Mr. Chairman, that encompasses 91 countries, and we have a little over 100,000 troops that are forward-based in the EUCOM theater to engage with these 91 countries.

Now, I might add that that is 8 percent of our uniformed Active Duty military. I do not believe that is too big of a price to pay for engagement with those 91 countries.

I would also add that those troops, being forward-based in Europe, as you can see on the map, are that much closer to General Franks' AOR should he need help there for redeployment.

I have some operations that I would like to talk about that are ongoing within the EUCOM AOR, and I would like to start with Operation Northern Watch, and if I could talk for a few minutes about this, and then, Mr. Chairman, as I understand later on perhaps we could have an opportunity go into closed session where we could talk about this in more detail.

Chairman WARNER. You are correct. We can do that in 222 Rus

sell.

General RALSTON. First of all, as you can see, in Operation Northern Watch I support General Franks in his operation overall in Iraq, and what I am talking about here is just the northern part of that, which is the no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel.

I thought it might be useful to show a typical mission. We take off out of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. You fly to the east for about an hour. You form up where those little circles are in different orbits, with a rather large force, about 40-some airplanes. There are tankers, there are Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), there are F-15s, F-16s, EA-6Bs for defense suppression, there are reconnaissance airplanes, there are U.K. aircraft, there are Turkish aircraft that are involved in this. We then go into northern Iraq. A typical mission may be 3 hours long, and then another hour back home.

Now, this is all done in support of our national policy, and what I am about to say is in no way intended to say that we have it wrong, or that we cannot support it, but I also want to get the facts on the record.

Let me give you an example of last year. In 2000 we flew in the north about 7,500 sorties. Now, this is not without risk, Mr. Chairman. I know you know that, but over 250 times last year our people were fired at that we know of.

We responded over 60 times. That is more than once a week, and I might add that we are flying a lot of single-engine aircraft over northern Iraq. We have been doing that for a long time, and if the law of averages caught up with us, we should have had engine failure by now.

We willingly accept that risk, but I just want to point out to the committee that it is not a risk-free operation that our men and women are carrying out in Operation Northern Watch.

Next I would like to talk about Bosnia for a moment. We have had an operation ongoing, a NATO operation in Bosnia. Sometimes people do not realize the progress that has been made. In 1996, when we went into Bosnia, as you see on the blue bar on that chart we had 60,000 forces that went into Bosnia. Those forces depicted in red are the U.S. forces. That was 20,000. We were 33 percent of the force in 1996.

Based on the improved conditions on the ground, and in consultation with our NATO allies, we were able to draw that force down, and as you notice today, we are just right at 20,000. The U.S. has just a tad over 4,000. We are about 20 percent of the force. I got approval from NATO, supported by the administration, just in the last couple of weeks, to make a further reduction in those forces. I think here in a few months we will be down to probably 3,500 Americans. We will be about 18 percent of the force.

So I think that chart dramatically shows the progress that we are making in terms of not only the conditions on the ground that allowed that, but in the drawdown of the forces.

Let me talk for a moment about Kosovo.

Chairman WARNER. Before you leave that subject, is it your professional judgment that that force level, be it ours or the combined force levels, is still essential to reach the goals that the United Nations and ourselves and our allies have set? That is where we fall into problems here. We put our troops somewhere, and then we are distracted, or go look at other situations. That situation in Bosnia

has quieted down, it is not on the front pages. Who is looking to determine whether that level, indeed, is still necessary?

General RALSTON. Mr. Chairman, every 6 months we do a review, in conjunction with our allies in NATO, and you are correct. It is my judgment that—well, first of all, the situation on the ground has improved dramatically since 1995.

Chairman WARNER. Basically no conflict.

General RALSTON. The reason that there is no conflict there today is because we have had those forces there. I do not want to keep forces there any longer than necessary, but at the same time, we need to keep forces there in order to keep that safe and secure environment.

Now, on a military aspect we have made enormous progress. In fairness, I must also tell you that economically, politically, we still have a ways to go, and we need to continue to keep that pressure on, but I would not recommend back to NATO, nor to the administration, nor to the Congress of the United States, that we do something that I do not believe is militarily sound. I fully support this force level, this reduction. We will continue to look for ways to bring that down, to ease the burden, but at the same time, we have a mission to carry out, and I want to make sure that we can do that.

Chairman WARNER. What you are saying is that ethnic tensions that gave rise to that conflict are still there with such force and effect that if you pulled out the troops there would be a war tomor

row.

General RALSTON. Well, it is my professional judgment that if we precipitously pulled out the troops right now, that conflict would start again. Whether it is tomorrow or next week, people can debate.

With regard to Kosovo, let me show you a similar chart here. In 1999, when our forces went into Kosovo, we had about 47,000 troops from 39 nations, by the way. Sometimes people erroneously think that the United States is pulling the bulk of this effort, but you can see there, 39 nations went together with 47,000 troops. We had about 7,000 Americans.

Today, overall we have about 42,000 troops in the Kosovo force. About 37,000 of those are in Kosovo itself, and another approximately 5,000 are in Macedonia. The U.S. contribution is about 5,500 people inside of Kosovo, and that varies between 13 and 14 percent of the force, so my message here is, this is not a U.S. operation. The U.S. troops are represented in the red that is on there, and the other nations, the other 38 nations are carrying the bulk of the operation that is there.

Next, please. There has been a lot of interest in the press in the past few days on Macedonia. Let me talk about that, if I might for a moment, in open session here, and perhaps we can go into more detail in the closed session. Let me have the big map first. This is Kosovo right here.