Rumsfeld - Roles among nations in coalition vary

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended on Thursday the secondary roles played by some of the NATO allies in the U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

The coalition is unlikely to unravel, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference. But he said the campaign is a flexible one, involving "different nations at different times doing different things."

"As far as we're concerned, that's fine," Rumsfeld said.

And yet, he told reporters, "A month from now, I expect someone somewhere might report that a particular nation is not doing something or has stopped doing something."

As a result, Rumsfeld said, "the speculation could be: Is the coalition coming apart or unraveling?"

Britain has been most visibly alongside the United States, joining in missile attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Robert Bell, an assistant secretary-general of the NATO military alliance, told reporters Thursday that Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Spain and Italy all were actively participating in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.

Bell, a former National Security Council official, said some elite U.S. peacekeeping units in the Balkans may be assigned to the campaign in Afghanistan.

The NATO allies would pick up any slack in the region.

But while Bell described the allies' support as steadfast, he said if the United States took military action against terrorism in other countries, NATO support would depend on the kind of evidence the United States provided.

At the State Department, Philip Reeker, the deputy spokesman, said the United States was already sharing with NATO allies information and intelligence about terrorism beyond Afghanistan.

Reeker said the sharing would continue.