|
SHAPE
News Summary & Analysis
29
June 2004
NATO-SUMMIT
- AP reports
President Karzai appealed Tuesday for NATO to speed
up a planned expansion of its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
to protect against terrorists, private armies and narcotics
gangs before the September elections. “Please
hurry. Come sooner than September and provide the Afghan men
and women with a chance to vote freely without fear, without
coercion,” he reportedly urged the NATO summit. He
thanked NATO leaders for expanding ISAF, then made a forceful
plea for an accelerated deployment, reminding the summit of
recent deadly attacks on officials carrying out voter registration
and on registered voters.
- Reuters
reports diplomats said in Istanbul Tuesday that some
allied countries had blocked a U.S. bid to deploy the NRF
to safeguard Afghanistan’s elections. “France,
and to a lesser extent others such as Spain, are suspicious
about using the (NRF). It says the force is not ready for
this kind of environment and should not be used simply as
a sticking plaster for troop shortages on routine operations,”
one envoy at the summit reportedly said. According
to the dispatch, President Chirac told a news conference
that the NRF should only be used when there is a serious security
crisis, not for Afghan-style missions. “The
NRF is not designed for this. It shouldn’t be used just
for any old matter,” he reportedly said. The dispatch
quotes one unidentified European official saying Paris
is concerned that sending the NRF to Afghanistan could set
a precedent for using it as a “toolbox” whenever
NATO has problems pooling forces for an operation. “France
worries … (this) would lead to an automatism jeopardizing
the principle that a political decision must be taken before
NATO commits to operations such as election protection in
Afghanistan,” the official reportedly said.
AFP reports, however, that speaking after talks with President
Karzai, Prime Minister Blair welcomed NATO’s
pledge of extra troops for Afghanistan’s upcoming elections
and said the Alliance must now implement the decision. “Now
we have to follow through on that and I think the key is to
make sure the response force NATO has deployed is to support
the election process,” Blair is quoted saying.
“The U.S. has also backed use of the NRF for the Afghanistan
mission, but President Chirac has notably expressed reservations
about the idea. ‘There are other means,’ he told
reporters Tuesday,” the dispatch notes.
AFP
observes that while Afghanistan has welcomed NATO’s promise
of more peacekeepers to improve security for the September elections,
analysts and aid workers warned Tuesday the measure could be
too little, too late. ISAF is to increase its force
from 6,500 to 10,000, but some troops will be on standby in
nearby countries and most will be deployed in the relatively
peaceful north. Observers warned that Al Qaeda and Taliban militants,
as well as powerful regional warlords, could still create an
atmosphere of intimidation which could ruin the elections, specially
in the troubled south and southeast, the dispatch stresses.
It notes that Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission,
while welcoming the Alliance’s expansion, called for NATO
troops to move into other areas. “Our concern is that
for the upcoming elections this expansion of NATO will be a
positive step but not a proper step to convince the Afghan population
that there’s an environment for free and fair elections,”
commissioner Ahamd Nadery reportedly said. Andrew Wilder, director
of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Union, is quoted
saying: “Rather than transferring (PRTs) in the north
from coalition control to NATO command, the Alliance needed
to put more soldiers in Afghanistan ahead of the elections.
While I would welcome any decision by NATO to increase the number
of troops they need to make sure this isn’t smoke and
mirrors but actual … boots on the ground.” If extra
troops are not supplied, then the polls should not be held,
he reportedly insisted, adding: “It’s irresponsible
to be putting Afghan electoral staff as well as voters at risk.”
Monday’s summit agreement on Afghanistan gives the Alliance
forces to set up PRTs in four more northern cities besides the
temporary increase from the elections, but it was criticized
as inadequate by human rights campaigners, writes AP. “It’s
a disgrace…. If these elections fail to occur, or occur
but are not free and fair, Afghans can blame NATO,” the
dispatch quotes Jon Sifton, a researcher at Human Rights Watch,
saying.
Commentators focus on NATO’s offer to train
the security forces of the new Iraqi government.
The Wall Street Journal observes that the U.S. and Britain hailed
a return to international unity over Iraq after nearly two years
of bitter divisions, but rifts with countries opposed to the
war remained deep and on pubic display—renewing questions
about how far cooperation can really go. “Even a modest
deal to involve NATO in training the Iraqi military and police
force was so hotly disputed that details were left vague. NATO
leaders differed publicly over whether the move could create
a formal NATO presence in Iraq, which the Bush administration
has been seeking in order to add an international stamp to its
mission there,” stresses the article. Claiming that the
summit fell far short of what was being talked about on both
sides of the Atlantic four months ago, it adds: “Then,
policy-makers looked forward to a string of high-level meetings
this month as a way to stitch the trans-Atlantic relationship
back together and to unite around a common policy for Iraq and
the Middle East. The U.S. had hoped then that NATO could take
over the Polish-led security zone in Iraq. A joint ‘Greater
Middle East’ initiative was also stripped down, the allies
unable to agree even on which countries should be involved in
an economic and political outreach program of the U.S. and EU.”
Ron Asmus, a foreign policy expert with the German Marshall
Fund of the United States, a Washington think tank, is quoted
saying: “We’re at the low end of what looked possible
a few months ago. Photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi
detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, coupled with the deteriorating
security situation on the ground in Iraq, have made it increasingly
difficult for anti-war governments to be seen supporting the
U.S.”
“Bush administration officials heralded the training accord
and an agreement to increase NATO troops in Afghanistan to bolster
security for elections there in September as proof the Alliance
could overcome divisions to reach consensus on contentious issues
far beyond its members’ national borders. But the accord
fell far short of the administration’s original goal to
dispatch NATO ground troops to join American-led forces in Iraq,”
says the New York Times. It continues: NATO planners will now
meet with Iraqi officials to decide on training priorities,
then match the requests with the Alliance or Alliance members
willing to help. They were also ordered to report back on other
possible assistance for Iraqi security institutions. But the
timing, location and numbers of trainers involved remained unanswered.
The Times considers that the political impact of NATO’s
decision to train Iraqi security forces was somewhat moderated
by France’s insistence that there should be no Alliance
insignia on the uniforms of soldiers sent to help Iraq. “NATO
officials, attempting to downplay France’s conditions
for signing up to the training, said a ‘structural NATO
presence in Iraq is possible.’ But they were unable to
explain precisely what that might mean,” stresses the
newspaper.
French daily Liberation comments meanwhile: “The Alliance’s
proposal to train a future Iraqi army in no way rules out the
presence of NATO troops in Iraq. But its terms were so ambiguous
that it justifies the most varied interpretations. The Americans
accentuate NATO’s decision to become involved in Iraq.
The French void the gesture of its meaning on the pretext that
it is the member states, and not the organization, that will
undertake the training. The two parties had an interest in displaying
a semblance of unity over the Iraq crisis, which dominated the
first day of the NATO summit…. In fact, the two parties
reached agreement on a minimal accord in which each will be
able to come out ahead. The two questions that opposed them
remain posed: Will the training take place outside of Iraq,
as desired by the French, who are concerned about not letting
themselves be dragged into a conflict they did not want? Or
in Iraq, as the Americans and their allies advocate? Will it
be conducted by the member states, as desired by Paris, hostile
to the idea of seeing the NATO flag hoisted in Iraq, or will
it be a NATO mission? It is probable that each one will see
it as he likes.”
|
