Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

28 April 2003

TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS

• Europe and the United States should work as “one polar power” to tackle the world’s problems rather then bickering as they did over Iraq, Prime Minister Blair said in an interview published on Monday. Speaking to the Financial Times newspaper, Blair said the best way to stop Washington acting unilaterally was to join forces with it rather than opposing it. “I don’t want to see a situation develop again in which either Europe or America sees a huge strategic interest at stake and we are not helping each other,” Blair said in what the paper described as a warning to President Chirac. “Some want a so-called multi-polar world where you have different centers of power, and I believe will quickly develop into rival centers of power “And others believe, and this is my notion, that we need one polar power which encompasses a strategic partnership between Europe and America.” While Blair insisted on the need to stand side-by-side with the United States, he also stressed the importance of Europe to Britain. “To absence yourself from the main strategic alliance on your doorstep -- which is Europe -- would be an act of self-mutilation as a country,” he said.(Reuters 2331 270403 GMT)

BALKANS

• A U.S. peacekeeper serving in Kosovo was found dead early Sunday, a statement from the main U.S. Camp Bondsteel said. The soldier’s body was discovered early morning near the town of Dobercane, some 55 kilometers (34 miles) east of the province capital Pristina. The statement did not give the cause of death. The name of the soldier was not released, pending notification of the next of kin. “Military police are conducting an investigation of the incident,” the statement said.(AP 271221 Apr 03 GMT)

ESDP

• Four European nations that opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq meet next Tuesday to launch an initiative for closer European defense cooperation. The leaders of Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg will hold a half-day of talks originally intended to draw lessons from Europe’s divisions over Iraq by forming a hard core of like-minded states to forge ahead with defense integration. President Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, are now more anxious to mend fences with the United States and Britain than to take symbolic steps that could widen the Atlantic gap. So Belgian Prime Minister Verhofstadt’s key proposals for a European military headquarters separate from NATO, specific defense spending targets and common European military units have been shredded, diplomats said on Friday. Those ideas likely to survive into the final communiqué are already on the table of a Convention drafting a constitution for an enlarged European Union, due to report to EU leaders in June. They include an EU arms procurement and strategic research agency, a solidarity clause pledging assistance in case of terrorist attacks, and the constitutional possibility for those countries that wish to subscribe to a mutual defense clause. “At most, this meeting will give an impulse to the Convention,” one EU diplomat said.(Reuters 1659 250403 GMT)

IRAQ

• Two newspapers reported Sunday that they found documents in the bombed out headquarters of Iraq’s intelligence service that appear to show that Saddam Hussein’s regime met with an al-Qaida envoy in 1998 and sought to arrange a meeting with Osama bin Laden. Papers found by reporters working for the Toronto Star and Britain's Sunday Telegraph appear to show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish a relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaida based on their mutual hatred of the United States and Saudi Arabia, the newspapers reported. The 1998 meeting went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad, said the newspapers, which had reporters working together with Iraqi translators on the story. Journalists found the documents in the rubble of one of the rooms of the intelligence headquarters, the papers said. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no way to substantiate the reports unless the papers made the documents available to the American or British governments. The official said the U.S. government would be interested in reviewing the documents, but, until then, it regarded the finding as an uncorroborated press report. Separately, The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials. The newspaper said the documents reveal that Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private trans-Atlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington.(AP 271908 Apr 03 GMT)
  
  
• U.S. forces seeking to restore order to a shattered Iraq arrested the self-appointed mayor of Baghdad on Sunday for trying to run the city without their authority and whisked him out of the capital. Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, a former exile who declared himself mayor 10 days ago, was “removed” from Baghdad for obstructing efforts to get Iraqis back to work after the war that ousted Saddam Hussein, a U.S. military statement said. The military also reported it had detained Gen. Hussam Mohammad Amin, a key figure in negotiations with the UN inspectors before the war.(Reuters 2247 270403 GMT)

EU

• Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Friday called a referendum on the central European country’s accession to the European Union for June 13 and 14, his office said. The Czechs are among 10 mostly east European nations slated to join the EU in May next year, crowning nearly 15 years of democratic and market reforms following the 1989 fall of Communist governments in the region. Czechs are expected to approve EU entry by an overwhelming majority. The June 13 and 14 dates were widely expected after parliament agreed to hold the referendum on Friday and Saturday, traditional Czech voting days. An opinion poll by TNS Factum released on Friday showed that 79 percent of those likely to vote would vote in favor.(Reuters 1657 250403 GMT)