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SHAPE News Morning Update
10
November 2003
ISAF
- Lord
Robertson says rebuilding of Afghanistan must continue
NATO
- U.S.
military chief warns of rogue missile attacks
IRAQ
- U.S.
senator suggests NATO security force for Iraq
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ISAF
- The
outgoing leader of NATO said Friday that there is no alternative
to rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan, despite security problems
there. Secretary General Lord Robertson said that the reconstruction
of Bosnia, which was ravaged by civil war in the 1990s, provided
proof that restoring peace to Afghanistan is achievable. “They
said Bosnia was going to be mission impossible, but we've
now got only 12,000 troops there and it will probably be down
to 6,000 next year," Robertson said after addressing
an Atlantic Treaty Association Conference in Edinburgh. "That
country was in the midst of medieval violence less than nine
years ago, so I wouldn't give up hope in Afghanistan,"
he added. "Either we go to Afghanistan or Afghanistan
comes to us and we get refugees, drugs, crime and trouble.
There is no alternative." (AP071855 Nov 03GMT).
NATO
- Gen.
Richard Meyers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff,
warned NATO allies on Saturday that conventional forces were
vulnerable to cruise missile attacks from rogue, non-state
militants, saying "it won't be long before that threat
is upon us." Meyers spoke behind closed doors
to the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, meeting in Florida. The media was barred from the
speech but in a recording obtained by Reuters, Meyers presented
the threat from cruise missiles and short-range ballistic
missiles as a hole in U.S. and allied defenses that could
be exploited by "non-state actors," which he did
not further identify. Myers did not say what groups he meant
when he spoke of "non-state actors" but he was believed
to be referring to groups like al Qaeda. (REUTERS 081103).
IRAQ
- Complaining
that U.S. policy on Iraq is adrift, a senior Democrat in the
Senate proposed Sunday turning to NATO for troops to bring
stability to the country and the United Nations to lend political
legitimacy. The way to start such a fundamental change is
for President George W. Bush to sell the idea to European
leaders at a trans-Atlantic summit, Delaware's Joseph Biden,
top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told
ABC’s “This Week.” He said Bush
should tell Europeans of the need for three changes regarding
Iraq: making it a NATO-led operation; having a high commissioner,
who does not have to be American, report to NATO, its political
arm and the U.N. Security Council. (AP092104 Nov 03GMT).
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