Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

9 June 2004

NATO

• AP writes that President Bush, hoping to build on momentum for a unanimous UN Security Council vote, said on the sidelines of the G8 summit Wednesday he envisions a wider role for NATO in post-occupation Iraq. According to the dispatch, Bush noted that many NATO countries are already part of the coalition in Iraq, and he hoped to “expand it a bit.”

NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer’s purported statement Tuesday that the Alliance could not afford to turn its back if a sovereign Baghdad government called for support is echoed by France’s AFP.
Addressing a Brussels think-tank on preparations for the NATO summit, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer noted that one of the conditions set by the Atlantic Alliance for considering an expanded collective role in Iraq was on the verge of being met, with the imminent adoption of a new draft resolution on Iraq’s future by the UN Security council, says the dispatch, adding: “Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said NATO could not ‘turn a blind eye’ if Iraq’s incoming administration requested assistance. The draft resolution provides for a possible role for regional security organizations such as NATO, he said. NATO leaders would have a ‘serious exchange of views on Iraq’ in Istanbul, he added.”

• According to AFP, a senior Russian official said Tuesday President Putin had told President Bush on the sidelines of the G8 summit that Russia will participate in NATO maneuvers this fall in the North Atlantic. “There will be NATO exercises this fall in the North Atlantic. We have been invited and we will take part in them. The size and level of our participation will be determined by Defense Minister Ivanov,” the official reportedly said.

TERRORISM

• Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports a group of suspected Islamic terrorists arrested in Italy and Belgium Tuesday may have been planning an attack on NATO headquarters in Brussels or the European Parliament in the French town of Strasbourg. Quoting Italian investigators, the newspaper says one of the men arrested, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, a suspected planner of the Madrid bombings in March, had intended to travel from Italy to Belgium possibly to take part in an attack on a “symbolic” target. The investigators reportedly suggested that the “symbolic” target might have been NATO headquarters in Brussels or the European Parliament, which has its main buildings in Strasbourg and offices in Brussels. A related Reuters dispatch reports a NATO spokesman declined to comment on the Corriere report. He reportedly stressed, however: “The safety of this headquarters is ensured by the Belgian authorities, not by NATO. If they have any information that there is a higher risk then they would warn NATO and NATO security measures would be upgraded appropriately.”

ISAF

• Georgian Defense Minister Bezhuashvili told a briefing Wednesday that NATO has asked Georgia to send military doctors to Afghanistan, reports Moscow’s Interfax. “If we make this decision, it will be the second operation after Kosovo under NATO aegis involving Georgia,” Bezhuashvili reportedly said, adding that his ministry was considering the request. “We have highly qualified doctors, many of whom are willing to go to Afghanistan. But this is a political decision. That is why it will be made taking all circumstances into consideration,” he stressed.