Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

30 April 2003

EU

• The United States on Tuesday dismissed a plan by four European nations to create a multinational force headquarters, calling it redundant and saying Europe needed better weapons rather than new command structures. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reacted coolly to the idea, saying the four countries, which all opposed the U.S.-led war against Iraq, had created “some sort of a plan to develop some sort of a headquarters.” “What we need is not more headquarters. What we need is more capability and fleshing out the structure and the forces that are there with the equipment that they need,” Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington. He also pointedly noted that only four of the 15 European Union nations had attended the meeting. A State Department spokeswoman suggested that the four-nation plan was redundant and unnecessary and said: “The U.S. believes NATO must remain the indispensable security foundation of the transatlantic partnership.” (Reuters 292317 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• German military planners have said Berlin should take the lead in creating a unified European Union army, funded by an EU defence budget and under central EU control, according to a document leaked to a German newspaper. A defence ministry spokesman confirmed the existence of the document, on which the Sueddeutsche Zeitung carried a report on Tuesday, and said it had been drawn up by defence ministry planners in June or July 2002. “It was a brainstorming paper for the European Convention... It’s a very visionary paper as suggested by the 2014 date... It does not represent German policy,” he said. “It has been lying in a drawer for months.” The document said that plans to centralise responsibility for foreign and defence policy in the European Union made it necessary to create an integrated European force. “Therefore a European army legitimised and financed through the European Parliament is the visionary goal of German politics with respect to European defence and security policy,” the paper quoted the discussion document as saying. Germany should take the lead in building a joint army, coordinating with France, with phased integration, it said. Military exercises should be harmonised and a seat created in the United Nations Security Council for the European Union. Control of the nuclear weapons that France and Britain possess could be a sticking point for pooling European forces, Sueddeutsche Zeitung said. (Reuters 291737 GMT Apr 03)

IRAQ

• French President Jacques Chirac confirmed on Tuesday that he was willing to consider a NATO peacekeeping role in post-war Iraq but said it would require a United Nations mandate. President Chirac said he had discussed with President George W. Bush what he said was a U.S. initiative for the 19-nation military alliance to provide a military presence. “If that were the case, then France was naturally ready to discuss such an intervention,” he added. (Reuters 291521 GMT Apr 03)
  
  
• President Vladimir Putin set the stage Tuesday for a confrontation with Washington in the UN Security Council, saying sanctions against Iraq should not be lifted until the weapons threat is clearly eliminated and insisting on a central role for the world body. After nearly two hours of talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Putin emphasized that the U.S.-led coalition had based its war in Iraq on the belief that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction and said the issue must be clarified before sanctions can be removed. He pointed out that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s fate is unknown and said it’s unclear whether the threat of weapons of mass destruction is gone. He also emphasized the need for a key UN role in postwar Iraq, saying, “After the end of the war, the central role of the United Nations must be not only restored but strengthened.” (AP 291839 Apr 03)

BALKANS

• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will attend the signing in Tirana of an agreement bringing Albania, Croatia and Macedonia (sic) closer to NATO membership. In Washington, U.S. officials said the stop in Tirana on Friday was one of several Powell planned to make, but details of his trips were not yet complete. The three countries will sign the Adriatic Charter Partnership, which calls for cooperative reform efforts by each in their quest for eventual membership in NATO, the U.S. officials said. (AP 291528 Apr 03)
  
  
• Police charged Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday with attempting to kill an opposition politician, and dozens of the former president’s loyalists were indicted in connection with the assassination of Serbia’s prime minister. Milosevic was charged with “organizing a criminal group” that tried to kill Vuk Draskovic in June 2000 in the Adriatic Sea resort of Budva. Several members of the same underworld group were among 45 suspects charged by police on Tuesday in connection with the March 12 sniper assassination of Serbia’s prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, in Belgrade. (AP 291705 Apr 03)
  
  
• Kosovo’s minorities are denied their basic rights and face discrimination nearly four years after the United Nations and NATO assumed control, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. In its report, “Prisoners in our own homes,” the London-based human rights watchdog criticized the UN mission in Kosovo and the NATO-led peacekeeping force, saying they failed to take appropriate action against abuses of the minorities. Asserting that minorities are “denied effective redress for acts of violence and other threats to their physical and mental integrity,” the report says minorities are effectively denied freedom of movement and are restricted in access to employment, health care and education. “The fact that the vast majority of ethnically motivated crimes remains unsolved reinforces people’s perception that perpetrators remain free to commit further attacks and contributes to the climate of fear,” the report said. The report urged the international community to learn from Kosovo. (AP 291754 Apr 03)

OTHER NEWS

• In a major shift in American focus in the Persian Gulf, the United States is all but ending its military presence in Saudi Arabia. Only about 400 U.S. troops will remain in the Muslim kingdom, most of them based near Riyadh to train Saudi forces, American officials said Tuesday. Most of the 5,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia will leave by the end of the summer. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan said the pullout is because, with the war won, forces are no longer needed for their previous mission: patrolling the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. (AP 300055 Apr 03)