Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

28 November 2003

NRF

• Amid continued coverage of Allied Response 03, the NRF’s maiden exercise, Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad, Nov. 21, commented: “D-day for NATO…. One could see what the NRF really represents. It is the future of NATO, which, since the fall of the Berlin Wall must look for new enemies…. Clearly, since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States international terrorism is the number one enemy.” The newspaper quoted Gen. Jones saying: “Unknown groups … threaten our countries and the inhabitants of our countries. None of them hesitates to carry out attacks which kill innocent people.” The article observed that Gen. Jones could not escape reality. While the demonstration was underway, it said, the message arrived that in Istanbul, 450 kilometers from the NRF exercise, deadly bomb attacks had taken place. The article added that asked what the NRF meant for the fight against terrorism, Gen. Jones suggested that it could take out terrorist camps. “We can get them before they get us,” the newspaper quoted SACEUR saying. “According to the general, in this fight it is better to be proactive, ‘to detect the terrorists and eliminate them,’” concluded the newspaper. Likewise, in a contribution to the Defense News weekly, Nov. 24 issue, Nicholas Fiorenza quoted Gen. Jones stating that the NRF has the sophistication to combat the terrorist threat represented by the recent bombings in Istanbul. Gen. Jones also reportedly said the exercise “represents yet another important sign of the continuing development of the NRF into a credible, agile and robust force that will be capable of facing the threats of the 21st century.” The journalist added: “Jones, a U.S. Marine Corps general, said the Nov. 18 force generation conference for NRF 3 and 4 resulted in NATO nations pledging to contribute 18,000 troops. But he listed as the remaining shortfalls expeditionary airfields, logistics and strategic airlift…. Jones said the next step is for Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Va., to develop common training and doctrine standards for the NRF. ‘There is no room for failure in expeditionary operations,’ he said.” In a related article, German weekly Die Zeit, Nov. 27, observed there is a “certain gap between the requirements of the globally thinking NATO reformers and sober reality,” making a parallel between the perfectly organized first NRF exercise in Turkey and the real problems the Alliance is facing nowadays in Afghanistan.

UNITED STATES – TROOP BASING

• According to a senior official reported by AFP, Nov. 27, U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Powell will brief NATO counterparts on a planned overhaul of U.S. troop levels worldwide in Brussels next week, following President Bush’s announcement, Tuesday, that Washington is stepping up discussions with key European and Asian allies about the overhaul of U.S. global military deployments. “Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell will come to Brussels and brief the allies on the major outlines of what this study is,” the official allegedly said, adding that “the U.S. has embarked on a global review of its force structure.” At the start of this year, continued the dispatch, Gen. James Jones said he was holding intensive discussions with NATO allies on how to reduce U.S. troop numbers in Western Europe and on a partial redeployment towards Eastern Europe. At the time, Gen. Jones talked about a network of bases where troops would be stationed for short periods depending on military needs, reminded the news agency, concluding that on Tuesday, as a U.S. official commented, Washington was not accelerating the process of revamping deployments, just moving ahead with planned consultations with key allies on where best to position U.S. forces. Another AFP dispatch, Nov. 27, reported Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passi asserting that Bulgaria and the U.S. are due to hold talks next month on possibly setting up NATO bases on Bulgarian soil. Although no decision had yet been taken, comments the dispatch, the minister appeared optimistic that the choice could be an air base at the port of Burgas on the Black Sea.

IRAQ

• The New York Times comments that “the American plan to transfer power to Iraq regained some momentum on Thursday, after a meeting between two leading Iraqi political figures,” the President of the Iraqi Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, and the senior Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had raised objections to the American plan for indirect elections for a new provisional government. Afterward, notes the daily, both sides appeared to be moving toward a possible compromise. Mr. Talabani, after the meeting, reportedly seemed to embrace the views of Ayatollah al-Sistani without reservation, adding that while the self-government proposal remains, “the agreement can evolve.” The newspaper adds that American officials were insisting on indirect elections of some form because no voter rolls existed for full national elections, and a voter registration list could not be compiled in the coming year.