U.S. cutting troops in Bosnia, looking at greater reductions

The U.S. is expected to withdraw about 900 troops from Bosnia by April

In this story: 60,000 troops in 1995 NATO wants further reductions Kosovo and Macedonia >RELATED STORIES

By CNN National Security Producer Chris Plante and CNN State Department Producer Elise Labott

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States will reduce the number of its troops in Bosnia from 4,400 to 3,500 by April, the Defense Department said Thursday.

The reductions include removal of all 16 Apache attack helicopters and some of the Army's heavy M-1 Abrams tanks and M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman.

Quigley said the reductions represent "movement toward success" in the tense region.

However, the new Yugoslav ambassador to the United States urged Washington and NATO to remain engaged in the region and pressed them to be more "responsible" in addressing the current violence in southern Serbia and Macedonia.

"We think the forces should stay a while," Ambassador Milan Protic said about reports of U.S. troop reductions from the Balkans. He said stability of the region depends on an international military presence.

60,000 troops in 1995

NATO forces entered Bosnia in December 1995 with some 60,000 troops, including 20,000 heavily armed U.S. Army troops.

In the five years since the NATO-led peace Implementation Force (I-FOR) brought an end to the war in the former Yugoslav province, NATO has slowly cut back the size of its force to its current size of just under 20,000.

The remaining U.S. troops will make up about 19 percent of the force, which is now known as the Stabilization Force, or S-FOR.

Currently, 34 NATO and non-NATO countries are contributing to the peace mission in Bosnia.

Quigley said the decision to draw down the number of troops was made in December by the Clinton administration. Then-presidential candidate George W. Bush promised to review the deployment of U.S. troops in the Balkans.

NATO wants further reductions

Pentagon sources speaking on condition of anonymity told CNN that NATO's top general is also advancing a proposal that would further reduce the overall number of troops in Bosnia by about half over the next two to three years, depending on "conditions on the ground."

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, has discussed the proposed long-term cuts with his uniformed counterparts from some key NATO nations, sources told CNN. They also said that NATO's political body has yet to address the Ralston plan.

If embraced by NATO, the plan would call for significant reductions in troops levels in Bosnia and the force would change its name from S-FOR to "D-FOR" for Deterrence Force.

More long-term planning by NATO envisions much more significant cuts in the force and another name change to "M-FOR" representing Monitoring Force, but any progress in cuts is entirely dependent on increasing stability in Bosnia.

One official said that it is too soon to offer a timetable for any drastic cuts because the proposals are preliminary and "predecisional."

Kosovo and Macedonia

Any reductions in Bosnia would not effect troop levels in Kosovo.

Yugoslav's ambassador said he is "very, very worried" about insurgencies by ethnic Albanian extremists along the Serbian border with Kosovo and Macedonia.

NATO last week agreed to let Yugoslav forces back into the buffer zone along the border, a decision that Protic said Yugoslavia accepted "reluctantly."

"We are doing the job the international community should be doing," he said.

Protic added that Yugoslav forces have "acted with a lot of patience" against the extremists, but now the troops are in grave danger with clashes increasing at an "alarming pace."

He also warned that if the extremists were not contained, the crisis would "become much more dangerous and much more internationalized," and said the United States and NATO should get tougher on the extremists, as they did with Yugoslavia under Slobidan Milosevic.

Yugoslavia-Bosnia relations restored
December 15, 2000
U.S. Army schedules troop rotations in Bosnia for next 5 years
December 4, 2000

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