Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

30 juin 2003

NATO

• Because repairing Iraq will take years, the Bush administration should welcome all offers of help, even from NATO and its members that opposed the U.S. invasion, leading U.S. lawmakers said Sunday. “We need to involve the world, the globe, because we’re talking about freedom not just for the United States, not just for Iraq, but indeed freedoms for people around the world,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Frist, a Republican, and other members of Congress said that as the American postwar casualty count rises, it has become clearer that fulfilling the mission undertaken in March will take longer than the administration had hoped. Republican Sen. John McCain said he has seen an increasing sense of disquiet among people in his state because of a lack of candor by the administration in explaining U.S. plans for Iraq. Like Frist, McCain said the administration should not go it alone in the reconstruction process but should seek help from friends in Europe and elsewhere. “It’s going to take a long-term commitment, and I think that we in the United States would welcome the participation by many other nations around the world,” Frist said on ABC television. Asked whether that included NATO, most of whose members opposed the U.S. operation, Frist said: “I would say that anybody who really appreciates the freedoms and democracy that we in this nation, and that I think people around the world are at least moving toward ... will and can participate.” Most of the other 18 NATO countries, particularly in the heart of Western Europe, which Defense Secretary Rumsfeld characterized as “old Europe,” worked hard to keep the United Nations from specifically endorsing the war. Principal exceptions were Britain, Spain and Poland. Rancorous disputes with Germany, France and Turkey, caused rifts in bilateral relations that continue. Sen. Joseph Biden, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that it is important that the United States deal with the NATO problem. “I want to see French, German, I want to see Turkish patches on people’s arms sitting on the street corners, standing there in Iraq,” Biden said. “That’s one way to communicate to the Iraqi people we (Americans) are not there as occupiers. The international community is there as liberators.” He said Lord Robertson, NATO’s secretary general, had told him the alliance is “ready to come in large numbers” once given the go-ahead by Washington.(AP 291808 Jun 03 GMT)

IRAQ

• U.S. forces kicked off a massive sweep Sunday with more than 20 lightening raids in towns across a wide swath of Iraq, netting at least 60 suspects in a show of air and infantry power designed to crush resistance and stem a wave of deadly attacks on U.S. troops. The raids by the 4th Infantry Division and Task Force Ironhorse troops came as the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq said American forces must kill or capture Saddam Hussein so he can no longer be a rallying point for anti-coalition attacks. The latest operation, dubbed “Sidewinder,” began across an area of central Iraq stretching from the Iranian border to the areas north of Baghdad, and is expected to last for several days, according to military officials in Camp Boom, near Baqouba, 50 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad. There were no reports of U.S. casualties, the military said, nor was there any indication that the operation had netted any of Iraq’s most wanted fugitives.(AP 291713 Jun 03 GMT)
  
  
• Britain is to send a senior police officer with experience in dealing with Northern Ireland flashpoints to help train Iraqi police, the Financial Times reported on Monday. It said that Stephen White, an assistant chief constable from Northern Ireland, will be posted to the southern city of Basra to set up a training programme amid continuing attacks on British and U.S forces. The FT gave no source, but a Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed that an officer with Northern Ireland experience was going to Iraq.(Reuters 0204 300603 GMT)