Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

16 October 2003

NRF

• NATO launched the first units of an elite 20,000-strong rapid-reaction force on Wednesday, a combination of land, sea and air power proclaimed as the spearhead of the alliance’s transformation from Cold War bastion to global peace enforcer. “Today marks a bold step toward the future of the alliance,” said U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the alliance’s supreme commander. Presiding over the inauguration of the force, Gen. Jones proclaimed it “is an important sign that the alliance is rapidly changing to meet new threats of this new century.” In times of crisis, the force should be ready to deploy within five days for missions ranging from evacuations and peacekeeping to counterterrorism or high-intensity combat. (AP 151640 Oct 03)

BALKANS

• UN war crimes investigators backed by NATO troops raided Bosnian Serb security offices on Wednesday searching for documents, a UN official said. “We have decided to get documents we had earlier requested in this way because some common steps regarding the cooperation with the tribunal were not taken (by the authorities),” Refik Hodzic, a Sarajevo-based tribunal representative said. Hodzic said the operation was underway at 11 locations across the Bosnian Serb Republic, but could not say what documents investigators were looking for. (Reuters 151409 GMT Oct 03)

IRAQ

• War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanised the Islamic militant group’s will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report. The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank’s annual bible for defence analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington’s assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were “over-confident.” The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq. Washington must impose security in Iraq to prevent the country from “ripening into a cause celebre for radical Islamic terrorists,” it concluded. “Nation-building” in Iraq was paramount and might require more troops than initially planned. “On the plus side, war in Iraq has denied al Qaeda a potential supplier of weapons of mass destruction and discouraged state sponsors of terrorism from continuing to support it,” the report added. (Reuters 151128 GMT Oct 03)
  
  
• The government will ask parliament to extend the mandate of Hungarian troops serving in Iraq, a spokesman said Wednesday in Budapest. Zoltan J. Gal said the extension would allow the contingent of around 300 troops currently serving in Iraq to remain in the country until the end of 2004 if needed. (AP 151453 Oct 03)

OTHER NEWS

• A top NATO official said Ukraine’s efforts to reduce the size of its armed forces were on track, and could lead to a role for the former Soviet republic’s troops in NATO’s fledgling rapid reaction force. John Colston, NATO’s Assistant Secretary-General for Defense Policy and Planning said he was “very impressed” with “evidence of forward thinking” among Ukraine’s leadership concerning armed force restructuring after meeting with high-ranking military and government leaders in Kiev. (AP 151450 Oct 03)
  
  
• Space may become a war zone in the not-too-distant future, a senior U.S. military officer said on Wednesday in New Orleans. “In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground,” Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, said in response to a question at a geospatial intelligence conference. “Our military forces ... depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be,” he added. The general was formerly with the U.S. Space Command. (Reuters 160042 GMT Oct 03)