Weekly press briefing

MODERATOR: And I will now allow them to tell you a little bit about what it is they're doing, and then they'll be available after that to take your questions.

JOHN TEUFERT (NC3A Geo Team Chief): Thanks, Paul, good afternoon everyone. I'm John Teufert. I'm the NATO C3 Agency's Geo-Officer.

With roots going back over 50 years the mission of the NATO C3 Agency is to support NATO through the seamless provision of unbiased scientific support and common-funded acquisition of consultation, command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. This type of support is provided to NATO's peacetime headquarters, as well as to NATO's operations, such as International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, in Afghanistan.

The NC3A Geo Team that I'm heading actually, provides scientific and technical support to NATO's Geo elements, and the Flood Map presented today to you is just one example of our products.

In 2006 NATO and coalition troops were confronted with increasing flood difficulties in Afghanistan. This did not only affect military operations and logistical tasks, but also lack of actual data was sufficiently hindering the emergency response and emergency aid operations which NATO delivers to flood victims. It was because of that reason that ISAF requested NC3A's support to create a Flood Map for entire Afghanistan at a minimum scale of 1:250,000.

I'm now happy to tell you that although the technological hurdles were significant and we were facing an extreme lack of information and actual data, we were actually able to produce that map. Not at 250,000 scale, but even at a scale of 1:100,000.

To accomplish this task it was not only necessary for us to create the Flood Map itself, but also to conduct primary research on the overall flood situation of Afghanistan, as little or no information was available on the topic.

The development of the map was done by NC3A in The Hague over the course of almost three years. And such tasks form a component of the scientific work we do at NC3A. For such research we rely on our team of scientists, but also need to cooperate with external research institutes and universities.

The creation and development of this map that's going to be presented to you today was mainly done by Emlyn Hagen, and forms an integral part of his doctorate research. I'm going to hand over to Emlyn now to give us a little bit more detail about the product. Emlyn, the floor is yours.

EMLYN HAGEN (NC3A Map Expert): Thanks. Well, good afternoon. The Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map is a unique map, one especially useful for the international aid community, and on this slide you can already see an outtake of the Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map superimposed on an aerial image.

Afghan floods can be devastating. They can kill... they're killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands. The inundated areas are massive as well. The one you see here is about 30 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide, and the flood season generally starts in February and they last up until June, July, caused by heavy spring rains, snow melt, mostly a combination of the two actually.

The flood waters are so powerful that they can not only sweep away roads and bridges, which are conveniently located in valley floors, but also sometimes houses and even entire villages.

Floods kill livestock, they destroy agricultural lands, the livelihood of most Afghan people, causing displaced persons to be dependent on food aid for a long time.

For example, in May this year in Northern Afghanistan one flood killed 94 people, affected 207 villages, and destroyed almost 8,000 houses entirely. They were entirely destroyed. And according to UN estimates in Afghanistan since the mid-eighties, around 7 1/2 million people have been displaced by natural disasters, killing more than 19,000 people.

In the initial flood stages ISAF is often the only one capable of handing the situation, as it has the communication and hardware to deal with such a complicated crisis. ISAF often flies Search and Rescue missions. They provide aid and food and emergency medicine as well.

They also evacuate a lot of people, and for this reason the Flood Map has already been distributed to all regional commands in ISAF, so they can use it to better plan emergency aid and relief operations.

Yet before the Flood Map was created we did not know when, where, floods could occur, nor their impact or the extent of the floods. So in the beginning we collected some basic data first on the amount of casualties, displaced persons, the damage floods cause us, and we came up with the solution, the Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map, which has a resolution of 1:100,000.

But it's because of the vast scale of the Afghan flood crisis, and also because of the uniqueness of the Flood Hazard Map that NATO is also distributing it to the international aid community. From this week onward it can be downloaded from the Civilian-Military Overview website, or you can find it at cimicweb.org.

The map which you can see is not... it's not really a map. It's essentially a layer which you can put on top of a satellite or aerial image, integrate it into topographic maps, or geo-experts can do advanced analysis with it. How many villages, roads are in a certain district, are in danger of being flooded, how much arable land is in danger?

The Flood Map indicates the proximate flood depth, so the purple areas here, which you see in the centre, which is the river central line, are deeper than the very light blue areas which are sometimes only a few centimetres deep.

Now NC3A Geo has already been contacted by numerous organizations requesting access and information about the flood map and so far we've given out copies to UNICEF, the UN World Food Agency, USAID, USGS, UNESCO, the Afghanistan Ministry of Rural Development. And UNICEF, for example, they will use it to find safe helicopter landing sites, and to find locations where they can build schools. And this last aspect is one of the most useful parts of the Flood Map, as you can use it to prevent building infrastructure in flood areas. Or at least, if you want to do so, add protective measures to it. So that you can save millions of dollars of essentially otherwise doomed infrastructural projects.

The map will also be given to NGOs, such as Oxfam, with whom we've been in contact, universities and the de-mining organizations. Land mines, they're made out of plastic, they float in water, and they essentially migrate in flood waters.

And although the map is not perfect, it's still expected to be the main nation-wide Flood Map for the next decade. It can be used up to a scale, as mentioned before, up to a scale of 1:100,000, which is unprecedented for such a large developing nation, and although the Flood Map is generally only intended for geo experts and analysts at governmental and aid organizations, we've also created a version of it which can be simply be loaded into the program Google Earth, so you can, at home, access the website, download to KML files and just open them in Google Earth, which is particularly useful for the smaller NGOs which don't have any geo experts on staff, but of course, also need to know where floods might happen.

And also if you access the website you'll also find large PDF maps which you can use. The video, which we will show you later, and you need to register at that website.

NATO will soon hand over the map to the Afghan Natural Disaster and Management Authority, ANDMA, though an official ceremony in Kabul. ANDMA has the mandate to coordinate and manage all aspects related to emergency response, with post disaster recovery and development phases. The map will help the Afghan authorities to hopefully minimize the effects of disasters, as well as to help prepare and plan for relief operations.

For example, ANDMA last year distributed more than 90,000 gabion boxes, which are large steel cages made out of wire which you fill up with rocks and stone and they're very effective at preventing flood waters from entering a village. Cost around $1 1/2 million U.S. and although they're very effective, many of these boxes were distributed to the wrong districts, and placed in the wrong areas. That costs a lot of money.

And I will spare you the technical details, but to create such a Flood Map for such a large nation is not a simple task. So far no method existed that would do so in sufficient accuracy. There is not a Flood Maps for Dummies handbook that will tell you how to do so. There are some very advanced programs and products in existence that can, but only up to a length of 30 kilometres of river. Not for the 250,000 kilometres of river for which we had to calculate the Flood Map.

And it's not just the sheer size of the country that makes it difficult. Afghanistan is a developing country, which had little accurate historical data, and sometimes this data was simply not collected, sometimes it was destroyed in conflict. Data that's essential and required for accurate flood modelling. And therefore, we have to think out of the box. We have to create a completely new method, we call it a reverse engineering method, based on past flood observations from satellite imagery that help us to create input data for this flood map.

Now importantly, this method, which is actually for the first time tried and tested, can be rather easily and simply applied to other developing nations to help them create inundation maps for extreme flood events as well.

Now we had the map independently evaluated by Professor John Shroder, who is an expert in Afghanistan geography, with more than 30 years of experience. He helped find, for instance, bin Laden hideout, Tora Bora.

Furthermore, he reported that the Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map is of immediate use to governmental agencies, universities and NGOs. And as mentioned, that's one of the reasons why we're officially handing over the flood map to the Afghan authorities.

And hereby I conclude my part of the presentations. Before we go I hope you have some questions for both John and myself. We'll show you a very short video of three and a half minutes.

(Video presentation)

NARRATOR: (Music) Afghanistan is a nation prone to natural disasters such as floods and droughts. The severe floods of 2005 and 2006 highlighted how little was known about floods in the mountainous nation. Until now no flood hazard map existed which pinpointed the location and extent of the inundated areas. Nor was there data available on the occurrence and impact of floods.

Now know that violent floods in Afghanistan displaced almost 300,000 people between 2002 and 2007, causing many fatalities as well. Additionally, these floods can destroy entire villages, sweeping away bridges, roads and other essential infrastructure. Furthermore, flood waters can also displace land mines.

Using the latest scientific methodology the NATO C3 Agency has researched and created a flood hazard map of entire Afghanistan. The map is available as a flood depth image with a resolution of 30 metres, or as a vector layer, at one of three predefined inundation depths.

In the video, which shows some of the flood areas in the Helmand region, the blue outline indicates inundation areas deeper than 30 centimetres.

The Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map will support planning on a strategic, operational and tactical level. Additionally, it will support the planning and preparation of relief operations, as well as infrastructure planning, land mine clearing, and the creation of terrain traffic ability and irrigation maps.

The Flood Map has the potential to save millions in investments by locating safe construction sites and protecting existing infrastructure.

Distributing the Flood Map to the United Nations, Red Cross and NGOs will result in more efficient relief operations, lessening not only the burdening on ISAF resources, but for all involved in helping to reconstruct and rebuild Afghanistan.

The Flood Map is expected to be the main nation-wide flood map for the next decade. The Flood Map is also a unique map as it utilized an innovative methodology that relies of past flood events. It is also the first NC3A geo product created with non-commercial data that will be released to the public. And at a scale of 1:100,000 the accuracy of the Flood Map is unprecedented for such a large developing country.

The Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map was independently evaluated by Professor John Shroder, one of the most eminent experts on Afghanistan.

(Video presentation ends)

JOHN TEUFERT: Right. Are all of you still awake? This concludes the NATO briefing on the Afghan Flood Hazard Map, and I think we can open the floor now to any questions that you might have.

Q: Brooks Tigner, Jane's. Can I ask two questions, or a quick one first. How complete is the topographic analysis across the country? I assume it covers the entire country?

EMLYN HAGEN: Yes.

Q: And secondly, you say... you partially answered my question, (inaudible...) you'd clarify it. What really popped into my mind was to what extent did you rely on the scalable satellite imagery versus extrapolating analysis of where a predicted flood would go, and what's the proportion between these two? In other words, how do you justify the verification (inaudible)?

EMLYN HAGEN: (Laughs). As mentioned there is little accurate historical data available. Now the Dartmouth Flood Observatory, they use MODIS satellite imaginary data to collect past flood observations all around the globe, so that's why you can use this method also all around the globe. And with that we could have a rather good idea where some floods in the past seven years took place.

Now from that onward we use modelings and regression analysis to actually extract the inflow rate, the river inflow rate. And basically since that's the only source of data we had, we asked Professor John Shroder and his team, who've had a lot of experience in Afghanistan, to have a better look at the data to see our assessment that this is a good product, what do you think about it? Because in the satellite imagery you can see past flood outlines, but was that a 1,000 years ago, was that 200 years ago? But he (John Shroder) has the ground knowledge and he helped us very good to evaluate this product qualitatively, but also with some hard numbers for very small detailed sample sites, with very accurate models.

And one of his conclusions was although we use completely different methods, and different input data, our results are strikingly similar and that was a huge compliment to us that that proved essentially that model works.

Q: But over seven years different regions flood in different ways, so what do you do about the regions that don't have satellite imagery?

EMLYN HAGEN: Yes, so basically for the areas where you don't have... where we predict floods, we based our numbers on the inflow rates of the areas that already experienced floods. That's the only way to do this in this case.

Yes. Any other questions?

Q: I'm sorry, but I didn't hear the words, the PRT, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. What they are doing? If you have already given 1 1/2 million for these Gabion boxes and it was distributed in the wrong areas.

EMLYN HAGEN: Well, ANDMA was guiding that entire process of distributing these processes. The idea was that this Flood Map can help them to better... find better locations and better distribution channels to do so. Now I don't know how the distribution of the Flood Map itself to the PRTs is going. We've distributed it to all regional commands, and I think they in return distributed to the PRTs who are in need of this data.

Q: But they are not helping the different provinces how to deal with such matters? Technicals that they are not aware of it?

JOHN TEUFERT: Well, the Flood Map is available virtually to the public domain. So it can be used by anybody in the Afghan government, for example, at the district or province level to do their own assessments.

Q: (Inaudible...) they have the role of helping the local governments to deal with such problems.

JOHN TEUFERT: You mean the Provincial Reconstruction Teams?

Q: Yes.

JOHN TEUFERT: Yeah.

Q: What are their role here? I didn't see it.

JOHN TEUFERT: The role in respect to the Flood Map? They are going to be a user of it and they're going to tailor their reconstruction and development efforts keeping in consideration the information hat comes out of the Flood Map and simply making sure that their projects don't get washed away.

Q: A small technical question. How many satellites do you use? I mean, what are the sources of this research?

EMLYN HAGEN: Well, first of all, we used MODIS satellite data. We had in total more than 10,000 square kilometres of past flood observations. Now that's massive. That's enough to statistically start to predict floods for a 650,000 square kilometre country, which of course the map would be (inaudible) floods.

We also used high resolution satellite imagery, to confirm flood areas and to also find mistakes within the flood map because it's not perfect. What you saw here in the video we were flying at an elevation... this is Google Earth, you can do this at home with the data, it's accessible, of approximately two kilometres and you could see some small mistake, but with a scale of 1:100,000 it means you have to actually zoom out to 25 kilometres. But for some areas it's accurate enough to use it even a bit more close-up.

MODERATOR: Any more questions?

JAMES APPATHURAI (NATO Spokesman): (Inaudible...) I've never been able to answer one of his questions in five years, so if you can do it.

Q: These are not difficult questions. How many... maybe I won't ask you how many. Have many PRTs and NGOs in Afghanistan built in flood plains?

JOHN TEUFERT: That is a very good question. You have to keep in mind the Flood Map has just been released, so now I'm saying everybody needs to do their homework and assessing what they've done in the past and how that reflects to the flood predictions outlined by that map? I mean, that's not our job to do. We just provide the product and they need to add value to it now.

Q: By everyone needing to do their homework that's your oblique way of saying that yes, people have been building in flood plains?

JOHN TEUFERT: Yes.

Q: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, very basic.

JAMES APPATHURAI: My friend, I couldn't introduce you, but let me thank you. I was stuck in a tunnel, but as you can see NATO always does contingency planning, so if I'm late, look, I can just provide very expert people. Thank you, this is very interesting, very valuable and I'm very grateful that you could (inaudible...).

JOHN TEUFERT: Our pleasure, (inaudible...).

JAMES APPATHURAI: And now, on to the second part of the show, which I will keep as brief as possible because you've already been here for a little while.

First, let me, on behalf of NATO, welcome the announcement by Prime Minister Brown that the U.K. intends to raise the ceiling to 9,500 of the troops that they can deploy to Afghanistan. I certainly have read, and we will read very carefully the statement that Prime Minister Brown has given, but already we can see elements, I think, that resonate very strongly in NATO Headquarters.

The focus on training and equipping Afghan Security Forces so that they are increasingly able to provide for security in their own country is one which, of course, the Secretary General supports very strongly.

The need for the Afghan government, when it is the new Afghan government, when it is in place, to meet the highest possible standards, of course, in the context of the country, in terms of fighting corruption, in terms of an inclusive political process, in terms of stronger Afghan control across the board, military and civilian, these are all areas where NATO, of course, is fully in line with the statement made by the Prime Minister. And let me add one more point, which the Secretary General has also stressed, and that is an equitable balance of burdens amongst allies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Prime Minister Brown stressed it. The Secretary General has stressed it. This has been a team effort until now. It must remain a team effort, and that will mean that more than just the United Kingdom. All the NATO allies are going to have to look to what more they can contribute, first and foremost, to training, equipping and financing the development of Afghan Security Forces.

As Prime Minister Brown put it quite rightly, we'll have to invest in this training and equipped, so that at a certain stage Afghans can take lead responsibility. As the NATO Secretary General has put it, we have to do more now so we can do less later, and that will have to come not just from one country or two countries, but all allies are going to have to look at what more they can do now, as I say, so that less... so that it is possible to envision doing less later and in a realistic timeframe.

Secondly, let me very quickly run through for you Bratislava. The program of Bratislava and also the main topics, keeping in mind that the Secretary General will have his press reception on Monday, the annual press reception. We'll send out a proper media advisory, if we haven't done it already, but of course all accredited journalists are very welcome and I'm confident that he will go into more detail about what he expects to see out of the ministerial on Monday when he does that.

But to give you a main idea, in essence the informal working dinner of the NATO Defence Ministers will begin at 7:30 on Thursday, 7:30 p.m. It will be Ministers only, so they will have a free exchange of views. The focus of the discussion will be on what we call transformation.

I think there are two areas where the Secretary General is going to want to focus attention. One is on money and the other is on the capability of our armed forces.

The money issue is very simple. Allies have laid out a set of operational priorities and capability priorities in terms of acquisition and operation of capabilities, which we can't quite afford, and that is based on what we know now. If we take on anything more that gap between what we've agreed to do and what we can pay for will grow.

So he will want to draw their attention to that, and discuss how we can better prioritize and ensure that we have the budgets to meet our priorities.

Secondly, we have less than half of the forces in NATO countries that are deployable for operations and an even smaller percentage, I think it's around 10 to 20 percent, that are sustainable over any significant period of time in operations. That is clearly not enough, and we will wish to discuss... Ministers will wish to discuss how to bring those levels up and to do so again in a realistic timeframe. So I think these are the two main issues of the dinner.

The next day there will be two working sessions. One NATO only, and then one with our ISAF partners, with Minister Wardak and with Kai Eide, the head of UNAMA.

In the morning there'll be two main topics: missile definitely in Afghanistan. On missile defence I think we can expect Secretary Gates to brief on U.S. missile defence plans, in particular in the NATO context. How this relates to NATO. We already have received extensive briefings about the U.S. decision and how this affects their bilateral discussions with individual countries and the shift in U.S. thinking. But there is, of course, a NATO angle to this, and I think there will be a discussion on that. What is the NATO context for U.S. missile defence plans and how are NATO missile defence plans to be adjusted, adapted, etc., to take into account the U.S. thinking.

The second part will be on Afghanistan and that will segue very logically into the next session which is a working lunch of NATO Defence Ministers, with non-NATO ISAF contributing nations. I would say there are a number of themes, but there are some obvious ones.

One is there will be discussion of approach, building on General McChrystal's recommendations on approach. I think the resource discussion will not be front and centre. I think this ministerial will focus on approach. I could be wrong, but that is where I see it going now.

The Secretary General has said, like President Obama has said, approach first, resources second, and there are discussions under way within NATO principally on approach and I expect that that will be the main topic of discussion in both meetings.

As part of that, but I think as a very important part of that transition, how do we envision transition to Afghan lead, across the board, military and civilian, but of course, in a NATO context principally military security. So police as well. And how do we go about supporting transition I think will be a very important element of the discussion on Afghanistan.

Third, I would not be surprised if there was a more general discussion on what the route forward must be aside from transition. For example, what the new government in Afghanistan might need to focus on, where we might provide support, what other elements of the comprehensive approach as we call it, the non-military aspects, might be strengthened and how, so there's a whole area of discussion not related to transition and military approach, but to the equally important and very related civilian sides of the international effort which NATO governments are supporting.

That is in essence the agenda. The Secretary General will obviously discuss this in more detail with you on Monday.

Third point, just to mention that right now the Secretary General of the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Marc Perrin de Brichambault, is briefing the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council on OSCE activities, on cooperation between NATO and the OSCE.

Of course, we have regular working exchanges, but at the headquarters' levels I think more importantly we have had over the years operations side-by-side in a whole host of areas. Across the Balkans. The OSCE sent observers to Afghanistan to whom we provided support, so there's a very good relationship and a practical one as well.

Looking forward, we have the next seminar on the Strategic Concept. You might remember there was one already held. A high level seminar addressing... this is the topic, the fundamental security tasks of the Alliance. It will take place on the 16th of October, which is Friday, in Luxembourg. It will be presided over by the Honourable Madeleine Albright. On behalf of NATO the Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero, will address the seminar with His Excellency Mr. Asselborn, the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and the Defence Minister of Luxembourg as well will be there.

I think the opening and closing sessions will be open to the media. The rest will be closed and on Chatham House Rules.

To give you a sample of the speakers, I mentioned Jean Asselborn and Madeleine Albright. There will also be Bruno Racine, who is one of the 12 experts, Karl Kaiser, Sir Rupert Smith, Adam Rotfeld, Espen Barth Eide, Rob de Wijk, Jeroen Van der Veer, of course, Geoff Hoon, Pauline Neville-Jones... well, there's a whole long list of eminent thinkers who will be participating.

So you know, and if the press release is not out yet it will be out very soon.

Finally, on behalf of the Secretary General let me welcome the agreements signed between Turkey and Armenia, which obviously open the door to improved relations between these two very important countries, one a NATO country, one a NATO partner. We would certainly hope that and anticipate that the implementation of these accords could contribute not only to better relations between the two countries, but also to improved security in the region more broadly.

That is what I had to start with and I'm very happy to take your questions, please.

Q: (Inaudible...). We expect any meetings with Ukrainians, Georgians or Russians or any discussion?

JAMES APPATHURAI: I think the short answer to that is I don't expect Ukraine Georgia or Russia...

Q: (Inaudible...)?

JAMES APPATHURAI: No. There will be no other meetings but the ones that I mentioned.

Q: James, I wonder, have you any news from information bureau in Moscow. When can we expect the new head of it? Thank you.

JAMES APPATHURAI: When can I expect... sorry?

Q: The new head of the...

JAMES APPATHURAI: Oh, the new head. That's a good question and right now I don't think there's an answer to that. What I can say is that we will be on a regular basis providing, let us say, interim staff to the NATO office, so it will not be unmanned. We will have very expert people from the Headquarters, at least that's the current planning, going in to ensure that the work is still done while the process of finding a permanent head of the office goes forward. So we will staff it, but on a temporary rotating basis until a permanent person is chosen.

Q: Yes, on the Bratislava meeting again, does the Secretary General have any plans in advance of the meeting, or something like that? Will he be attending anything else in Bratislava?

JAMES APPATHURAI: Yes, he will be. He will be having a bilateral program, all of which is sort of to be determined. But according to the current planning on the Thursday, the 22nd, he will meet with the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister, the President and give a speech at a conference called New Challenges, Better Capabilities, but I couldn't tell you where that is, but we will put out a media advisory, which will tell you where that is.

And I think he will meet... at least the existing planning is to meet with the Chairman of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. But again, all of this is to be determined and we will send out a media advisory giving the full details when it's confirmed

Q: Yes, Brooks Tigner, Jane's Defence. When you say that in Bratislava that Secretary General wants the allies... he thinks that the allies have framed capability objectives that exceed budgetary resources, you need to clarify that. Do you mean what the allies have each come up with on their own, what they would like to have, or are you referring to SHAPE's request for capabilities and the political authorities need to rein in the military or what?

JAMES APPATHURAI: No, it is very specific and it relates basically to the military budget in NATO.

Q: Of the Alliance.

JAMES APPATHURAI: Of the Alliance. Not the individual expenses of individual allies, but the military budget of the Alliance, the operational requirements which draw on that budget exceed what we have. Not dramatically, but significantly enough that it cannot be ignored.

Q: Just... could you refresh the ideas we have on figures on this topic. I mean, by how much? What is the budget, first, and second, by how much it might... (inaudible).

JAMES APPATHURAI: Well, I asked if I was supposed to give those figures and then I was told no.

Q: That's fine.

JAMES APPATHURAI: (Laughs).

Q: (Inaudible...)?

JAMES APPATHURAI: We are not a state. But I wasn't authorized to give the figures. So that's where I was.

Q: So difficult to discuss it publicly then?

JAMES APPATHURAI: I was not authorized to use the figures.

Q: Today the head of the National Security Council of Russia in one of the Russian newspapers declared that in a new Strategic Concept of Russia it has included the possibility of preventive nuclear strike, so that will you have some comments on that?

JAMES APPATHURAI: The thinking on Russia's security strategy, including the nuclear elements, have already been shared with NATO because, as I'm sure you remember an authority on this subject from the Russian administration came to the NATO-Russia Council and briefed on Russia's developing thoughts on its national security strategy, as part of the exchange of views that we're having now, us on our side with Strategic Concept and Russia on... I think it's call Russia 2020.

And so we had quite a frank exchange of views. I don't know what the allies' position is on this particular issue or if they will have one. I can say that if they wish to discuss it again that is exactly what the NATO-Russia Council would be a good forum to do. So there is every opportunity for allies to discuss it if they wish to. But I couldn't reflect their thinking because this has just come out.

Of course, Russia is not the only country that has a policy that does not exclude the possibility of first use.

Q: Lorne Cook, AFP. The Bratislava meeting... a lot of talk about strategy, U.S. strategy. A lot of thought at the moment. Is the whole strategy discussion at night are going to start in Bratislava with conceivably Secretary Gates laying out what the American approach might be to the Allies and discussion of that. And the second question is given that Afghan people and civilians are a key part of the strategy and may even become a greater part of the strategy in the future, is this election fraud and these divisions at the United Nations not really harming what NATO is trying to achieve.

APPATHURAI: On Secretary Gates, I think it's important to use the right word. And that is not strategy but approach. The overall strategy remains what it was. The question is exactly how do we fine-tune the different aspects of our overall international effort to get there in an effective way.

I have no more knowledge than you do about when the United States will come to a final decision on its approach. So I don't know if Secretary Gates will be in a position to brief of that. The Secretary General has been very clear. And that is in essence he supports the McChrystal approach. He thinks it would be the most effective. He thinks it's also the one around which NATO and Allied solidarity can remain. Everybody can say on board. In particular with the emphasis on transition.

So the Secretary General has been quite clear and very public in his approach, in his viewpoint. But of course, this is an Allied decision on approach. And it will be an Allied discussion. And Secretary Gates, I'm quite sure will be a very prominent speaker. But I don't know whether or not he will be in a position to show the American card on this.

Afghan people... Oh yes, elections and fraud. There's no doubt that all of the various accusations and probably the reality of fraud has not helped to enhance, let us say, the credibility of the election process. But the NATO point of view on this is very clear and that is: There are institutions that have been set up precisely to deal with this problem. They are credible.

And we should let them first finish their work rather than speculating in public back and forth on what might be their final result. We do not know their final result. And the speculation itself has been damaging. Aside from the fraud, the speculation too has been very damaging. Let them finish their work. Let us see what the results are. NATO stands ready, of course, for a second round if necessary.

But it is for the Afghan people to decide whether or not they find these elections to be sufficiently credible. And we should let them make that decision as well.

I'm not trying to underplay this. It is not insignificant. That, I think we can certainly say. But I think it's also important to note that problems can be fixed. Weaknesses can be addressed. And the fact that these elections did not go, I think by anybody's standards as well as we could have hoped doesn't mean that the underlined weakness can't be now focussed on and we can strengthen the Afghan government in one hand, or help... Let me rephrase that.

We can demand to the Afghan government that it takes steps to address the problems that have been exposed in these past few months, that it'd take much more concrete action against corruption in particular, improve the effectiveness at the regional and local level. And that is exactly what the conference near the end of the year or the beginning of next year is intended to do, in essence, to set out a new contract, a new compact between the international community and new Afghan government.

So I think we should be careful also about drawing verdicts from this. There are problems that can be addressed. But in the end, there will be a government, hopefully it will be a credible government. And we will work with that government, whatever it is, not only to support it but also to insist that it does things that are good for Afghanistan. And that will help our effort as well.

Q: German Public Radio at WDR. I heard that a report of ISAF concerning the air strike, several weeks ago that is published or given to ISAF in Kabul and this week, beginning next week, can you confirm on that? And what is the procedure afterwards? And will this subject be on the agenda in Bratislava?

APPATHURAI: First, I only have heard rumours but can't confirm. I don't know when it will come up the chain. Secondly, it will come up the NATO chain. In other words, to Brunssum, to SHAPE and then to the NATO headquarters. Of course, the German government... I can only expect that the German government will also get a report... a copy of the report simultaneously. That only would be normal. I do not expect it to be on the agenda at the ministerial meeting. That's not the idea. Any measures that need to be taken afterwards will be taken by the appropriate bodies if anything is to be done. But for the moment, all I know is that the report will come up at a certain stage in the next few days and weeks. But I really don't know more than that. And it will come up the NATO chain; and I'm quite sure, concurrently to Germany.

Look at this, the Flood Map has tamed you. That's great. Thank you very much.