Powell also downplayed the significance of the call, noting that only four of the 15 European Union members had signed on to the proposal.

"Four of the nations of the union have come together and created some sort of a plan to develop some sort of a headquarters," Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in dismissive fashion.

"It's only four nations," he said. "Of the many nations that could have attended, only four did attend.

"What we need is not more headquarters," Powell said. "What we need is more capability and fleshing out of the structure and the forces that are already there."

Earlier Tuesday in Brussels, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg called for a new European headquarters to command military operations independent of

French President Jacques Chirac said the four did not want to undermine the US-European alliance or NATO and stressed that they wanted to improve the transatlantic relationship by strengthening Europe's defense capabilities.

The four nations called for the European Union to take the "necessary steps to establish not later than 2004 a multinational, deployable force headquarters for joint operations" to be based at Tervuren, outside Brussels.

"We believe the time has come to take new steps in the construction of a Europe of security and defense, based on strengthened European military capabilities, which will also give a new vitality to the Atlantic alliance," they said in a statement.

The headquarters would coordinate a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force that the EU aims to have up and running from May.

Along with the United States, Britain and Spain have already spoken out against a so-called "European Security and Defense Union" (ESDU) which would group EU nations wanting to improve their military cooperation.

The four countries participating in the Brussels summit were the nations that earlier this year sparked the most serious rift in NATO history when they refused a US request to beef up Turkey's defenses ahead of war on Iraq.

SPACE.WIRE