Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

22 June 2004

AFGHANISTAN

• The United Nations urged NATO to send more troops to Afghanistan to bolster security ahead of elections in September following two attacks against UN electoral authorities on Monday. UN Special Representative Jean Arnault told a news briefing that more NATO troops would be needed by the end of July along with a surge in disarmament of factional militias if security was to be sufficient for elections. He called on NATO members at a summit in Istanbul on June 28 and 29 to make a final decision to send more troops. (Reuters 211640 GMT Jun 04)

IRAQ

• European Commission President Romano Prodi called on Tuesday for “real democracy” in Iraq, adding he was wary of whether NATO involvement would help bring political stability to the country. “We need to give the Iraq people a message that there is a change, that we push democracy through concerted action and not through an occupation,” he said in an interview with Reuters Television during a visit to Japan. Mr. Prodi said NATO involvement would not help if the Iraqi people did not see the difference between U.S. troops and multinational troops. “We’re not talking about changing flags. We must change the nature of our being in Iraq, because if we don’t send this message we shall have trouble for years and years and years.” (Reuters 220401 GMT Jun 04)
  
  
• Israel has operatives training commando units in Kurdish areas of U.S.-occupied Iraq, an alignment with the Kurds that gives Israel “eyes and ears” in Iraq, Iran and Syria, The New Yorker magazine reported on Monday. The article by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, who earlier this year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, quoted a CIA official as saying the Israeli presence is widely known in the U.S. intelligence community. The report quoted a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington as saying, “The story is simply untrue.” The report, quoting current and former intelligence officials in the United States, the Middle East and Europe, said one of Israel’s main objectives is to increase Kurdish military strength to balance that of Shiite militias. The report also said Israeli operatives had crossed into Iran with Kurdish commandos to install sensors and other sensitive devices to spy on Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities. (Reuters 211553 GMT Jun 04)

IRAN

• Britain confirmed that eight of its military personnel were being held by Iran after they were captured in three small boats in the Shatt al-Arab waterway between southern Iran and Iraq. Iran said it confiscated the boats and arrested the crew for crossing into its territory along the narrow waterway. (Reuters 211815 GMT Jun 04)
  
  
• Secretary of State Colin Powell hinted that Iran faced the prospect of UN economic sanctions if it did not prove to the world it has no nuclear weapons. After meeting with Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said “the international community is expecting them to answer its questions and to respond fully.” (AP 212047 Jun 04)

EU

• Europe’s “big three” locked horns in a row over choosing a new European Commission president, with Germany joining France in defying Britain by insisting the job should go to someone from a “core” EU state. Germany said it could hardly imagine the job going to a candidate from a country which was not at the heart of the European project. That would appear to exclude candidates from more than half of the EU - Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden or any of the 10 new, mostly east European member states which joined on May 1. (Reuters 211525 GMT Jun 04)

OTHER NEWS

• The U.S. Army broke ground Monday on a laboratory to develop a new generation of cleaner, safer propellants. The next-generation propellants would save money on environmental cleanups and cut health care costs and gun-barrel maintenance, said the civilian chief of the Propulsion Research and Technology Branch at Picatinny Arsenal. (AP 212328 Jun 04)