ACCESSION NUMBER:292909 FILE ID:POL202 DATE:07/06/93 TITLE:DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT, TUESDAY, JULY 6 (07/06/93) TEXT:*93070602.POL DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT, TUESDAY, JULY 6 (Iraq, Bosnia, force level) (310) NEWS BRIEFING -- Navy Captain Michael Doubleday, the Pentagon spokesman, discussed the following topics: IRAQI MILITARY STANDING DOWN Iraqi forces continue the process of standing down from a condition of high alert that followed an incident last month in which a U.S. fighter plane fired a missile at an Iraqi anti-aircraft site that had locked onto it with radar, Doubleday said. However, he said, the Iraqi military is conducting various routine training exercises as expected this time of year. U.S. air forces continue to patrol both the northern and southern no-fly zones of Iraq, he said. U.S. naval forces in the region include a task force in the Red Sea comprising the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, three destroyers and two frigates, and another task force of one cruiser, one destroyer and two frigates in the Persian Gulf, the spokesman said. U.S. GROUND FORCE EN ROUTE TO MACEDONIA Small advance units of the U.S. Army company scheduled to carry out peacekeeping tasks in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have arrived several days before the main body, Doubleday said. Engineer and construction units arrived July 5-6 and will be followed by the remainder of the 300-member unit slated to arrive by July 12. The company will join a Scandinavian battalion whose mission is to prevent aggression in the former Yugoslavia from spreading to Macedonia, he said. MILITARY FORCE LEVEL STILL DECLINING The U.S. military continues to downsize, the spokesman announced. On May 31, 1993, the armed services had a personnel strength of 1,726,949, representing a decrease of 6,351 since April 30 and a decrease of 157,294 since May 31, 1992, he said. NNNN 1CCESSION NUMBER:292910 FILE ID:POL203 DATE:07/06/93 TITLE:WHITE HOUSE REPORT, TUESDAY, JULY 6 (07/06/93) TEXT:*93070603.POL WHITE HOUSE REPORT, TUESDAY, JULY 6 (Nominations) (xxx) CLINTON NAMES ENVOYS TO AUSTRALIA, LAOS, SOUTH KOREA President Clinton has announced his intention to nominate career Foreign Service Officer Edward Perkins to be ambassador to Australia, career Foreign Service Officer Victor Tomseth to serve as ambassador to Laos, and Emory University president James Laney to be envoy to the Republic of Korea. Perkins served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from May 1992 to February 1993, after having served as director general of the Foreign Service and director of State Department Personnel. During 1986-89, he was ambassador to South Africa; he has also served in Liberia and Ghana. Tomseth, the diplomat in residence at the North Carolina Consortium for International/Intercultural Education, has been deputy chief of mission in Thailand and Sri Lanka. His other overseas assignments included Iran and Nepal. Tomseth has held senior positions in the State Department Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs. Laney has been president of Emory University since 1977. He previously was dean of the Candler School of Theology at Emory and earlier held teaching positions at Vanderbilt and Harvard. He currently chairs the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Yale University Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. CLINTON NOMINATES AIR FORCE, STATE OFFICIALS President Clinton has announced his intention to nominate Sheila Widnall to be secretary of the Air Force and Toby Gati to be assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. If confirmed by the Senate, Widnall will be the first woman service secretary. She is associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is also the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She also serves as vice chair of the board of the Carnegie Corporation and a member of the Carnegie Commission on Science, T~echnology and Government. Gati is senior vice president for policy studies at the U.N. Association of the United States, where she has worked since 1979. In addition, she is a consultant to BDM International, Inc., on Russian affairs, and to the Ford Foundation for a project on southern Africa. NNNN .