Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walt Slocombe (left) and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Ken Bacon (right) hold a press conference at the annual Informal Meeting of NATO Defense Ministers at the International Conference Center in Birmingham, England, on Oct. 10, 2000. Slocombe used the forum to brief reporters in detail concerning some of the policy positions of the United States. 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.