----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 1:34 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Blair Wants Global Assault Force 'With Teeth' STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM Sunday Times June 11 2000 BRITAIN Blair seeks military teeth for the UN peacekeepers Jonathon Carr-Brown TONY BLAIR wants the United Nations to adopt a military code which would allow international armies to use "overwhelming" force to bolster fragile democracies. The prime minister has ordered Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, to canvass support for the plan among other security council members. Blair and Cook regard their mission as urgent, having been bruised by Britain's experience in Sierra Leone. They regret developments in the former British colony and wish the UN force had been robust enough to put down armed rebel forces without British help. The UN military approach would be based on a Ministry of Defence (MoD) peacekeeping manual leaked to The Sunday Times. It states that politicians must accept that peacekeeping operations may often "resemble war". Cook, who visited Sierra Leone last week, was shocked by the stories of boy soldiers and amputees and astonished that Zambian UN peacekeeping troops arrived with rifles but no bullets. Other UN soldiers had helmets but no boots. A Foreign Office source said: "It was obvious that Sierra Leone nearly turned into a complete disaster. Once again the UN was about to leave civilians to the mercy of a predatory mob." Cook has already started the diplomatic process and contacted key security council members, warning them that urgent action is needed to maintain the UN's credibility. His aides say he will be raising the matter with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general. Cook wants the adoption of British-Nato military doctrine on peace enforcement through the deployment of overwhelming force and the setting up of a Nato-style military headquarters to replace the UN's peacekeeping department. The new headquarters would be better staffed and capable of putting combat-ready forces with state-of-the-art command and control structures into trouble spots. Foreign Office sources also confirmed that in future British forces will either act independently, as they did in Sierra Leone, or refuse to join UN missions until "the mandate was right" and allowed for the "enforcement of peace". A spokesman for Annan said Cook would find him a willing ally. The UN panel on peace operations, headed by Lakhdar Brahim, an Algerian diplomat, will report this summer and Annan wants the world's leaders to agree to peacekeeping reforms at the UN's summit in New York in September. Annan gave a speech at Johns Hopkins University last month in which he said UN forces had to be capable of "countering and isolating those who go against agreed peace processes or commit violations". Last night Iain Duncan Smith, the shadow defence spokesman, welcomed Cook's enthusiasm for reform but said he was only advocating MoD guidelines that had been drawn up two years ago. The guidelines are contained in a 200-page restricted document, Peace Support Operations; Joint Warfare Publication 3-50. It states that in "complex emergencies" in countries where there is no firm peace, or where peace is based on a dubious premise, forces must be able to act "robustly". It goes on to say that Peace Enforcement (PE) is a new concept, designed to fill the gap between peacekeeping and war. The manual adds: "When violence is endemic its control will require the deployment of a force capable of enforcement as a precursor to peacekeeping." The premise of the manual is that timely deployment of heavily equipped troops should deter all potential opposition and lead to a more conventional peacekeeping role. If this fails, PE forces should be allowed to use their initiative and take risks. The manual says that too rigid an application of present UN peacekeeping mandates leads to missions being "emasculated". ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
