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NATO Girding for All-Out War on Terrorism
Wednesday, December 5, 2001
(10:34 AM ET)
By John Chalmers / Reuters

"The kind of NATO you see will not be the same NATO you saw on September 10, it will change."

NATO, stung into action by the September 11 attacks on the United States, will declare war on terrorism this week and consider how best to gird itself for a new kind of battle.

"It's not just rhetoric," a senior NATO official said ahead of a two-day meeting of foreign ministers that will end on Friday with a special standalone statement on terrorism.

"We're going to adjust to prepare for new types of threat. Ministers are committing NATO to walk down that road."

The 19-nation alliance evoked a mutual defense clause in its founding treaty the day after the hijacked aircraft attacks on New York and Washington.

But apart from sending early warning planes to patrol U.S. skies and putting on a show of naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, it has not played a visible role in the U.S.-dominated theater of war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
(More: iWon.com News Source)
2001 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan