Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

18 June 2003

IRAQ

• The British government is urging Washington to offer top Iraqi prisoners their freedom in exchange for information about Saddam Hussein and his alleged banned weapons, The Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. A British government spokeswoman declined to either confirm or deny the report. The Times said British officials had told Washington that the only way to track down former Iraqi President Saddam and his disputed arsenal was to allow top-ranking Iraqis, many of whom are being held in Baghdad, to plea bargain. It said that, to the “intense frustration” of the British, the Americans had so far rejected the idea. “We have been trying for ages to persuade the Americans but they have come up with all kinds of legal arguments,” the paper quoted one unnamed official as saying. (Reuters 172328 GMT Jun 03)
  
  
• A British cabinet minister said in an interview published on Wednesday she had postponed a trip to Iraq because it was still too dangerous. The announcement, made by International Development Secretary Baroness Amos in the Financial Times newspaper, came just two days after London hailed “a real and sustained improvement in the situation in Iraq.” She told the daily that “the safety and security situation, which we really need to get right to enable us to really go for the reconstruction effort, is slightly hampering things.” (Reuters 180114 GMT Jun 03)

WAR ON TERRORISM

• The United States and Britain have failed so far to block a key route for financing terror - so-called “underground banks” operated in Internet cafes, travel agents and restaurants, German officials said on Tuesday. As international experts on combating money laundering gather in Berlin this week for a conference, the officials said U.S. and British authorities lagged behind Germany, France and the Netherlands in clamping down on such underground banks. U.S. authorities now realised action needed to be taken, they said. “If they don’t, they will not be able to live up to this highest national priority,” a senior German official said. (Reuters 171712 GMT Jun 03)

BALKANS

• Serbia’s main Kosovo negotiator said on Tuesday that he would wait until a new United Nations administrator took over later this year before starting any talks on the crunch issue of the province’s final status. Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic made clear he did not want to discuss Kosovo’s future with outgoing UN chief Michael Steiner at a European Union summit in Greece this weekend. Covic, indicated that conditions were now right for what he called “a new phase” of discussion - but with a new administrator. Covic has often blasted Steiner’s approach in Kosovo, accusing him of gradually handing power to local institutions run almost exclusively by ethnic Albanians. (Reuters 171634 GMT Jun 03)

OTHER NEWS

• The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff praised Ukraine on Tuesday for its decision to contribute troops to the U.S.-led stabilization force in Iraq. Starting a two-day visit, Gen. Richard Myers met with Ukraine’s Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko to discuss Ukraine’s participation in peacekeeping operations in post-war Iraq, its integration with NATO and the status of military reform, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. (AP 171621 Jun 03)
  
  
• The lawyer for a group of Iraqis said on Tuesday they would fight a Belgian decision to move to the United States their war crimes suit against the commander of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The lawyer said he would appeal to Belgium’s top administrative court once the government officially informed the plaintiffs it had decided to allow the case against U.S. General Tommy Franks to be heard in the United States. The administrative court, the State Council, could overturn the decision to shift the suit across the Atlantic, which Brussels took in an effort to soothe relations with Washington. (Reuters 171802 GMT Jun 03)
  
  
• Iran’s envoy to the UN’s nuclear watchdog said Tehran was still not ready to accept stricter inspections of its atomic facilities to disprove U.S. allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear arms. The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will debate on Wednesday a harsh report detailing what is says is Iran’s failure to comply with the IAEA nuclear safeguards agreement, aimed at preventing the diversion of nuclear materials and resources to a secret weapons programme. (Reuters 172213 GMT Jun 03)
  
  
• Preliminary results from Jordan’s parliamentary polls showed the opposition Islamists were set to gain a strong foothold in the assembly in the first such elections since King Abdullah came to the throne five years ago. Islamist candidates won all the seven seats they contested in the capital Amman, and at least another seven seats across the country, the government announced. Islamists say they will call for a more critical approach to the United States and Israel. (Reuters 180237 GMT Jun 03)