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SHAPE News Morning Update
17
October 2003
ESDP
- EU
narrows differences on defence after U.S. row
IRAQ
- Iraqi
foreign minister welcomes UN resolution
- U.S.
defense officials expect to call up more reserve support
troops for Iraq duty next year¨ U.S. Marine unit
goes ashore in southern Iraq to aid anti-smuggling effort
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ESDP
- The
European Union narrowed sharp differences over plans for closer
defence integration on Thursday after a clash at NATO between
the United States and a hard core with lofty ambitions for
the bloc’ military future. Britain agreed to
plans, laid out in a draft EU constitution and championed
by France and Germany, for closer cooperation between member
states for crisis management missions. But - with one eye
on its attachment to the U.S.-dominated Atlantic alliance
and Washington’ suspicions of EU defence policy - London
succeeded in watering down the plan. It insisted that there
should be no elite vanguard group. The U.S. has repeatedly
criticised the proposal as both wasteful duplication of NATO
capabilities and a challenge to NATO’s “pre-eminent”
role as guarantor of Europe’s security. The standoff
burst into the open at a meeting of alliance ambassadors on
Wednesday, when - according to one diplomat -U.S. envoy Nicholas
Burns branded the quartet’s initiative the “most
serious threat to the future of NATO.” (Reuters 162258
GMT Oct 03)
IRAQ
- The
foreign minister of Iraq’s U.S.-appointed government
on Friday welcomed the newly adopted UN Security Council resolution
aimed at attracting more troops and money for his country
and speeding up its independence. “It was very
good,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosyar Zebari said. “It
is a major step forward to have an international consensus
on Iraq,” he added. (AP 170307 Oct 03)
- U.S.
defense officials said Thursday that they are drawing up plans
to mobilize more American forces for duty in Iraq in the expectation
that too few international troops will be available by early
next year. The additional reservists have not been
notified because Pentagon planners have yet to decide which
units to call on, and there remains a chance that international
troops can be used instead. (AP 162246 Oct 03)
- A
group of ship-borne U.S. Marines has gone ashore in southern
Iraq to assist in an anti-smuggling operation that already
has seized dozens of barges and oil tankers, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday in Washington.
Gen. Richard Myers said Marines from the 13th Marine
Expeditionary Unit operating from the USS Peleliu in the Persian
Gulf have gone ashore, but he provided few details. Speaking
at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld,
Gen. Myers said the U.S.-led coalition recently began “Operation
Sweeney,” designed to prevent smuggling in
southern Iraq. (AP 161900 Oct 03)
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