for 15-30 days. The first marine to head NATO’s troops, Gen. Jones was appointed three months ago amid expectations that he could help shake off Cold War military thinking, emphasizing expeditionary operations rather than static defence. He said there were lessons to be learnt from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which would be applied to the response force. “The fact that you can bypass (enemy) units without any concern about them enveloping you from behind because of your superior air power and technology and total battlefield omniscience – it’s certainly a departure from 20th century tank warfare tactics,” he added. (Reuters 241554 GMT Apr 03)

BALKANS

• The UN mission in Kosovo on Thursday requested evidence from Serbian authorities on a former ethnic Albanian rebel leader who is wanted in Serbia, an official said. “We have responded by requesting Serb police provide us with any evidence of Shefket Musliu’s criminal activity as a matter of urgency,” a UN spokeswoman said. In Belgrade on Thursday, the Serbian minister for ethnic minorities, Rasim Ljajic, said that Musliu, as a citizen of Serbia, belongs “under the jurisdiction of the judicial authorities here.” (AP 241546 Apr 03)
  
  
• The chief of staff of the army of Serbia and Montenegro insisted Thursday that the military is not sheltering former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and other war crimes fugitives, as claimed by UN prosecutors. Gen. Branko Krga also told Belgrade’s B-92 radio that it was not the army’s responsibility to arrest Mladic and retired Col. Veselin Sljivancanin, both sought by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. “They are civilians, they are no longer members of the army,” Krga said. “We have no jurisdiction for their arrest.” Also Thursday, the president of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic, urged those indicted to surrender voluntarily. “I have reason to believe that things are moving in that direction, toward the voluntary surrender of the indictees,” Marovic told the Beta news agency. (AP 241132 Apr 03)

RUSSIA

• A top Russian air force official on Thursday called the joint Russian-Ukrainian An-70 transport plane project “hopeless” and said that the Russian Defense Ministry had decided against pursuing it, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. However, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said reports that Russia would abandon the project had no basis and that he would ask Russian leaders for an explanation, ITAR-Tass reported. “The Antonov-70 program is absolutely hopeless,” ITAR-Tass quoted Maj.-Gen. Dmitry Morozov, the deputy commander in chief of the Russian Air Force, as saying Thursday during a visit to the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Gen. Morozov said the plane was too expensive to produce and service, and called it unsafe, according to ITAR-Tass. He said that the military was opting instead to adopt the Il-76MF as the basic military transport aircraft. (AP 241856 Apr 03)
  
  
• Russia has destroyed more than 442 tons of chemical weapons, more than 1 percent of its entire arsenal, the former head of the weapons destruction program said Thursday in Moscow. Zinovy Pak, who was replaced as head of Russia’s Munitions Agency on Monday, said that 443 tons had been eliminated, including 436 tons at the newly opened chemical weapons destruction facility in the Volga regional city of Gorny, the Interfax news agency reported. (AP 241959 Apr 03)

MIDDLE EAST

• The European Union insisted on Thursday that the United States did not have sole ownership of a “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace in an apparent bid to forestall any effort by Washington to sideline its partners. “This is not a problem to be solved by only one country, it is a problem to be solved by the cooperation of...members of the international community that have been engaged in this peace process for a long time,” said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. “The road map is not the property of one country, it is the property of the Quartet,” he told reporters in Brussels. (Reuters 241750 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• NATO ally Turkey’s foreign minister will fly to Damascus next week, diplomatic sources said on Thursday, for talks expected to include both countries’ concerns about Kurdish-run northern Iraq. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is expected to visit Syria on April 29 on a one-day trip, but his schedule and contacts have yet to be formalised, a Turkish diplomatic source said. “Discussions will include regional issues, foremost Iraq, and bilateral relations, especially economic and the security aspect,” the source said. Turkey says it aims to develop its “good relations” with Syria and opposes any widening of the U.S.-led war. (Reuters 241753 GMT Apr 03)