Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

03 September 2003

AFGHANISTAN

• Germany’s cabinet agreed on Tuesday to extend its peacekeeping in Afghanistan beyond the capital Kabul, provided the United Nations voted to expand its mandate. Germany was ready to send an initial 230 soldiers to Kunduz, about 200 kilometres northwest of Kabul, a government spokesman said. Germany could eventually send up to 450 troops. (Reuters 021625 GMT Sep 03)

IRAQ

• A top U.S. general arrived in Turkey’s capital late on Tuesday to discuss the possible deployment of Turkish peacekeepers to Iraq. U.S. Gen. James L. Jones, whose arrival was reported by the Anatolia news agency, was scheduled to hold talks on Iraq and other topics with Turkish officials, including Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, the head of the military, and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul. A U.S. technical delegation was also expected to hold technical talks about the deployment in the coming days. In a statement on private Kanal D television, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that any Turkish peacekeepers sent to Iraq will not end up in a quagmire. In Washington, Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, the deputy commander of U.S. European Command, predicted that Turkey would agree to join in the stabilization or reconstruction efforts in Iraq, regardless of whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself becomes involved. (AP 022236 Sep 03)
  
  
• The Bush administration may have to cut U.S. troops in Iraq by more than half to keep enough forces to face other threats, a congressional agency said on Tuesday in a report that fueled calls for more international help for peacekeeping in Iraq. The Congressional Budget Office said under current policies, the Pentagon would be able to sustain an occupation force of 38,000 to 64,000 in Iraq long term, down from the existing 150,000 that a number of lawmakers said is not enough to confront the spiraling violence. Senator Robert Byrd, who requested the CBO study, said it showed that the administration must formally ask for help in peacekeeping from the United Nations and NATO. The report said the active Army, which is bearing the brunt of Iraq duty, will have to start reducing forces in Iraq in March next year if it keeps its plan to limit deployments without relief to a year. (Reuters 030027 GMT Sep 03)

ESDP

• Anti-war Belgium extended an olive branch to the United States on Tuesday by offering to end controversy over Iraqi weapons and saying Washington had been right to criticise a disputed Belgian human rights law. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told the Reuters news agency in an interview that transatlantic controversy over alleged weapons of mass destruction should be relegated to history and the focus should now be on stabilising and rebuilding Iraq. “I think the Americans were right in believing the genocide law was being politically abused. I expect the relationship with the United States will again be stabilised,” Guy Verhofstadt said. But he said Belgium would not back down from proposals, launched with France, Germany and Luxembourg in April, to set up a European Union military planning and command staff for operations in which NATO is not involved. Verhofstadt said he fully supported a British proposal for an EU military planning cell within NATO, which he said would strengthen the European pillar of the alliance. “I am very much in favour of that but not as an alternative to a European headquarters,” he added. (Reuters 021753 GMT Sep 03)

BALKANS

• Albania and the United States are holding one-month joint military exercises in efforts to strengthen their armies’ cooperation, the U.S. Embassy in Tirana said Tuesday. The war games, similar to those held last May and considered the biggest of their kind in the past four years, will run until the end of September, said an embassy press release without giving more details. The Albanian Defense Ministry was not available for comment. (AP 021539 Sep 03)