Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

30 October 2003

GENERAL JONES

• NATO’s top soldier said on Wednesday that political enthusiasm for expanding the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan had raced ahead of military planners. General Jones, speaking on his way to the war-ravaged country, said NATO had not yet put in place the full force it sought before taking command of the 5,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) nearly three months ago. “It’s important that before you expand the mission, you fully resource the first,” Gen. James Jones, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told reporters on board a U.S. C17 military transport plane flying from Baghdad to Bagram air base, near Kabul. “Political will is fine,” he added. “But by the way we haven’t fully resourced the first mission, so temper the enthusiasm a little bit. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it. I think we’re on a more measured pace,” he added. Among the biggest problems is how to provide protection to PRTs. Gen. Jones said one option would be for NATO to take full responsibility for the PRTs, which would require more troops and equipment than allies are willing to put up right now. A second option would be to reach a force protection agreement with Operation Enduring Freedom. But tying it down to more could distract it from a quite distinct mission. (Reuters 292143 GMT Oct 03)
  
  
• A rocket strike on a Baghdad hotel from which U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz escaped unhurt underlined how Iraqi guerrillas are shifting to more sophisticated tactics, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. Colonel William Darley, a spokesman for the military wing of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), said there was no obvious link between those who carried out Sunday’s attack on the Rashid Hotel and those behind a string of suicide bombings in Baghdad that claimed 35 lives the next day. He said Monday’s attacks appeared to reflect growing influence of Arab fighters from beyond Iraqi borders. U.S. General James Jones, NATO supreme commander, said it was unclear if the two incidents indicated an underlying rise in the level of violence. “The question is whether it’s a spike or a new threshold, only time will tell,” Gen. Jones told reporters after meeting Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, chief commander of U.S. troops in Iraq in Baghdad. (Reuters 291431 GMT Oct 03)

NATO

• Canada said on Wednesday it would replace its aging Leopard main battle tanks with lighter armoured vehicles more suitable for the kind of armed combat that Canadian soldiers are likely to face. Ottawa will spend around US $460 million on 66 U.S.-built Stryker vehicles, which have eight wheels and carry a 105 mm gun, as part of an overall strategy designed to make the armed forces more mobile. The first of the vehicles are due to arrive by 2006. (Reuters 292119 GMT Oct 03)

IRAQ

• The Pentagon is considering shifting intelligence personnel in Iraq from the so-far fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction to strengthen efforts to combat the intensifying resistance, officials said on Wednesday in Washington. “What’s more important right now and what’s more destabilizing: the insurgency or knowing about the WMD?” asked a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Officials said Pentagon leaders are considering reassigning a number of intelligence officers, interrogators, translators, linguists and others from the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which is conducting the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. (Reuters 291950 GMT Oct 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• Two influential U.S. senators questioned the stability of the Afghan government on Wednesday and warned the U.S. envoy and ambassador-designate to Kabul that the country may fall apart on his watch. “We are in jeopardy of losing Afghanistan to become a failed state again,” Sen. Joseph Biden told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the nomination of Zalmay Khalilzad as ambassador to Kabul. “Are you confident that somehow you are not going to go out for an ambassadorship in which things, I wouldn’t say fall apart at the seams, but nevertheless seem to be continually unraveling?” asked Sen. Richard Lugar. (Reuters 292028 GMT Oct 03)
  
  
• Serbian special police are ready to join American forces fighting guerrillas in Afghanistan, their commander said on Wednesday in Belgrade. Police general Goran Radosavljevic said he and his men, whose experience and training match U.S. requirements, could set off immediately once Serbia and Montenegro’s parliament approves the plan. (Reuters 291554 GMT Oct 03)

OTHER NEWS

• A joint U.S.-Israeli laser cannon can already knock down rockets in flight, but it will not be ready for battlefield use until at least 2007, an official with the American company developing the weapon said Wednesday. The system, called Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), uses an advanced radar to spot and track incoming rockets and then fires a laser beam to destroy them. (AP 292353 Oct 03)