US Plan to Deploy Troops in Philippines Runs into Snags

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, March 02, 2003

US Plan to Deploy Troops in Philippines Runs into Snags

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

The US plan to send its combat troops to the Philippines to help the Asian nation strike terrorists has hit snags following widespread criticism in the Philippines that the US troop deployment runs counter to its constitution.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Philippine counterpart Angelo Reyes had failed to find a way in a meeting to reconcile the Philippine law with the prospect of US combat operations in the Philippines, the local press reported Saturday.

The Pentagon announced last week that the two countries clinched a deal to send about 3,000 US combat troops to the Asian country to help wipe out the separatist guerrillas in the southern Philippines.

However, the deployment of US combat troops has courted criticism in the Philippines and the critics believed that the plan would violate the Philippine constitution allowing no foreign forces to carry out combat missions in the Asian nation.

"The freezing of the original plan, only a week after a Pentagon spokesman had detailed it to journalists, was an embarrassment for Manila and Washington, and a setback for the Bush administration's efforts to widen its global war on terrorism," The Washington Post said Saturday.

But US chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers said the commander of US forces in the Pacific has been asked to prepare other options that would be more in line with the Philippine constitution, according to local media.

Questions?Comments? Click here

Which Country, China or Japan, Does Russian Oil Pipeline Lead to? ( 3 Messages)

Chinese Fast Food Chains Battle Foreign Competitors ( 4 Messages)

Chinese Commemorate Dead Soviet Pilots ( 3 Messages)

China-ASEAN Economic Cooperation Upgraded ( 2 Messages)

Japan Strives to be Major World Power: Analysis ( 7 Messages)