Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen (left) talks with NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson (center) and British Secretary of State for Defense Geoffrey Hoon (right) during the annual Informal Meeting of NATO Defense Ministers at the International Conference Center in Birmingham, England, on Oct. 10, 2000. Each Autumn a different member of the 19-nation security alliance hosts the informal meeting in which a range of security issues are freely discussed, but no binding decisions are made. All binding agreements are left to the biannual defense ministerial held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.