Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

14 August 2003

IRAQ

• The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials said today. Instead, the officials said, the United States would widen its effort to enlist other countries to assist the occupation forces in Iraq, which are dominated by the 139,000 United States troops there. The administration’s position could complicate its hopes of bringing a large number of American troops home in short order. (The New York Times 14 Aug 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• The top UN envoy to Afghanistan urged an expansion of the international force beyond Kabul on Wednesday to help provide desperately needed security so the country can move ahead to credible national elections. Lakhdar Brahimi said it was time for the international community to realize that the support given to Afghanistan is “a fraction” of that given to much smaller countries, and increasing troops would be a very good investment in the country’s stability. “We are not asking for the 40,000 troops that were in Kosovo,” he told reporters, noting that the population of the Serb province is tiny in comparison to Afghanistan. After the council meeting, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said, “There is the expectation that one of the issues that NATO might discuss in the weeks and months ahead is the issue of considering the possibility of the expansion of the ISAF role beyond Kabul and the environs.” But Spain’s UN Ambassador Inocencio Arias said he doubted there was enough support in the council for a new resolution to expand ISAF. Otherwise, Brahimi warned, extremists, warlords, and factions will continue to destabilize Afghanistan. (The Guardian 14 Aug 03)

LIBERIA

• The United States plans to send about 200 Marines into Liberia from warships in the next few days, including a “quick reaction” force to back West African peacekeeping troops in Monrovia, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Air Force Maj. Gen. Norton Schwartz, director of operations for the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, said the approximately 200 Marines would include a reaction force of 150 to be based temporarily in Monrovia. “It is a quick reaction capability if something unexpected happens in respect to an ECOMIL unit,” he said of the military peacekeepers from the Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS. (The Boston Globe 14 Aug 03)

BALKANS

• NATO troops yesterday made an embarrassing attempt to capture Gen Ratko Mladic, the commander of Serb forces during the Bosnian war, by storming his mother’s home hours after she died. Italian soldiers serving with the stabilisation force SFOR, supported by combat vehicles, helicopters and sniffer dogs, sealed off the area around the house in Kasindol, a Serb area of Sarajevo. They had apparently surmised that the general, blamed for many of the atrocities in the 1992-95 war, would feel honour bound to visit his mother’s home at such an emotional time. But there was no sign of him. The timing of the operation was regrettable, the force stated, adding that it was “in the best interests of all citizens of Bosnia and Hercegovina that SFOR fulfils its mandate.” Despite the indictment against Mladic at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, yesterday’s raid was the first attempt by NATO troops to capture him. (The Daily Telegraph 14 Aug 03)

OTHER NEWS

• American military scientists are developing a weapon which kills by delivering an enormous burst of high-energy gamma rays. The bomb, which produces little fallout, blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, and experts have already warned it could spark a new arms race. The science behind the gamma ray bomb is still in its infancy, and technical problems mean it could be decades before the devices are developed. According to New Scientist magazine, the gamma ray bombs are already included in the US department of defence’s militarily critical technologies list - a wish list of possible weapons technology that America considers essential to maintaining its superior firepower. (The Guardian 14 Aug 03)