Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

30 June 2004

NATO-SUMMIT

• NATO’s decision to help train Iraq’s armed forces has set off wrangling among the allies, as more differences emerged between the French and Americans on how to best help Baghdad’s new government. The friction came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai implored NATO leaders on Tuesday to overcome months of foot-dragging and send more troops to his country ahead of September elections. President Chirac rejected an American proposal that NATO’s elite new response force be deployed to provide security for elections scheduled in September. France agreed with other allies that NATO should send hundreds more troops for the elections in reply to President Karzai’s request, but said the response force should be used only for emergency situations, not for peacekeeping. Diplomats said the issue provoked a sharp exchange in Istanbul between U.S. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and his French counterpart, Michele Alliot-Marie. France was not the only country with reservations, but the Americans said the force would be an ideal solution to NATO’s difficulties in mustering European troops for Afghanistan. One possible solution could be using the NATO Response Force as an “over the horizon” force held in reserve to help peacekeeping in Afghanistan in a crisis. Officials said a reconnaissance team from the force could visit Afghanistan soon to assess how it could be involved. Also, French President Chirac forcefully stated his opposition to any collective NATO presence on the ground in Iraq, suggesting it should limit its role to coordinating national efforts and training outside the country. On Turkey, President Chirac accused U.S. President Bush of meddling in the European Union’s affairs by pushing for the EU to bring Turkey into its ranks. (AP 300147 Jun 04)
  
  
• NATO nations have agreed to make 40 percent of their armed forces available for deployment on overseas missions, a NATO official said Tuesday in Istanbul. The move set targets for deployable forces came after NATO had difficulties in raising troops for its peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan due to the lack of transport planes, helicopters and mobile medical units. NATO officials have said that some allied nations already meet or exceed the 40 percent target - including the United States, Britain and Canada. The NATO leaders also agreed to explore ways of more evenly sharing the costs of missions. Currently, nations that contribute troops also pay the expenses for those soldiers. (AP 291543 Jun 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• The U.S. and other nations are pushing NATO to raise troop levels in Afghanistan beyond what the alliance approved this week to help provide security for coming elections, a senior U.S. administration official said. At the summit, the alliance agreed to send a couple thousand more troops to Afghanistan, including about 1,500 to help provide security for the September elections. But even before the ink dried on that agreement, NATO member nations began thinking about sending even more to help ensure safe elections in Afghanistan where registered voters are being attacked, the official said in Washington. “We think NATO should be doing more, and we’re trying to get NATO to do more,” according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said decisions on whether to increase the NATO deployment in Afghanistan further to help with elections could come within a couple of weeks. (AP 300110 Jun 04)

BALKANS

• UN court officials on Tuesday accused fugitives and their backers in the Balkans of trying to escape prosecution by waiting until international pressure brings an end to war crime trials. “An unintended consequence of the completion strategy is that fugitives and their protective networks are trying to buy time until 2008, in hopes of evading justice, as they believe the time to be tried in The Hague will soon expire,” Carla Del Ponte told the 15-nation council. “It certainly appears that some in the former Yugoslavia think that, by hiding from arrest, they can ‘wait out’ the tribunal until it goes away,” Mr. Meron said. Carla del Ponte, the prosecutor of the tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, and Theodor Meron, the court’s chief judge, told the UN Security Council also that a dire shortage of funds was seriously hindering work. Belgrade’s UN ambassador, Nebojsa Kaludjerovic, said his nation had cooperated with “somewhat lower intensity” because of elections but would now “honour its obligations.” (Reuters 300246 GMT Jun 04)

EU

• Portuguese Prime Minister Barroso pledged to be a bridge-builder in an often fractious European Union after his unanimous nomination on Tuesday as next head of the European Commission. He aims to blend European integration with cooperation with the United States. He also backs a stronger NATO and wants bigger investment in the European military to take greater security responsibility. (Reuters 292027 GMT Jun 04)
  
  
• The European Union wants an annual Asian security forum to play a more forceful role in settling and preventing regional disputes by beefing up its preventive diplomacy and venturing into conflict resolution. The call from Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, comes a day ahead of opening of the ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, in Jakarta. The two-day gathering brings together foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and 14 other countries including the United States, China and Japan. “The time is now right for ARF countries to turn their attention to strengthening the ARF’s capabilities in preventive diplomacy and conflict resolution,” Mr. Solana wrote in commentary in Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper. (AP 300208 Jun 04)

UNITED STATES

• The U.S. Army on Tuesday defended its plan to mobilize involuntarily 5,600 retired or discharged soldiers as nothing “new or unusual,” but critics said it undermines the concept of an all-volunteer military. The soldiers will be summoned from the Individual Ready Reserve, a seldom-tapped pool of 111,000 people who remain eligible to be called to active duty for eight years after completing their voluntary Army service commitment. Army officials said these soldiers will be deployed this year to Iraq and Afghanistan to fill shortages in specific jobs such as military police and civil affairs. (Reuters 292116 GMT Jun 04)