Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

30 Juin 2003

SACEUR

• Amid growing calls for ISAF’s mandate to be expanded beyond Kabul, Czech daily Pravo, June 27, carried an exclusive interview with Gen. Jones in which he was asked what additional resources would be required to provide protection of civilian projects in Afghanistan’s provinces. Gen. Jones was quoted saying: “I think we must proceed step by step. I have heard these opinions and discussed them with my counterparts, but we are sending our NATO forces with one clearly defined mandate. If we, at any given time, decide to change this military mandate, we will then start this process. We are not there yet. We are now focusing on the success of the current deployment of our forces, so that their command can be handed over on August 11. Depending on the change of environment, we can alter the mission to accommodate the requirements. I would like to point out that we are not going to change the mandate before the deployment is finished.” AFP asserts that the conviction that an extension of ISAF’s mandate is unlikely any time soon is inciting NATO commanders to look a other ways to boost ISAF’s influence such as working more closely with so-called U.S. sponsored “Provincial Reconstruction Teams” (PRTs), some of which are already on the ground. Against this background, the dispatch recalls that CINCNORTH, British Gen. Sir Jack Deverell, in charge of planning NATO’s take over of the Afghan force, said at a recent news conference at SHAPE that the issue of ISAF’s mandate was more than about geography. “We need to get away from the idea that ISAF’s influence is simply defined by a line on the ground. What we need to do is expand Karzai’s area of influence and use ISAF … to help him do that,” the dispatch quotes Gen. Deverell saying. Noting that military commanders are therefore studying ways of boosting links between ISAF and the PRTs, whose aim is to help the central government strengthen its authority in the provinces trough reconstruction programs spearheaded by the military, the article stresses, however, that Gen. Deverell admitted that “how that works is not clear.”

IRAQ

• Electronic media report U.S. forces have launched a major offensive against resistance fighters in central Iraq. The BBC World Service observed that news of the offensive came after the chief U.S. administration in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said the failure to capture or kill deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hampering coalition efforts to control the security.

Media focus on calls by prominent U.S. senators for the Bush administration to accept help in Iraq from NATO. Remarks by NATO Secretary General Robertson, at a Berlin security conference, regarding a possible NATO role in Iraq also continue to generate interest.
The administration is getting the same advice on Iraq from Democratic and Republican senators: Sign on anybody who wants to help police and rebuild the country, including NATO allies who opposed the U.S. led invasion,” says AP. The dispatch notes, however, that so far, NATO’s only participation has been to help Poland assemble the 2,300-strong force it is sending to Iraq this year.
“In Iraq,” wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 28, “U.S. and British soldiers are experiencing what it means to be an occupying power…. In this situation, NATO Secretary General Robertson has once again brought the Alliance into play: Can one afford to let the best ‘military framework’ in the world go unused if we want to create stability in post-war Iraq?, he asked.” Suggesting that Lord Robertson already knows the answer to the question, the newspaper pointed out to difficulties connected to the size of the task, which is too great even for Washington and London and even more so for the junior partners willing to help. But it highlighted the will, in the interest of NATO harmony, to put transatlantic relations back on an even keel; or the desire to offer proof, not unwelcome in the United States, of the security policy’s usefulness and justification of the Alliance in the high-risk world of the 21st century. “Should NATO then do more than Poland in the planning of its engagement, and itself participate in managing the post-conflict situation in Mesopotamia,?” the newspaper asked, stressing: “The objection that NATO’s sphere of operations is limited to the territory of the Alliance is historically obsolete…. Today, NATO is supposed to ‘deter, prevent, defend’—wherever the Alliance decides; today NATO forces can be deployed rapidly in places where they are ‘needed’ in the view of the Alliance. Presumably NATO forces could be ‘objectively’ needed in Iraq, just as they ‘objectively’ were and still are needed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.” Further noting that independent of misgivings linked to the uncertainties of deployment, the use of NATO in Iraq would touch on the political heart of the rift between the United States and some of its European allies, the newspaper concluded: “It would look a little like an attempt to make up for past behavior if the declared enemies of the United States’ Iraq policy, for instance Germany, were enlisted in the post-conflict management through NATO. It may be useful, perhaps even essential. But it would be tied to preconditions that first of all the United States must fulfill…. Anyone who wants to play a part in the stabilization of Iraq has the right to be heard, to be asked, and to participate in the decisions about the post-war order. Should the Bush administration really have an interest in a NATO role that goes beyond planning and shuttle services, political accommodation would be necessary. Assignments of tasks and instructions as to deployment locations are not enough. Trust, loyalty and internal cohesion would likely suffer if NATO were to be only a toolbox that the U.S. administration uses mainly in accordance with its own priorities. Lord Robertson’s consideration not to leave the U.S., Britain and others alone in Iraq reflects, unintentionally perhaps, the cardinal error of the Alliance and the dilemma between the United States, which is militarily and technologically out-storming everyone and a Europe that has grown weary: There has been no real strategic debate on the great conflicts and on how to manage and resolve them. The one side has not sought it, and the other side has shunned it. At most, repair orders have been handed out here and there. Rational western crisis management looks different: joint discussion, joint decision-making, joint action. Is it possible that this can still hold true for Iraq?”

OTHER NEWS

• Die Welt, June 28, claimed it had obtained a copy of a new report by the working group on “Air Space Security,” which says that in order to protect German air space against terrorist attacks, German military authorities should be granted more rights than they currently have. This would reportedly include the decision to initiate the various stages of an operation against a suspect aircraft, which could go as far as shooting it down. According to the newspaper, experts of the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, and the Transport Ministry put forward in the report concrete proposals on how to implement on a national basis a concept adopted by the NATO Council in the summer of 2002. It reportedly covers the so-called “reneged” case, a civilian aircraft suspected of being used for a terrorist attack. According to the new “air policing” concept, responsibilities should be transferred from NATO to the German air Force. In addition, political decision-makers should be kept constantly informed. They would have the ultimate decision on the use of weapons. It is planned to establish a new “National Operations and Control Center on Air Space Security,” said the daily, adding: The center should take into account the interests of the three federal ministries on an interdisciplinary basis. As the “core of a comprehensive, almost real-time, and central assessment and control network, it should gather all information pertinent to “renegade” cases. It addition, it would coordinate the military air space defense measures. For this, it plans to use the existing NATO and Air Forces institutions in Kalkar in North-Rhine Westphalia. In the event of an emergency, the new Operations and Control Center will immediately inform the operations centers for “Internal Security” and “Air Traffic Security,” as well as the Air Force. The newly established post of “German Air Defense Commander” (GE ADCOM) will plan and direct the individual air policing measures. In peacetime, every use of weapons by the air force units, which, in principle, operate under integrated NATO command, has to be permitted by the German Defense Minister before the NATO Supreme Commander issues orders. Defense Ministry Struck has transferred this task to the inspector of the Air force, who, therefore, will act as GE ADCOM.