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USA
reassessing Balkan troop deployment, top officer says
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Top US military officer Richard
Myers said yesterday that US peacekeeping troops in the Balkans
would not be pulled unilaterally out of Kosovo or Bosnia.
But Myers, in Kosovo to visit US troops, said the
United States was reassessing its involvement with an option “on the
table” for a European force to take over.
With the US military stretched thin, the Air Force
General and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Pentagon
was reviewing commitments including the Balkans.
The USA has about 4,000 troops in the Balkans,
including 1,500 in Bosnia and 2,500 in Kosovo. US troops have been
deployed in Bosnia since 1995 and in Kosovo since 1999.
“Our battalion in the Sinai Peninsula (about 850
troops), our commitment in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, Iraq and
other places in the world — it all adds up,” Myers told reporters
traveling with him to Kosovo from Mexico City. “And I think the
Secretary (of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) has made it very clear that
there are places that we could reduce our commitments,” Myers
added.
Reducing commitments for US forces would help
alleviate “the kind of stress that we’ve put on them lately,” Myers
added.
NATO is expected to review its forces in the western
Balkans this autumn, setting targets for 2004.
Allies were likely to “take another whack out of
SFOR” in Bosnia, one diplomat said, estimating it would go down to
6,000-8,000 troops. A slice in KFOR’s strength, probably to less
than 10,000 in Kosovo was also on the cards later in
2004.
Myers arrived in Kosovo to meet US troops and
commanders and will also travel to Bosnia, Hungary and Poland,
returning to the United States
tomorrow. | 
