Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

20 July 2004

IRAQ

• According to the Financial Times, NATO’s top military officers will discuss options for training Iraqi security forces inside the country today, in spite of French opposition to the plan. The paper writes that a high-level NATO team has concluded that the bulk of the training assistance requested by the Iraqi prime minister can only be conducted on the ground. The daily also adds that General James Jones, the Alliance’s supreme commander, and Admiral Gregory Johnson, commander of Joint Force Command Naples, delivered their verdict after returning from Baghdad this month. The two U.S. officers, comments the newspaper, conclude that some special training could be conducted outside Iraq, including high-level officer training, but most of the work should be done locally. Therefore, argues the article, plans for NATO’s first mission in Iraq will be discussed by the Alliance’s Military Committee today and, if they are agreed, NATO trainers could start working in the autumn, although NATO first has to decide what level of security will be needed to ensure their safety.

BALKANS

• AFP, July 19, wrote that NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer warned Monday that Belgrade must cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague if it wants to satisfy the Alliance’s membership requirements. He reportedly called for further military reform in Serbia-Montenegro after he met President Svetozar Marovic and said Serbia-Montenegro must drop its suit against NATO in the International Court of Justice over the Alliance’s bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war in 1999. The Secretary General was also quoted as saying: “I sincerely hope that we’ll see a political push in Serbia-Montenegro … because I think everybody - NATO, the government of Serbia-Montenegro - has a great interest in stability in this very important region,” adding that NATO leaders gave a “really clear signal” at their summit in Turkey last month that they wanted Serbia-Montenegro as a full member of the Alliance. In a similar article, July 19, the San Francisco Chronicle reported the NATO Secretary general as saying: “We want to see a European Balkans after the horrible past of not so long ago. There is only one way and that is full cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal … it is the message of values and it’s a simple message.” The paper also focused on Chief UN war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte’s accusation of Belgrade helping a fugitive escape by informing him of a secret warrant for his arrest. Rebel Serb leader Goran Hadzic, indicted for alleged war crimes in 1992-1993, fled his northern Serbia villa Tuesday, just hours after UN prosecutors presented authorities with an arrest warrant, points out the daily.

AFGHANISTAN

• An AFP dispatch, July 19, reports that Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka said Monday that Poland’s troop deployment in Iraq should allow other NATO countries such as Germany to step up their military presence in Afghanistan. The prime minister allegedly said to Afghan President Amid Karzai at a press conference: “Our involvement in Iraq makes it possible for other NATO members, like Germany for example, to send troops, to send a bigger contingent to your country.” Poland has said it is planning to gradually reduce the number of its troops in Iraq and this, reportedly stated the Polish prime minister, would allow a greater deployment to Afghanistan in the future. He also allegedly added that the importance of Poland’s mission in Afghanistan should not be overshadowed by Iraq.

OTHER NEWS

• ITAR-TASS, quoting the Kremlin’s press office, reported that Russian President Putin signed a law on Monday ratifying the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty that sets out limits on the number of troops and armaments deployed across the continent, wrote AFP, July 19. The treaty, explains the report, was intended to defuse tension in Europe during the Cold War. However, observes the news agency, final ratification has been regularly put back amid disagreement between Moscow and Washington over whether Russia had fully met commitments it undertook at the Istanbul meeting to withdraw its troops from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova. Meanwhile, argues the dispatch, Russia is furious that the new NATO members, including the three Baltic states, have not signed up to the agreement, meaning that the Alliance could theoretically station an unlimited number of troops on Russia’s border.