PRISTINA, Serbia, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Two former envoys to the Balkan region are asking the United States to set an example in the region for Iraq and Afghanistan, a report said Wednesday.
Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. representative to the United Nations, and Bernard Kouchner, the French doctor who served for two years as the U.N. overseer in Kosovo reunited there to review the situation, the New York Times reported.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has suggested troops in the Balkans could be used to bolster the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Withdrawal would ... send the wrong message to Afghanistan and Iraq: that Americans, impatient as always, do not finish the job,"
Holbrooke told the legislative assembly of Kosovo.
The United States has 5,000 troops in the Balkans including 1,700 out of 12,000 foreign troops in Bosnia and 2,500 out of 21,000 foreign troops in Kosovo.
Holbrooke said a U.S. withdrawal would encourage its enemies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to kill even more Americans.
"The Bush administration is profoundly wrong," he said. "I want to take them on."
