Thursday April 19 5:16 PM ET
Pentagon: U.S. Wants to Remove Sinai Peacekeepers
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told Israel and Egypt that the Bush administration wants to withdraw at least some U.S. military peacekeepers from the Sinai in its effort to cut noncombat missions worldwide, the Pentagon said Thursday.
A Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld raised the issue of the 860 U.S. troops serving in a 1,900-member multinational peacekeeping force during recent Washington meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Navy Rear Adm. Craig Quigley declined to characterize the response of the two leaders. But The New York Times reported that Mubarak was vocal in his opposition and Sharon reluctantly supported such a move so long as a token U.S. presence remained.
The Pentagon spokesman stressed that no U.S. decision had been made, and noted that under the agreement that set up the force, both Egypt and Israel would have to agree to any cut in the American presence.
President Bush declined to comment directly on the Sinai issue, but told reporters in response to questions at the White House Thursday that ``I've always felt that we are over-extended'' in post-Cold War military missions.
``We are looking at all troop deployments around the world. Where we can reduce troops without creating instability, we will do so,'' he said.
``On the other hand, we have made commitments,'' the president added, stressing earlier comments by administration officials that the United States would not unilaterally abandon those commitments without close consultations with allies.
Sensitive Time In Middle East
Although there has been no major violence in the buffer zone between Egypt and Israel since peacekeepers were stationed there in 1982, the proposal comes at a sensitive time in the Middle East during the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians and strained relations between Egypt and Israel.
``Secretary Rumsfeld, in his discussions with both President Mubarak and Prime Minister Sharon, was sounding both of those leaders out as to what they would think about the United States reducing some of its presence in the Sinai force,'' Quigley said.
The force, which includes rotating groups of troops from 11 nations, was inserted into the Sinai between Egypt and Israel to back the 1979 peace agreement between the two countries. It does not serve under the auspices of the United Nations.
Quigley noted that Bush said while a candidate during the U.S. presidential campaign last year that ``one of the things that he would look at if elected president would be U.S. troop stationing around the world ... at where they might be reduced.''
``No decisions have been made in that (Sinai) regard, but we continue to discuss that. And not only there, but elsewhere ... trying to take a look at where there are places around the world where we might reduce our American force presence in some way, shape or form,'' he told reporters.
Quigley said that before meeting with Sharon on March 19 and with Mubarak on April 3, Rumsfeld discussed the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other members of Bush's senior national security team.
He declined to provide Powell's reaction, except to say that ''conceptually, he is right aboard with what the president has said'' about peacekeeping reductions.
``Before you would go to any final decision here, this would go into the inter-agency process, and ultimately the decision would be the president's. But this is something we are actively looking at around the world,'' Quigley said.
``He (Rumsfeld) wants to start at the beginning, and that is to get the feelings of both Israel and Egypt -- the nations most affected by the Sinai force.''
