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US Pulling Heavy Arms Out of Bosnia
US lightens up, bringing in military police. Troop count remains unchanged, other IFOR members to follow.
"We are adjusting the force mix," Joulwan told reporters at a base near Taszar in southern Hungary, used by American troops as a staging area for Bosnia.
He said replacements would be brought in by the end of August by the United States, Britain and France, the three main contributors to the 50,000-member NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
"I think there is sufficient force that will remain," Joulwan said, adding that the threat to the peace implementation force (IFOR) had lowered since last December when it took over from the United Nations. Joulwan greeted U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry on a visit to the staging area.
"We are reconfiguring our forces," Perry told reporters travelling with him. "We are not changing the numbers." Perry said the move reflected the success of the NATO operation. "It's easy to forget now that when our forces came here many people were predicting that we could have to fight, we would meet armed resistance," he said.
Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters that the first major swap of U.S. troops since the NATO-led operation began "reflects in fact that the military mission has gone well."
"So far, we haven't been challenged," Bacon said.
He said the replacements, all from units based in the United States, should be in Bosnia by the end of the month, doubling the number of U.S. military police in the country to about 2,400.
He said that the shift would not mean a reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Bosnia -- between 16,500 and 18,000 at any one time, depending on the number out of the country on leave and other factors. The units that will be leaving are armed with Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles and are scheduled to return to their bases in Germany.
Their replacements will use jeep-like Humvee vehicles whose heaviest weapons are machineguns.
Bacon said the military police would provide more flexibility and speed in patrolling the American sector of northern Bosnia to keep the peace between Muslims, Croats and Serbs. |
TASZAR, Hungary (Reuters) - The United States is moving heavily armoured units out of Bosnia and replacing them with military police, and NATO commander General George Joulwan said Tuesday other alliance forces would soon follow suit.
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