World

Peacekeeping At A Crossroads

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 15, 2001 / 8:32 PM EST / CBS

Even though the U.S. plans to reduce the size of its peacekeeping force in Bosnia, American troops are constructing a new base northeast of Sarajevo, reports CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey.

The seemingly contradictory moves reflect the changing face of peacekeeping in the Balkans, where U.S. missions have been deployed since 1995, and the political reality back home.

In Bosnia, U.S. troops on foot patrol no longer wear flak jackets – an indication of increased security and stability. But in Kosovo, where U.S. troops took up positions only two years ago, peacekeeping borders on war.

Americans there have worked to help contain an ethnic Albanian insurgency along the border with Macedonia, where guerrilla attacks have escalated into open fighting between government troops and rebels in that country's second largest city.

The new American base in Bosnia, to be called Camp Connell, is designed to help cement a cornerstone of the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accord that ended the war here in 1995 by facilitating more frequent American patrols to give displaced Serbs and Muslims confidence to return home and be neighbors.

While the danger of mines and booby traps still lurks in the hills beyond the patrolled areas, American peacekeepers say their Bosnia duty is useful.

"…The six months that our young soldiers get here in Kosovo probably will equate to about three years experience they will get in any unit in our army," said Col. Tom Gross, chief of staff for Task Force Falcon. "What a great training ground for our young soldiers and non-commissioned officers who twenty years from now will be running this army."

As the Bush administration grapples with the politics of the increasingly dangerous military situation in Kosovo, it has decided to scale back the more obviously successful one in Bosnia.

In Washington, the Defense Department said Thursday that several hundred U.S. troops are being withdrawn from the 20,000-person NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia because they are no longer needed. European members of the alliance provide the bulk of the force.

The U.S. suggested and allies agreed that some helicopters and other heavy equipment were no longer necessary and so could be withdrawn, along with the peacekeepers that manned and maintained them, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley.

"It's really a product of success in that particular part of the Balkans," Quigley said of the reduction that began earlier this week.
But American troops in Bosnia may have a different perception of their mission.

"It lets you know that you've done something — helped not just your country but the world," said Lt. Rob Bumgardner, of Fayetteville N.C.