US To Pull Kosovo Troops Unless NATO Steps Up Aid in Afghanistan

The US Military is said to be "stretched." Well, we can find the troops if we don't have to support our deadbeat "allies."

Via Reuters (H/T Free Republic):

KIEV (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will consider shifting U.S. troops from Kosovo to Afghanistan next year if NATO allies do not fulfill their commitments, U.S. government officials said.

Gates, in Ukraine on Sunday to ask eastern European countries for help in the war, had first considered laying the threat before NATO defense ministers this week at a meeting in the Netherlands, senior U.S. officials said.

But upon the advice of senior military officers, the Pentagon chief has extended the U.S. commitment to Kosovo to summer 2008. If NATO allies have not sent more troops, trainers and equipment to Afghanistan by then, Washington will consider pulling its 1,600 troops out of NATO's Kosovo force KFOR.

"The secretary had wrestled with the idea of moving our forces in Kosovo to Afghanistan but decided late this week to extend our KFOR presence until next summer," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"But beyond that is very much up in the air. The secretary is disappointed in NATO's inability to live up to its commitments and if that doesn't change before then, he's prepared to go to the secretary of state and to the president to discuss yanking our troops out of Kosovo," Morrell said.

Excellent idea!

Were they not supposed to be out by Christmas .... 1999?

A quagmire!

Yugoslavia never attacked us!