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Seasoned Vet
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October 10, 2003
Troops could end presence in Bosnia, Macedonia
By Vince Crawley
Times staff writer
U.S. and NATO troops could depart Bosnia some time next year and from Macedonia by late this year, ending a decade-long presence in both Balkan nations, the region’s top American commander said Friday.
However, U.S. and NATO forces will likely remain in Kosovo for the foreseeable future, Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Pentagon reporters. Jones is also commander of U.S. forces in Europe.
About 2,000 U.S. troops serve in Kosovo, while about 1,500 U.S. troops are in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
More than 20,000 U.S. troops entered Bosnia in December 1995 to enforce the Dayton peace accord that ended the country’s 3½-year civil war.
Throughout the war itself, U.S. aircrews braved gunfire to deliver humanitarian aid to Sarajevo and to besieged enclaves such as Srebrenica.
Bosnia remains divided roughly in half between a Serb region and a Muslim-Croat federation, but Jones said the military climate has evolved to the point that international police soon could be able to handle all security requirements.
“We’re seeing in Bosnia a real potential for ending the military mission there and transitioning to a presence that would be more based on establishing police forces as a fundamental enforcer of the rule of law,” Jones said. “And that is very, very exciting.”
Jones said international discussions about Bosnian troop withdrawals are “ongoing.”
“If the situation currently continues” with no setbacks, he said, “certainly during ’04 we could have a different footprint there than we currently have.”
Only a handful of U.S. troops are now in Macedonia, where Americans entered as U.N. peacekeepers in the summer of 1993 to prevent a spillover of fighting from neighboring Serbia and Kosovo. Later, Macedonia became a staging ground and logistics base for the 1999 Kosovo war. Currently, the European Union is winding down a military mission there.
“We fully intend, by the end of the year, to see a withdrawal of all but a small token NATO presence serving as an advisory role to the development of Macedonian armed forces,” Jones said.
He characterized the pullout as “essentially an end to that mission.”
However, the security situation in the Kosovo province of Serbia remains “a little bit more challenging, militarily,” Jones said. “We are seeing what I would call a spike of more violent activity.”
Kosovo’s situation is more uncertain because the ethnic Albanian-dominated province wants to break away from Serbia, but the separation has not been endorsed by the international community responsible for Kosovo’s security.
Because of active-duty deployments to Iraq, nearly all U.S. troops in the Balkans are now National Guard members.
------------------------------------------------------------ Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC ----------------------------------------------------------- 
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Hard Charger
 
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It's about damn time. The only quibble I have with this article is that it states that the US has only 1500 troops in Bosnia. That doesn't seem right - I had thought it was at least a full brigade. In any case, it doesn't count the number of troops who may not be in Bosnia, but who are supporting the mission from Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Germany. I believe the total "commitment" of troops is at least 5,000 if you count all the support. Once we pull out of Bosnia we will be able to use those troops to relieve the overdeployed and overstressed troops in A-stan and Iraq.
Martin  "When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission" - Zapp Branigan, Futurama
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