Nato warned about 'paper armies'

By Nick Childs BBC Pentagon correspondent, in Colorado

For what is being a dubbed an "informal" Nato meeting, there are very elaborate and impressive facilities for briefing the media at this luxury resort in the shadow of the Rockies.

And when the Nato Secretary General, Lord Robertson, and the meeting's host, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, walked out onto a stage to talk to journalists during the first day of this two-day gathering, they stood among what seemed like a bewildering array of flags.

Lord Robertson said Nato needed "usable" forces for future crises

There are 19 full members attending this meeting, plus the seven countries that will be welcomed in to Nato next year.

That is the most ever for such a gathering, and another sign of how the alliance is changing.

But they would all probably have been surprised that at that first news conference, it was the outgoing Secretary General, rather than Mr Rumsfeld, who was the harder hitting in his comments.

He issued a stern warning to Nato members that had to do more to create "usable" forces for future crises, rather than what he called "paper armies".

It just wasn't right, he said, that the non-US members of Nato had 1.4 million people in uniform, and yet appeared overstretched when they were fielding only about 50,000 troops on current operations.

Unconvincing

Mr Rumsfeld, meanwhile, found himself fielding some pointed questions about the new White House-led group on Iraq. If he thought that by heading out West to Colorado and immersing himself in Nato he could escape questions on whether his influence on Iraq was being undermined, he was wrong.

He insisted he was not annoyed by what had happened. He dismissed such questions, arguing he had other things to worry about. His audience did not seem entirely convinced.

He also returned to a familiar theme that, far from not getting much help from Nato over Iraq, the United States had 11 of its allies alongside it in the country, with another about to join, and six out of seven of the Nato invitees.

But that's still not quite the same as the alliance as a whole participating, although it is providing some support. And Iraq, like the Rockies, is still casting something of a shadow over this meeting.

Earlier, Nato ministers had huddled at a nearby military base for a unique seminar (officials seemed anxious not to call it a "war game") that was meant to underline just how Nato is changing to meet new challenges.

Dynamic Response 07, as it was dubbed, was meant to show how the Alliance would use its new Rapid Response Force in a fictional crisis in 2007.

Unhappy Russians

It emerged during the day that the scenario started with a fairly modest evacuation mission that turned quickly into a cruise and ballistic missile threat against Nato itself, possibly involving weapons of mass destruction.

If that sounds pretty scary, the keynote message of this meeting is that Nato is moving to transform itself to meet such a challenge. There were numerous background briefings on how quickly the critical Rapid Response Force of 20,000 personnel was being created.

But, as the words of Lord Robertson hinted, there is also still a lot of work to be done.

On the second day, Nato ministers are looking forward to tackling some current operational issues, including the prospect of expanding the Nato peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

And they will be meeting another guest in Colorado, the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, against the background of reports that Moscow is unhappy about Nato's current doctrine.