16 January, 2001
Allies, Questioning Bush Stand, Say U.S. Kosovo Role Is Crucial

By STEVEN ERLANGER and MICHAEL R. GORDON
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRISTINA, Kosovo, Jan. 15 — Senior NATO generals, United Nations officials and Western diplomats say they believe that the American role in Kosovo is as crucial now as ever, and they assert that President-elect George W. Bush's expressed desire to pull American troops out of the Balkans is both ill-timed and damaging to Western goals in the region.

American troops perform more than a military function, they emphasize, and their presence alone serves as the best deterrent not only to Serbia, but also to ethnic extremists on both sides in a period of major political change.

The fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade has pleased and relieved the West, but has only increased Kosovar Albanian anxieties. They see their goal of independence deferred as many of the same nations that went to war for them less than two years ago rush to Belgrade to embrace the Serbs, who have never given up their claim to Kosovo.

In interviews with senior generals and officials here — and more explicitly in their private briefings last week to a Congressional delegation led by the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert — officials said the American role here remained vital, at least for the foreseeable future.

If these officers and officials do not necessarily fear a new war, they say they believe that the presence of the world's superpower as a mainstay of the NATO-led international force keeps Kosovo stable and secure, providing the space for the United Nations effort to rebuild the province and promote democratic self-government.

If the Americans should suddenly withdraw or downgrade their commitment in a big way, the implications would be severe for the NATO alliance, for regional stability, relations with Russia and the behavior of the ethnic Albanian Kosovars as well, these officers and officials declare.

If the United States pulled all its troops out of Kosovo, Baton Haxhiu, chief editor of Kosovo's most respected newspaper, Koha Ditore, has no doubts about what would happen.

"It would be a disaster," Mr. Haxhiu said. "Kosovo is an unfinished peace. If American soldiers leave, it's war. Kosovars believe in the American flag, and Serbian soldiers are afraid of it. If they don't see it, there's a war between Kosovo and Serbia."

Mr. Haxhiu reflects the general feeling of Kosovo's Albanians, who were the beneficiaries of the American-led NATO bombing war against Yugoslavia in 1999, that Washington is not just their liberator, but also their only credible deterrent and security guarantee against Serbia.

The overall commander of KFOR, NATO's Kosovo force, Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu of Italy, said he did not believe that the Americans would withdraw precipitately, and the Pentagon, always planning ahead until told differently, has already drawn up a Kosovo deployment schedule for the next five years.

In an interview with The New York Times last week, Mr. Bush said that he had raised the idea of a withdrawal with America's allies, but that he had no timetable for a complete withdrawal and that any move would not be done hastily.

"I don't think it's fair to have deadlines," Mr. Bush said. "Listen, I'll honor the agreements that the president has — that our country has made. And we've got an agreement to be in the Balkans. And it's going to take a while, and I understand that."

Still, the expressed desire of Mr. Bush and his top advisers to pull out of the Balkans has already created big waves here.

"It's almost precisely the wrong moment to even discuss the idea of American withdrawal," said a senior United Nations official here. "The fall of Milosevic was a shock to the Albanians, and they know the Europeans are much closer to Belgrade and much more frightened of independence for Kosovo. If the Americans left, there would be a resurgence of activity by the Kosovo Liberation Army that would block democratic politics and create big problems for the rest of KFOR."

Mr. Haxhiu is blunter. The Kosovo Liberation Army agreed to disarm and form the quasi-civilian Kosovo Protection Corps. If the Americans left, however, the Kosovo Protection Corps "will no longer respect the United Nations, and they will create a real army in a short time," he said. "And if the French and the Italians tried to stop them, there would be clashes and fighting with KFOR."

Kosovars are trying to deal with three new administrations at once: in Washington, in Belgrade and in Kosovo itself, where the United Nations administrator, Bernard Kouchner, has handed over power to the almost unknown Hans Haekkerup, a former Danish defense minister, who started his job today.

Even more important, there is a political and military crisis in the Presevo Valley, adjoining the American sector in eastern Kosovo.

That sector, which borders Serbia proper, is the boundary line for the most vexing problem now for both the NATO force and Serbia: the activities of armed ethnic Albanian militants, known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, in a three-mile "ground safety zone." The militants operate almost freely there, where NATO troops cannot go and Serbian policemen may only enter with light arms.

As the new Serbian democrats struggle to contain the insurgency and to restrain domestic demands to crush the militants, the NATO force is trying to intercept the traffic of arms, men and food between Kosovo and the Presevo Valley. It is the top priority for General Cabigiosu and for the overall American commander, Brig. Gen. Kenneth J. Quinlan.

The NATO force is trying now to help the post-Milosevic democrats in Belgrade by harassing the Albanian militants. But success in fighting the insurgency "is tied to a political solution only Serbia can deliver," General Quinlan said.

As for the American military's role in Kosovo, "the job could be done by others," General Quinlan said. "But the KFOR commander would be in a difficult position — he'd have to find other soldiers to do it or shift people around."

The 5,700 American troops represent about 13 percent of the 43,000 troops assigned to Kosovo. The American contribution in logistics, air support and intelligence is much larger, if hard to quantify.

But General Quinlan does not think other nationalities would do the job so well. "Our soldiers have built up tremendous credibility with this society," he said. "While not everyone agrees with us or likes what we tell them, we have everyone's respect."

Brig. Robert Fry, the overall British commander, was one of the few who thought a staged American withdrawal would make no fundamental impact. He said he was confident that the military side of an American withdrawal could be managed, "so long as the American guarantee of overwhelming force" on behalf of KFOR "would not be compromised."

There would be "much alarmism about the unity of NATO," he said, but that could be managed, too, in "a sharing of responsibilities." But the effects in Kosovo could be worse, he said. Kosovar Albanians "would see this as the U.S. distancing itself from them, and since they regard the U.S. as the primary architect of their liberation, they would accuse you of abdicating responsibility."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview here that an American pullout now would be "an absolute disaster."

If the Americans leave Kosovo, other NATO countries will follow, he said. "If we pull out, I don't see them lasting here by themselves."

As important, he said, is that a pullout would block progress in Kosovo and prevent both Serbs and Albanians from making necessary compromises. "Right now you have a nascent government in Belgrade trying to figure out who they are and how many chances they're going to take," Mr. Biden said.

In strictly military terms, General Cabigiosu said, the Americans are the most important country in Kosovo as in NATO, and provide the kind of sophisticated equipment, logistics and intelligence-gathering other countries do not.

As the former deputy commander of international forces in Bosnia, General Cabigiosu said, he can envision the reduction of forces here over time as the threat changes or recedes, which may be one way to let the American contribution dwindle in proportion to other countries, which has been the model in Bosnia.

The world's promise to the Albanians here of effective self-government — with province-wide elections for an assembly likely to come before the end of the year — buys time. But the issue of Kosovo's final status — independence or some sort of continuing relationship with a democratic Belgrade — looms unanswered, keeping the people here on edge and providing no clear date or set of circumstances under which Western troops can depart.

But there is a special reverence for the Americans here, especially among the Albanians.

Dick Andrews, a senior official with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said, "I get so much credit for being an American." If American forces left or sharply reduced their presence, he said, "the Albanians would think that the international community is abandoning them, and it would be a sign to extremists on both sides."

The sheer symbolism of Camp Bondsteel, the American headquarters, and the sophisticated Apache helicopters means a lot, Mr. Andrews said, as the concrete expression of a continuing American commitment to the safety of the ethnic Albanians.

Albanians respect British troops, "but the other armies are seen as soft by the Albanians," he said.

Mr. Haxhiu, again, was most explicit. "We're grateful to all the troops here," he said. "But the only ones we really trust are the Americans."