NATO to discuss possible reduction
of peacekeeping force in Bosnia
By Gregory Piatt,
Stars and Stripes
BRUSSELS, Belgium — A season of high-level NATO meetings begins Tuesday with
further potential troop reductions in the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina
high on the agenda.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell, are meeting in Budapest, Hungary — the first time a high-level
ministers’ meeting will be held in the one of the alliance’s three newest member
countries.
Next week, NATO defense ministers meet here at alliance headquarters.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is among those scheduled to attend. And on June
13, President Bush will make his first visit to the alliance when he attends NATO’s
heads of state and government meeting.
The agenda for those meetings will focus on the situation in the Balkans, relations
with Russia, the U.S. missile defense system, relations between NATO and the European
Union, alliance capabilities, future threats to NATO countries and the future enlargement
of the alliance.
Before the high-level meetings are through, NATO is expected to adjust the number of
troops it has in the Stabilization Force in Bosnia to fit the mission, according to a NATO
diplomat.
A 10 to 15 percent reduction is possible, said the diplomat, speaking on the condition
of anonymity.
"I think there will be some further action on Bosnia," the diplomat said.
"This will set the course for the next stage."
NATO ambassadors approved a recommendation along those lines last week after the
alliance completed its biannual review of the peacekeeping mission.
That recommendation would cut SFOR from nearly 21,000 troops to about 18,000. The
United States, already cutting its troops in the country to 3,600, would cut another 500
military personnel from its SFOR presence, which costs $1.5 billion a year.
This current round of SFOR troop cuts should be finally approved at next week’s
defense minister’s meeting, the diplomat said.
The reduction comes after Rumsfeld expressed an interest recently to slash U.S. troops
in Bosnia because he believes NATO’s military mission there is over.
He said police should be fulfilling the role that troops are now playing and Europeans
should be taking a larger role away from the United States.
"These remarks by Secretary Rumsfeld were not welcomed here in Europe,"
according to a NATO official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
When Powell visited NATO in February, he told allies that they went in together and
would leave together.
"Secretary Powell said ‘in together, out together,’" the NATO
official said. "But even though he meant Kosovo, the Europeans take it as the
Balkans."
The allies have been wary since Bush administration officials said during last
year’s presidential campaign that Europeans should do the peacekeeping in the Balkans
while U.S. troops trained for wars and other missions outside of Europe.
Any future U.S. cuts in SFOR could raise some concern among allies, the alliance
official said.
"The discussion [on this] will be animate," the NATO official said.
The New York Times reported recently that Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, Supreme
Allied Commander Europe, has cautioned against cutting too deeply until Bosnia had an
effective police force and a functioning judiciary.
"We have been using the six-month review process — this season and we
anticipate continuing to do so — to take a hard look at the tasks that SFOR … is
doing and right-sizing them to the time," the diplomat said.
Under the proposed cuts, the United States would still have the largest troop
contingent in SFOR, comprising 17 percent.
While Ralston rejected any further than the currently proposed cuts in SFOR at this
time, the Times report said allied planners have plans to pare the force to 12,000 troops,
calling it deterrent force or DFOR.
In the long term, NATO hopes to slash even further, leaving a token force, called the
monitoring force, the Times reported.
"We need to increasingly look at whether the tasks of the military are better done
by civilian agencies; whether we can strengthen civilian agencies or local leaders to do
those tasks," the diplomat said.
"We’ve made it clear that we want to pursue this in a NATO context with our
allies."
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