BRUSSELS — "When we go into Kosovo," a NATO official said Saturday, "it's going to be like the saints marching in."
British paratroopers, daggertoting Gurkhas from the Himalayas, Royal Irish Guards in Challenger tanks, U.S. Marines, members of the French Foreign Legion--all are poised or on the move so they can enter Kosovo on the heels of the retreating Serbs. NATO leaders say the troops will be equipped to make peace--or fight.
"We are going to be going into a situation where Serb forces have been very active, and it is necessary to have every single part of this special force properly equipped for all eventualities," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
At North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels, a high-ranking officer said advancing Western troops could be as close as "a rifle shot away" as units from the Yugoslav army, Serbian Interior Ministry special police and the thugs of paramilitary groups like Arkan's Tigers begin leaving.
Commanding NATO's KFOR, or Kosovo Force, is a lanky, hatchet-faced British paratrooper, Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, 55, whose rugged mien and fiery temper have won him the nickname "the Prince of Darkness" among his officers.
Jackson's 30-nation contingent, which is still being fine-tuned by NATO military planners, will face a daunting laundry list of challenges as soon as it reaches Kosovo.
"There will be about a half a million internally displaced persons in dire need of medical help and other assistance," NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said. "There are over 850,000 refugees in the region that clearly want to return home as quickly as possible. We have to deal with destruction in 500 villages, towns and cities.
"We have to find out what has happened to the 220,000 missing men," Shea continued. "We will have a collapse of the agricultural system to deal with, the restoration of the infrastructure, assistance to the humanitarian organizations and assistance to the setting-up of the civilian transitional authority under the international community. And there will be expectations of all of that happening quickly."
So far, NATO's 19 members and 11 partner countries have pledged a total of 47,868 people for KFOR--from medics from Iceland, which has no armed forces of its own, to soldiers of the French Foreign Legion whose specialty is detecting and clearing land mines.
