Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

24 November 2003

NATO

• NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said Friday that NATO must first succeed in its mission in Afghanistan before turning its attention to Iraq. “If there is to be a victory in the fight against terrorism, we must have victory in Afghanistan,” Lord Robertson told journalists in Madrid. “We have to get Afghanistan right before we can go into Iraq,” he added. Lord Robertson also said there was no consensus among the 19 NATO members about taking on peacekeeping operations in Iraq at the moment. Asked about his opinion of the U.S. policy of preventative attacks to combat terrorism, a policy supported by Spain, he said the idea was not new. “We have always had pre-emption as part of the armoury of deterrence,” he said, citing NATO’s actions in Kosovo in 1999 as an example. He also skirted suggestions that recent events showed that a response other than the military one adopted by the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks might be needed. Lord Robertson insisted that NATO would push ahead with plans to hold a summit meeting in Istanbul next year despite the recent bomb attacks. (AP 211952 Nov 03)
  
  
• NATO’s secretary-general voiced confidence on Friday that allies would offer resources to extend Afghan peacekeeping beyond Kabul despite their failure to provide an existing force with enough helicopters and personnel. “All of it will depend on us being able to get those forces. Am I optimistic that we will be able to do so? Yes,” George Robertson told a news conference in Madrid. But he conceded there were obstacles. “We need more troops on the ground and it’s no secret that we are having difficulties in generating some of the right capabilities,” he said in a speech later on Friday. A NATO source said Germany’s keenness to lead one of these teams had forced the pace of political moves towards an expansion of ISAF and raised public expectations even though the alliance was not militarily ready. Spanish Defence Minister Trillo told reporters that Spain was already doing all it could in Afghanistan and would not send more troops. (Reuters 211701 GMT Nov 03)

IRAQ

• Stability and the creation of government structures rather than an arbitrary timetable will determine when U.S. troops pull out of Iraq, a senior U.S. general visiting Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit said on Sunday. “What we’re committed to...is providing a stable environment inside of which the Iraqi people can have basic laws written, their constitution written, their elections held, their own army, police, security forces and border guards,” said General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. He repudiated a New York Times report which said Washington was planning to keep 100,000 troops in Iraq at least through early 2006, saying it was wrong to fix hard numbers. (Reuters 231459 GMT Nov 03)
  
  
• Chancellor Schroeder sent signals of a new German willingness to support the United States in Iraq on Sunday with calls for debt relief and close cooperation in what he reckons will be a long war on terror. He said Germany wanted reconstruction and democracy in Iraq to succeed and pledged to help more, pointedly recalling U.S. aid to West Germany after World War Two paved the way for its “Economic Miracle.” “It’s in Germany’s and Europe’s interest that the reconstruction and democratic process in Iraq succeeds,” said Chancellor Schroeder in an interview for Der Spiegel magazine to be published on Monday. But he said Germany’s military was already stretched to its limits with some 9,000 troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and Germany could not contribute any forces to Iraq. (Reuters 231306 GMT Nov 03)

BALKANS

• Croatia swung back to the right in a general election and the nationalist Democratic Union (HDZ) of challenger Ivo Sanader claimed victory early on Monday. If confirmed, the outcome would restore to power a party once shunned in the West under the late strongman Franjo Tudjman, which Sanader says he has moderated and rebuilt as a modern European conservative movement. Prime Minister Ivica Racan, whose Social Democratic Party (SDP) was heavily outpolled, said late on Sunday he might still save his seven-party coalition once all votes, including those from outside the country, were counted. Sanader was quick to stress his international credentials. “We will be responsible for all international obligations, including cooperation with the war crimes tribunal. This is not an electoral trick but a responsible policy,” he added. He has not specifically committed himself to arresting General Ante Gotovina, who went underground in 2001 to avoid prosecution and whose handover is urgently sought by the Hague. He also said that he want “to join NATO in 2006 and the European Union in 2007, which is ambitious but feasible.” (Reuters 240030 GMT Nov 03)

OTHER NEWS

• President Bush on Friday partially lifted restrictions on U.S. military aid to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia, rewarding key European allies in the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq. Washington suspended military assistance in July to the six countries and many others for failing to shield Americans from the International Criminal Court. But in a memorandum issued by the White House, he said it was “important to the national interest of the United States” to waive the aid restrictions “for only certain specific projects that I have decided are needed” to support NATO’s expansion as well as U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Reuters 220045 GMT Nov 03)