BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO agreed on Thursday to a 40 percent reduction of its military bases as part of a drive to revamp the Cold War alliance for new security threats worldwide.
Officials said defense ministers of the 19-nation alliance rallied behind the command structure overhaul, which had at one stage appeared to be in jeopardy as Mediterranean rim countries haggled over the carve-up of bases.
The streamlining of NATO's cumbersome command structure, little changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was launched at the alliance's summit in Prague last November.
Along with a drive to improve military capabilities and build a rapid response force, it is part of a program to make NATO relevant amid new global challenges arising from failed states, terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
The aim is to move away from the static military posture of the Cold War and enable NATO to do what it could not do after the September 11, 2001, attacks on America: strike quickly and hard when an ally is attacked by a distant foe.
"This is a new NATO...a NATO able to meet its commitments when times get tough," Secretary-General George Robertson told the ministers at NATO's Brussels headquarters.
Sitting in with the 19 were, for the first time, defense ministers from the seven eastern European countries which have been invited to join the alliance next year.
In a step that shows the uneasiness that is holding the leaders of Hamas that their lives will be targeted by Israel, one of the leaders of the movement interrupted an inteview with the tv station "Al Jazeera," that was taking place live, because he through he was going to be a targeted for hitting.The leader, Ismaeel Heniya, interviewed from Gaza close to the hour 12:00, and was asked in the beginning of the interview about the possibility that Israel will harm the leader of the Hamas, Shieh Ahmad Yassin. Heniya underlined in his answer that "these threats do not scare the Hamas and the Palestinian people, because the occupation has used every thing it has in the conflict with the intifada and the resistance."
The leader continued, that the Palestinian people will continue in its way of the intifada. During this moment, during the time Heniya was answering the first question in the interview he said "I have to interrupt this interview now because I hear helicopters," and disconnected.