NATO: Serbia Still A Threat

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is rebuilding his forces and soon may seek to test his military might again, perhaps in pro-Western Montenegro, NATO's retiring supreme commander said Thursday.

Gen. Wesley Clark also suggested that U.S. peacekeepers may have to stay in Bosnia and Kosovo indefinitely, or at least as long as Milosevic clings to power in Belgrade.

"There's still a threat" Milosevic will trigger another war, the four-star Army general told Washington lawmakers in a grim assessment of the situation in the Balkans.

In Belgrade, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic lashed out at the U.N.-led administration of Kosovo on Thursday, saying it had failed to bring peace and should leave the southern Serbian province.

The Serbian strongman denounced the international community's mission there as shameful and a total fiasco and said Yugoslav authorities should take over control of the territory.

"Contrary to them, we are capable of guaranteeing the citizens of Kosovo and Metohija peace and security, freedom and equality without anyone's help," Milosevic said, using the Serbian name for the province.

But he did not specify how Belgrade authorities would reassert control over Kosovo.

Clark told the House Armed Services Committee that Milosevic remains firmly in power and that his military is training again, with "some generals talking about going back into Kosovo."

Other than being ousted from Kosovo, Milosevic's Serbian troops, tanks and artillery came through last spring's 78-day NATO air bombardment relatively unscathed, said Clark, who leaves his European post in April and plans to end his 34-year military career at the end of June.

Clark cited potential "flash points in Montenegro," a mountainous republic of 600,000 people that affords Yugoslavia its last outlet to the Adriatic Sea. It has a pro-Western government and a strong independence movement.

Furthermore, "There is still Milosevic meddling going on in Bosnia," Clark said.

Milosevic has triggered four wars over the past 10 years and while he remains in power, people in the Balkans do not feel safe, Clark said. "Until he's taken to trial as a war criminal, we're not going to see a resolution to the problem," Clark said.

He also said Milosevic retains a chemcial-weapons capacity.

Conditions in Kosovo remain dangerous, he said. Morale among U.N. forces is low, sniper attacks continue, civilian police are massively understaffed and there is no political consensus on the ultimate status of Kosovo.