Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

20 August 2004

U.S. TROOP BASING

• The U.S. military will keep a “significant” troop presence in Germany and even expand some bases, said a senior U.S. commander in Stuttgart. Gen. Charles F. Wald, deputy head of the U.S. military’s European Command, said that major Air Force installations in Germany would be untouched by the troop realignment. He said that a new, mobile brigade using lighter Stryker armoured vehicles would be added, and major headquarters would also stay. The sprawling Ramstein air base, already a major strategic airlift hub for the U.S. military’s global operations, “will become even larger,” he said. Another base at Spangdahlem will remain as well, he added. (AP 200128 Aug 04)

IRAQ

• Poland’s defence minister on Thursday urged NATO to move forward with its plan to train Iraqi military forces to take a larger security role after two Polish soldiers were killed in a car crash while trying to escape an ambush in the Iraqi city of Hillah. Following the deaths of the soldiers, Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski urged NATO members to “fully meet their commitments and energetically start training and equipping the Iraqi army to allow it to take over tasks from the coalition,” the Polish news agency PAP reported. “There is nothing more important now,” he added. (AP 191413 Aug 04)

AFGHANISTAN

• The Afghan ambassador to the U.S. said that his country needs more international aid in order to achieve long-term stability - both before, during and after his country’s presidential election on October 9. Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawed said Afghanistan needs “robust and immediate support of the international community, especially the United States and NATO, to provide resources and troops to enhance security, before the election, during and after the election.” He spoke during a briefing hosted by Radio Free Europe - Radio Liberty. (AP 192056 Aug 04)

BALKANS

• A top NATO official on Thursday praised ongoing military reforms in Macedonia (sic), calling the Balkan country “the leader of transformation in the region.” Adm. Gregory Johnson, the NATO commander in southern Europe, also said that “huge progress” has been made in efforts to bring its military closer to NATO standards and to eventually join the Atlantic Alliance. He added that Macedonia (sic) still needs to work on rationalization of its troops and inclusion of minorities. (AP 191616 Aug 04)
  
• The Supreme Court in Zagreb ordered the retrial of eight former military officials exonerated by a lower court for the torture and slaying of ethnic Serbs at the Lora military prison in 1992. A five-member panel of judges upheld a prosecution appeal, ruling that the original trial was fraught with “serious flaws in criminal procedure as well as erroneous and incomplete facts.” (AP 191415 Aug 04)
  
• Serbia-Montenegro signed a military agreement with Turkey on Thursday, the country’s first arms deal with a NATO member in more than a decade and a step toward closer cooperation with the alliance. Turkish Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul and his Serbia-Montenegro counterpart, Prvoslav Davinic, signed the document in Belgrade. The agreement includes provisions for developing, producing and jointly selling arms, but few details were revealed. (AP 191408 Aug 04)
  

IRAN

• Iran has informed British, French and German officials it could produce weapons-grade uranium within a year and a nuclear weapon no more than three years after that, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said in Washington. “These Iranian assertions give the lie to their public contention that their nuclear program is entirely civil and peaceful in purpose,” Mr. Bolton said in an interview. At the State Department, a spokesman dismissed a threat by Iran’s defence minister to attack the United States if U.S. troops in Iraq threatened Iran. He said the minister, Ali Shamkhani, was responding to “unwarranted concerns.” Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton also said that the administration was working with European and other nations to seek a peaceful end to more than 18 years of a large-scale nuclear program by Iran that poses a “grave threat” in the Middle East and beyond. If diplomacy failed, he suggested organizing an international isolation of Iran or intercepting vessels carrying nuclear technology to Iran. (AP 192021 Aug 04)