From: MikePiet@aol.com
Subject: SNET: [piml] ..Urgent - 90,000 US Troops - Beyond Freaking Belief
Date: 27 May 1999 02:18:03 -0400
To: piml@egroups.com, FPE@onelist.com, ignition-point@admin.listbox.com


->  SNETNEWS  Mailing List

.. From Drudge     Mike P
May 27 1999  BALKANS WAR


Clinton to order 90,000 troops to Kosovo

BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR


Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times
Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to
reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website.


PRESIDENT CLINTON is now ready to consider a full-scale land war against Serb
forces in Kosovo, sending up to 90,000 combat troops from America, if no
peace settlement emerges within the next three weeks.
Although Nato is only officially planning for a peace implementation force of
50,000-60,000 troops, there is a growing feeling in Washington and London
that the alliance must prepare itself for a much bigger operation, involving
150,000-160,000 troops.

Mr Clinton's dramatic conversion, after weeks of apparent reluctance to send
in ground troops, has emerged in the light of detailed briefings from General
Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander, last week.

A new sense of urgency has been injected into Nato's contingency planning
because of a warning from the military that a decision will have to be made
"by mid-June" if the alliance is to contemplate a ground offensive.

The tight timetable is being dictated by the alliance's determination to
start returning ethnic Albanian refugees to their homes in Kosovo before the
winter.

The huge number of troops required for such an operation will be a daunting
challenge for Nato. However, alliance sources said that with Mr Clinton
committed to defeating Mr Milosevic one way or another, the US would be
expected to contribute more than half of the force.

They estimated the US contribution could be about 90,000 troops who would be
deployed from America, not from Germany. They might include the 12,500-man US
82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which was
deployed in the Gulf War in 1991.

Britain and France would also be expected to play a major part. Yesterday,
George Robertson, the Defence Secretary, took the first step by announcing an
extra 12,000 troops and support personnel for the peace implementation force,
called Kfor. This will bring the total British military strength committed to
the Kosovo crisis in Albania, Macedonia, Italy and the Adriatic to more than
19,000.

Although Mr Robertson insisted that it was not an invasion force, Tony Blair
indicated in the Commons that the troops could be used for a combat role.

The alliance sources said that the size of an invasion force would depend on
the amount of damage achieved by the airstrikes against the Serb troops in
Kosovo over the next few weeks. Last week, it was estimated that the Serb
strength in the province remained at about 40,000 in spite of two months of
bombing.

However, Nato still hopes that the intensified bombing campaign combined with
Russian diplomatic efforts will persuade President Milosevic to agree to the
alliance's five conditions for stopping the airstrikes.

It is also recognised that if Nato were seen to be preparing for a land
offensive, while backing Moscow's peace diplomacy, it could seriously
undermine the already strained relations between Russia and the alliance.

Another key factor is that the alliance itself has to be held together, and
any formal request made to the 19 member states for authority to plan for a
ground war could damage the unity that has been maintained so far. Germany
indicated yesterday that it would not veto a move towards a ground war,
although its troops would not take part.

One resolve shared by the whole of Nato is that Mr Milosevic must not win,
and the alliance sources said that if the air campaign and diplomatic efforts
failed to get the Yugoslav leader to back down within the next three weeks,
there would be no alternative but to prepare a ground offensive.

The alliance sources admitted that the operation would be difficult, "but not
impossible", and that a number of ways into the province were being studied.

























------------------------------------------------------------------------
Explore the Web for sites in Issues & Causes from Looksmart!
http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/297

To discuss posts to this list, subscribe to the Patriot
Discussion Mailing List via the following website:

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/pdm



-> Send "subscribe   snetnews " to majordomo@world.std.com
->  Posted by: MikePiet@aol.com

Disclaimer: The file contained in the box above or displayed in a separate window from a link in the box above is NOT owned nor implied to be owned by BeYoND THe iLLuSioN. Most files at BeYoND THe iLLuSioN are originally from public Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were popular in the days before the Internet or from gopher, web, and FTP sites from the early days of the Internet which no longer exist today. Essentially, all files were acquired from the public domain in one for or another.

However, there have been occasions when copyright protected material has appeared on BeYoND THe iLLuSIoN without permission of the copyright holder. In these instances, we have and will continue to remove the copyright protected file as soon as it is brought to our attention. This can now be done using our Report Copyright Material form. Fill out the form, and the webmaster will be notified of the situation.

There are also times when files found on BeYoND THe iLLuSioN have a real home somewhere else on the Internet. In these instances, we will gladly replace the file with a link to its true home whenever it is brought to our attention. If you know of the true home of any of these files, you can use our Report Original URL form to bring it yo our attention.