Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

6 June 2003

NATO

• NATO naval patrols have cut illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea and Strait of Gibraltar by over a third, as a side effect of their main counterterrorism mission, alliance Secretary General Lord Robertson said Thursday. “Shipping lanes that were open to the criminals have now been closed down,” Robertson said in an interview on board the Dutch frigate Jaco Van Heemskerk, flagship of NATO’s Mediterranean force. Robertson headed a delegation of NATO dignitaries reviewing the force in the waters off this southeastern Spanish port. NATO's top military commander said the patrols had deterred terrorists from carrying out attacks on shipping or using sea routes to transport material. “The integrity of the Mediterranean has been dramatically enhanced,” Gen. Jones told The Associated Press. Robertson and Jones expressed confidence NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels next week would advance plans to streamline the alliance’s command structure and fill deficiencies in Europe's military toolbox, such as big transport planes and precision weapons. They also want ministers to renew support for a project to develop an elite rapid response force of air, land and sea units that would spearhead NATO’s fight against terrorism and other regional threats. “That would give NATO ... an ability to go globally in short order,” Jones said. “The NATO response force is really what NATO has to be about at the crossroads between two centuries.” First elements of the new force should be operational by November, Jones said. (AP 052048 Jun 03 GMT)

IRAQ

• Slovakia’s government approved a proposal on Thursday to send an army engineering unit to Iraq to help repair infrastructure damaged in the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein. The unit should consist of 85 soldiers and will replace Slovak anti-chemical warfare troops deployed in Kuwait during the war in Iraq. The deployment still has to be approved by parliament. No date has been set for the parliamentary vote, but the unit is expected to leave within the next two months.(Reuters 1458 050603 GMT)

TERRORISM

• Belgian authorities arrested an Iraqi on Thursday and after 10 letters laced with toxic powders were sent to the Belgian prime minister, the U.S, Saudi and British embassies and other offices. The 45-year-old Iraqi was charged with premeditated assault and battery. Five police officials had to be treated for skin and eye irritation and breathing problems after examining bags of documents seized at the man's home in Deinze, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Brussels,said magistrate Lieve Pellens. Pellens refused to release any other information about the suspect and declined to say whether police were looking for other people possibly linked to the case. The suspect has denied the allegations. (AP 052000 Jun 03 GMT)

OTHER NEWS

• The United States is urging key allies and trading partners -- including Australia, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden -- to sign bilateral agreements providing preferential treatment of defense-related orders, a senior Defense Department official said on Thursday. The top U.S. and British weapons purchasers signed such a reciprocal deal in April 2002. It commits Britain and the United States to help each other jump the line for high-priority defense goods and services bought from government contractors, said Suzanne Patrick, deputy under secretary of defense for industrial policy. “The authority to provide preferential treatment for foreign defense orders in the United States when such treatment promotes national defense interests is increasingly important,” she told the Senate Banking Committee. The committee is mulling a five-year extension of the non-permanent provisions of the 1950 U.S. Defense Production Act, which gives the administration tools it says are vital to keep a strong base, responsive to U.S. military needs. (Reuters 1953 050603 GMT)