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Sunday, June 12, 2011     INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

Gates credits Morocco, Jordan, UAE for roles
in NATO's Libya mission

WASHINGTON — Jordan and Morocco have been identified as participants in the NATO mission in Libya.

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates said several Middle East states have joined the NATO mission against Libyan Col. Moammar Gadhafi. He cited Jordan, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

"In Libya, the involvement of Jordan, Morocco, the UAE and others in the Middle East have been hugely important," Gates said.

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In a June 10 address to the Brussels-based think tank Security and Defence Agenda, Gates did not provide details of the roles of Jordan and Morocco, Middle East Newsline reported. Both Arab League states have been members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue, established in 1994.

"I am not sure we would have moved forward to the UN, even undertaking this enterprise, had it not been for the vote in the Arab League that then paved for the UN Security Council resolutions," Gates, in his last official policy address, said.

Officials said Jordan and Morocco have served support roles in the NATO mission in Libya. They said Qatar and the UAE were conducting air strike operations through their fleets of Mirage-2000 and F-16 fighter-jets.

Despite Arab support, Gates warned that NATO lacked combat support in the campaign against the Gadhafi regime. He said that fewer than half of the 28 members were participating in the no-fly zone mission and fewer than a third were conducting air strikes. Several of the participants were already warning that they could run out of ammunition over the next few weeks.

"The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country — yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference," Gates said.

The war in Libya could turn NATO into what Gates termed a two-tier alliance, with a few members capable of combat missions and the rest unable to do more than fulfill humanitarian roles. He said only five of the 28 allies have exceeded the NATO benchmark to spend two percent of their gross development product on defense.

"This is no longer hypothetical worry," Gates said. "We are there today and it is unacceptable. Looking ahead to avoid the real possibility of collective military irrelevance, member nations must examine new approaches to boosting combat capabilities in procurement in training in logistics."



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