Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

5 August 2004

IRAQ

• According to AFP, an Alliance official said in Brussels Wednesday the advance guard of the NATO mission to Iraq will leave this weekend under the command of a Dutch general. “An initial group will be leaving in the next two or three days, with the rest of the 40-member team due to follow probably next week. They have authority to start training in and outside of Iraq,” the official, who asked not to be identified, reportedly said. The mission will be commanded by Dutch Air Force General Carel Hilderink, he added. The dispatch notes that NATO nations agreed last Friday to send the mission, leaving in abeyance until September a dispute about its command. The mission’s tasks include liaising with the Iraqi interim government and U.S.-led coalition forces helping Iraq establish defense and military headquarters and identifying Iraqi personnel for training outside the country, it adds.

German media focus on reports that Berlin is considering sending a limited number of troops and vehicles to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to help train Iraqi forces.
“The Bundeswehr is planning to start training of Iraqi soldiers in the UAE but not before the fall,” writes Financial Times Deutschland. The newspaper asserts that despite an agreement between the governments of Germany, the UAE and Iraq, it will still take weeks until the goals and the size of the mission are defined. It adds: “According to German military officers, the results of a NATO fact-finding team that is currently examining the needs of the Iraqi army in the country will be important for the planning. These results will be discussed on Sept. 15 at a NATO Council meeting in Brussels.”
A commentary in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suggests that “the decision to send to the UAE 100 trucks and the personnel required for the training of Iraqi soldiers is bringing the Bundeswehr closer to Iraq.” The newspaper stresses that the government is thereby revising its original decision to limit possible military support for Iraq to aid measures in Germany itself, for instance through training of Iraqi officials at the Leadership Academy in Hamburg. “German self-restraint regarding Iraq is at least finished to the extent that the Bundeswehr is being sent to the UAE and this is also expressly announced as a contribution to NATO’s support program for Iraq. Whether it stops there depends not last of all on further developments in Iraq itself—and they are uncertain. Whoever supports the Iraqi Army outside the country’s borders could also do so in the country itself—without participating in combat actions,” the newspaper adds. Elsewhere, the newspaper observes that the dispatch of German soldiers to the UAE makes it possible to pursue several aims: “The government can portray the decision as assistance for the rapid stabilization of the situation in Iraq. In addition, it can present it as a contribution to the support for the pacification of Iraq that the NATO June summit in Brussels resolved to provide. Thus, in the UAE and bordering countries, Berlin testifies to its interest in a stable development of the region.”

• According to the Washington Post, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told reporters in New York Wednesday efforts to assemble an international peacekeeping force to protect a future UN mission in Iraq have stalled, requiring U.S.-led forces to provide security for the foreseeable future. Annan is quoted saying months of negotiations with more than a half-dozen potential contributors to the UN forces--which would be distinct from the U.S.-led multinational army but serve under the overall command of a U.S. general--have not produced any “firm offers.” In another development, BBC News quoted a State Department spokesman saying Wednesday all 32 countries in the multinational force in Iraq had agreed not to give in to the demands of hostage-takers. The program carried a correspondent saying the coordinated campaign aims to signal to terror groups that there would be no “weakening of resolve.” As well as sending a clear message to militants, it is also a response to the Philippines, which withdrew its own troops early to ensure the safe release of one of its nationals, the correspondent added.

AFGHANISTAN

• According to Die Welt, the Bundeswehr wants to participate in the security of Afghanistan’s presidential elections with approximately 60 additional troops. The newspaper quotes a Defense Ministry spokesman saying in Berlin Wednesday the troops are to be employed in Northeastern Afghanistan for a limited period beginning in September. Noting than in mid-August, a second German PRT, consisting of approximately 80 troops is to be deployed in Faisabad, the article stresses that a total of approximately 140 German troops would therefore be stationed in the remote city for the period of the presidential elections.
  
  
• Hilversum Radio Netherlands, Aug. 4, reported that the Ministry of Defense is to study whether the Netherlands can make an additional military contribution to Afghanistan. According to the program, the Ministry is examining the possible deployment of a few F-16s around the time of the Afghan elections, due to be held in October.

OLYMPICS

• According to Athens News Agency, Aug. 3, Chief of the Greek General Staff Lt. Gen. Yiannopoulos said Tuesday his country’s armed forces are prepared from every point of view and will fulfill their mission regarding the holding of the Olympic Games. While stressing that there is no specific information indicating that the Games are being threatened, he reported added that the use of military power on land, sea and air was planned in every details. “Greece, very sensitive about its sovereignty, has imposed draconian conditions on NATO’s presence on its soil,” wrote French daily Le Figaro, July 29, adding: “For its first mission of this type, NATO will find itself placed under the authority of a simple interior minister…. At the protocol level, Gen. Jones will refer back to Greek Minister of Public Order Voulgarakis, the only person authorized to issue the passes to armed men to the Olympic sites.”