Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

29 April 2003

NATO

• A potential role for NATO in post-war Iraq was a “hot topic” among alliance members but no consensus had been reached about what if any form it would take, the alliance’s top soldier said on Monday. “I certainly have officially received no guidance whatsoever to begin planning or even doing any thinking about, but it’s certainly a topic that is alive and well in Brussels,” Supreme Allied Commander Europe General James Jones said. “It has not found its form yet and maybe it won’t, I don’t know,” he told a Defense Writers’ Group breakfast. He also pointed to Africa as a region that may become more of a focus than in the past because of growing threats emanating from there. “We might wish to have more presence in the southern rim of the Mediterranean where there’s a certain number of countries that could be destabilized in the near future,” Gen. Jones said. “And we have some large ungoverned areas across Africa that are clearly the new routes of narco-trafficking, terrorist training, and just hotbeds of instability and potential threat for not only the alliance but our interest as well,” Gen. Jones said without being more specific about the countries. As Africa becomes more of a challenge and focus for NATO and the United States, “the carrier battle groups of the future and the expeditionary strike groups of the future may not spend six months in the Med. but I’ll bet they’ll spend half the time going down the West coast of Africa,” he added. Gen. Jones acknowledged that critics had questioned the relevance of NATO, but said he was optimistic about the alliance because its decision to expand by seven countries was “a positive sign that membership of the alliance think enough of the alliance to want to continue to grow.” But NATO forces needed to become smaller, more flexible and efficient, he added. Gen. Jones reiterated that the first troops of NATO’s embryonic rapid reaction combat force should be in place by October. “In building this force, this is a different animal than anything NATO’s experienced in the past,” he said. The force must be credible and able to go somewhere and act in real time, he said. (Reuters 281752 GMT Apr 03)

EU

• Four countries that opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq hold a mini-summit on European defence integration on Tuesday that could stir fresh strife by agreeing to set up a new military planning bureaucracy. The leaders of Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg will hold two hours of talks in Brussels to discuss steps to boost the European Union’s military capacity. But Belgian proposals for a European military headquarters separate from NATO have prompted private warnings from the United States and Britain against duplication, diplomats said. “We won’t accept, and neither will the rest of Europe accept anything that either undermines NATO or conflicts with the basic principles of European defence that we have set out,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a news conference on Monday. But diplomatic sources said officials of the four countries agreed in principle on Monday night to include a call for an autonomous EU military planning unit in the summit communique. “The concept of an EU autonomous planning entity/capacity was accepted,” one said. It would prepare European military operations where NATO was not involved. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, in an interview with the Reuters news agency, urged the leaders to focus on boosting military capabilities rather than new structures and said any European defence effort would have to have Britain, the EU’s leading military power, at its core. President Chirac’s office insisted in a statement on Monday that the aim was to strengthen NATO by boosting its European pillar. (Reuters 282237 GMT Apr 03)

IRAQ

• The commander of British forces in the Gulf said Monday he saw no sign the Iranian government was meddling in Iraqi affairs, despite U.S. claims that it was. Air Marshal Brian Burridge said some Iranian factions may be trying to influence political developments in Iraq, “but as a matter of statehood, I think the Iranian government has heeded the warnings of both the U.S. and the U.K.” “They recognize it’s not in their interest to be destabilizing at the moment,” Air Marshall Burridge said of the Iranian government in an interview with The Associated Press. “They have more to gain by allowing Iraq to regenerate itself as Iraq wants to do than by applying external pressure,” he said, “and the moderates in Iran understand that.” (AP 281812 Apr 03)
  
  
• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan declined a U.S. invitation to send a representative to a meeting in Baghdad on forming a temporary government in Iraq - a reflection of the world body’s still unclear role in reconstruction of the country. Mexico’s UN Ambassador Alfonso Aguilar Zinser, the current Security Council president, said Annan declined the invitation to send an observer to the meeting because the UN role hasn’t been defined, a view echoed by several other council members. A U.S. official, however, accused France and Russia of preventing Annan from accepting the American invitation. “Sadly, today’s meeting had no UN representation,” the official said on condition of anonymity. A French official said it was impossible to imagine a serious U.S. official making accusations about France blocking UN participation, and dismissed them as “French-bashing.” France, China and Russia said they didn’t think it would be appropriate to send an observer, without knowing what the UN role would be in the process of developing an interim authority, council diplomats said on condition of anonymity. (AP 290236 Apr 03)

OTHER NEWS

• The United States said Monday it has appointed a permanent ambassador to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, citing concerns about terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in Syria, North Korea and Libya. Ambassador Eric Javits has already begun work at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, Netherlands, but the news was only made public on Monday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said America’s decision to upgrade its representation at the organization is proof of its commitment to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction from countries “determined to kill thousands.” (AP 281659 Apr 03)