Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

26 November 2003

NATO

• The United States said it will begin “intensive discussions” with allies next month on a planned post-Cold War global realignment of U.S. military forces, but stressed no final decisions had been made. “High-level U.S. teams will begin consultations in foreign capitals in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere” immediately after NATO ministerial meetings in Brussels in early December, President Bush said. (Reuters 252353 GMT Nov 03)

ESDP

• NATO’s outgoing chief warned the EU against seeking to rival the U.S. militarily, and said proposals for an independent defence headquarters could open rifts within the bloc and across the Atlantic. In his sharpest critique yet, Secretary-General Robertson held up the push for an EU military planning headquarters as “a crazy sense of priorities.” “This European continent...is still a flabby giant with huge military expenditure, enormous paper armies, large amounts of equipment, all of which are completely useless for dealing with tomorrow’s crises,” he said in a speech to EU parliamentarians in Brussels. Lord Robertson said building an EU Security and Defence Policy was a “strategic imperative” but it could not be an alternative to NATO or the United States. “An EU that rivals...America is militarily impossible, financially unaffordable and politically unsustainable,” he added. (Reuters 251857 GMT Nov 03)
  
  
• The establishment of a European Union military headquarters separate from NATO should not cause much division in Europe, the EU foreign affairs chief said Tuesday in Paris. Javier Solana, speaking after a meeting with French President Chirac, said that much of the structure for a separate command was already in place in the EU. “Changing a little the objective of a few people will not be a job of great difficulty,” he said. “If there is the political will to do it, we have all the means.” Javier Solana also said he was optimistic about EU members reaching consensus on foreign policy and security issues, and he applauded a British-French proposal for an EU rapid-reaction peacekeeper force. “It’s very positive,” Solana told reporters, adding that the idea had “a favourable echo among all the countries.” (AP 251528 Nov 03)

OTHER NEWS

• The Iraqi Governing Council has told the United States a letter it delivered to the UN Security Council on Monday asking for a resolution on its timetable for ending the U.S. occupation was a draft version and was sent in error, U.S. officials said on Tuesday in Washington. The final version dilutes the Governing Council’s request that the Security Council pass a new resolution enshrining the Iraqis’ timetable for ending the U.S. occupation, said one senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified. “Apparently somebody dropped a draft in the mail and the final version doesn’t have the same language,” he added. (Reuters 252335 GMT Nov 03.
  
  
• Britain and France want to turn the UN inspection force that worked in Iraq before the war into a permanent agency authorized to investigate biological weapons and missile programs worldwide. The United States opposes the idea, diplomats and UN officials said, putting Washington at odds with its wartime ally Britain and in the same camp as Pakistan and Syria - Security Council members whose suspect weapons programs have caused international concern. (AP 260026 Nov 03)
  
  
• Moldova’s president rejected a proposal that would allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in a disputed part of the country after thousands marched through the capital to protest the plan. The protests came even though details of the plan were not immediately clear. But demonstrators, fearing the worst, marched with U.S. and NATO flags and demanded more talks. (AP 251703 Nov 03)