Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

18 June 2003

GENERAL JONES

• In the last of a four-article series putting together Gen. Jones’ view of EUCOM’s future, the Stars and Stripes writes that thousands of troops would be moved from Europe back to the United States, in the final, most controversial part of Gen. Jones’ plan to reshape EUCOM into a lighter, more mobile force. According to several senior defense officials, adds the newspaper, the proposed reductions would cut deeply into the Army’s heavy tank and mechanized infantry units in Europe—relocating at least one of its four ground maneuver brigades. Scores of installations would be shut down, with the remaining forces consolidated into key hubs.

ISAF

• According to AFP, international aid and rights groups have called on NATO to expand operations in Afghanistan as it prepares to take over command of the peacekeeping force there amid “deteriorating security.” In a statement issued Tuesday through the New York-based International Rescue Committee, 79 groups reportedly urged the UN and NATO to expand ISAF beyond Kabul. “Just as a force in Sarajevo alone could not have stabilized Bosnia, a force in Kabul alone cannot stabilize Afghanistan. If Afghanistan is to have any hope of peace and stabilization, now is the time to expand international peacekeepers to key cities and transport routes outside of Kabul,” the statement said. The dispatch remarks that, according to a study by CARE International, Afghanistan has the lowest ratio of peacekeepers to population of any recent post-conflict nation. Kosovo had one peacekeeper for 48 people, East Timor one for every 86, while Afghanistan has jut one for every 5,380 people, the dispatch adds. “Aid agencies are asking UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to lobby the Security Council for a much broader mandate for NATO, which is due to take over from ISAF in August,” said the BBC World Service. The network carried its correspondent at the UN saying, however, that while many nations support this idea, few have been willing to offer the troops or money to make that happen.

IRAQ

• Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports the Polish Defense Ministry has completed the division that is to be deployed to Iraq and will be commanded by Poland. In Warsaw, it became known that 20 nations will participate, among them six NATO members in addition to Poland. Poland will provide 2,200 servicemen and police officers. Spain will play a key role in deploying an approximately 1,100-strong brigade to the Polish occupation zone, says the article. It adds that a total of up to 10,000 service personnel and police officers are to be stationed in the northern part of the Shiite area in southern Iraq which is to be administrated by Poland. For the time being, the newspaper continues, the division headquarters will be located in the headquarters of the Polish land forces in the Warsaw Citadel. A 100-strong advance party of a logistics unit as well as a NBC defense company have already arrived in Iraq. The division commander, Gen. Tyszkiewicz has visited the area that is currently controlled by the U.S. His headquarters is to be set up next to the ruins of Babylon. For this purpose, barracks of the disbanded Iraqi forces and the police forces of the Bath Party are to be used.

MIDDLE EAST

• Under the title, “A neutral third party with teeth,” Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist and director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, writes in the Washington Post that a strong case can and should be made for a direct—and, if need be, military—international involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The idea of international monitors is part of the “road map” that has been officially endorsed by the Palestinian and Israeli governments. International monitoring, whether it be led by NATO or the United States, needs to start once a ceasefire agreement is reached between both parties. “The Bush administration’s success in getting both parties to sign on to the road map needs to be quickly followed by work on a ceasefire agreement that will include an enforcement element,” Kuttab writes.

BELGIUM-UNIVERSAL COMPETENCE LAW

• De Standaard quotes Willy Claes, a former Belgian foreign minister and NATO secretary general, warning in a telephone interview that a U.S. threat regarding a possible relocation of NATO headquarters from Brussels must be taken seriously. Claes reportedly stressed that his view was based on “a series of contacts in Washington” regarding Belgium’s universal competence law. The situation must not be underestimated, he said, adding: “I’m not saying that the decision has already been made in Washington…. But what (Defense Secretary) Rumsfeld said in Brussels last week had been discussed at the highest level.”

OTHER NEWS

• Deutschewelle reported that the German Parliament’s defense committee has endorsed a plan to send up to 350 German troops to Entebbe in Uganda to back up French-led peacekeepers being deployed in the Congolese town of Bunia. According to the report, the Germans will provide logistics and medical specialists. Officers will also join an operations headquarters in Paris.
  
  
• Reuters quotes a spokesman for the international force for the Democratic Republic of Congo saying Wednesday small arms fire hit a French military helicopter belongings to the force, forcing the aircraft to land for repairs. It was not clear who fired at the aircraft flying over the Congo-Uganda border.