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CNN Live At Daybreak

Kosovo Deployment More Than Simple U.S. Training Mission

Aired July 23, 2001 - 07:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush wraps up his European tour tomorrow in the Balkans. Mr. Bush will meet with U.S. troops serving with the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports the Kosovo deployment is more than just a training mission for U.S. forces.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division keep up their combat skills on a firing range in Kosovo. They belong to KFOR, the NATO force deployed to keep the peace. Commanders say their troops are getting the kind of opportunity they could never get back at home base.

LT. COL. DAVID BISHOP, U.S. BATTALION COMMANDER: Here I've got sergeants leading patrols along interethnic fault lines and having to make decisions that really count.

AMANPOUR: These mountain patrols really count. U.S. troops are taking part in counter insurgency operations along Kosovo's border, intercepting weapons meant for Albanian rebels in neighboring Macedonia. The U.S. force commander says these infantry troops are having an impact on that civil war while also improving their own skills.

GEN. WILLIAM DAVID, U.S. TASK FORCE COMMANDER: This is the real deal. They're going up against bad guys who are armed and dangerous and everything they do is combat focused.

AMANPOUR: U.S. officers show us what they've captured in the past two months alone, nearly 900 assault weapons, rifles, mortars and ammunition. They plan to display this cache to President George Bush when he visits on Tuesday.

(on camera): Within the administration, there are open divisions about the merits of this peacekeeping operation. And in his presidential campaign, George W. Bush and his top aide publicly complained that peacekeeping duties like these degraded, not only military skills, but morale. However, talking to soldiers and commanders, they painted a very different picture.

(voice-over): They say this mission is sharpening the skills of virtually all combat support teams, including intelligence, logistics and communication specialists. Units who've done peacekeeping duty here are better skilled than those which have not. In addition, the troops say they enjoy this mission and the impact they're having.

DAVID: Reenlistment rates skyrocket when a unit is on a deployment. This is what young men and women join the Armed Forces to do.

AMANPOUR: Take helicopter pilots, they say six months flying in Kosovo equals three years at home base. Some combat skills do get rusty and soldiers require a few weeks to regain their battle readiness. But infantrymen like Captain Cox (ph) and Sergeant Hopkins (ph) insist they could quickly switch to a war footing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like turning a dial from police to combat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These soldiers maintain the cutting edge and it's right underneath the surface.

AMANPOUR: This may be peacekeeping, but night and day troops train up, deploy and gain dominance over the area just as they would preparing for war.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, with U.S. forces in Kosovo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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