Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

15 January 2004

IRAQ

• U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte welcomed a crucial UN meeting on Iraq as a step towards the return of the world body to Baghdad but UN officials are wary of involvement until Iraqis take power. Under persistent U.S. calls for UN political staff to go back to Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited a delegation of the Iraqi Governing Council and the America-led Coalition Provisional Authority to define what the United Nations should do over the next year. But while Washington wants the legitimacy the world body can bring, it has not defined an independent UN role. (Reuters 142216 GMT Jan 04)
  
• Chancellor Schroeder said Wednesday that Germany would be prepared to contribute a medical evacuation airplane in support of a possible NATO mission in Iraq despite its earlier opposition to the war but that he is not changing his policy. Gerhard Schroeder’s conciliatory offer, reported in an advance copy of Thursday’s Die Welt newspaper, comes as the Bush administration was considering changing its policy excluding countries like Germany that did not participate in the war from bidding on lucrative reconstruction projects in Iraq. (AP 141921 Jan 04)
  
• Dutch troops will provide security for Japanese soldiers arriving in Iraq on a humanitarian mission, the Dutch Defence ministry said Wednesday. After a visit to the Netherlands by Japan’s Defence Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba, Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kemp agreed to the cooperation. “We will help them with security during the build-up phase, though they will ultimately be responsible for their own security,” a ministry spokesman said. (AP 141821 Jan 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• Italy, Norway and Sweden agreed on Wednesday to boost the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan immediately after an appeal for more troops from the alliance’s new secretary general. NATO officials said they will send troops to two Afghan cities as part of an expanding network of “Provincial Reconstruction Teams” to provide security outside the capital. NATO officials said an Italian-run team should be up and running in the next few months in the eastern city of Ghazni. The officials said it was not yet determined where the joint Norwegian-Swedish team would be based. (AP 141629 Jan 04)
  
• The Czech government approved plans to send up to 150 troops to join U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, the defence ministry said in Prague. Under the Czech plan, which needs parliamentary approval, 120 elite reconnaissance specialists will join forces trying to destroy pockets of resistance loyal to the Taliban or the al Qaeda network. (Reuters 141758 GMT Jan 04)

UNIVERSAL COMPETENCE LAW

• The Belgian High Court threw out a war crimes complaint against retired U.S. Iraq war commander Gen. Tommy Franks, backing a lower court ruling which ruled Belgium had no jurisdiction in the case. The Belgian lawyer, representing the group of 17 Iraqi and 2 Jordanians who launched an appeal, said while the case was “legally dead” the complaint could still be refilled if another constitutional court finds the government acted wrongly in reforming the law. (AP 141739 Jan 04)