Mr. ENGEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and it is great to see you again, Ambassador Holbrooke and Dr Kagan.

Since I am the last questioner and a lot has been asked about Iraq, I am not going to go into the specifics, but one of the things, Ambassador Holbrooke, you obviously have been, you were right there at the Dayton Accords. They wouldn't have happened without you. One of the things that has been said falsely about the United States is that we somehow are anti-Islam; that we somehow don't-instead of being the protector of all nations, we somehow take our foreign policy and we turn against Islam.

That is, of course, a lie. Nothing can be further from the truth. You know better than most how e helped Muslims in Bosnia, how we Saved Kuwait from being swallowed up by Saddam Hussein. In Albania, of which you and I have worked closely together, there is no more pro-American country than Albania, a Muslim country. And we are now debating independence for Kosovo, a mostly Muslim country.

I am wondering if you could just give us your thoughts about Marti Ahtisaari's plan for Kosovo, and debunk, along with me, this absurd notion that somehow the United States is hostile to Islamic majority countries.

Mr. HOLBROOKE: Thank you for the opportunity to address Kosovo.

Briefly, I pay tribute to your personal efforts and those of Chairman Lantos on this issue. I like Marti Ahtissari's plan given where we are. The fact is in the first term of this administration they should have dealt with the problem when Ginghich was alive. It would have been much easier to when Solonovich was foreign minister. He was from Pech. Something could have been done. It is much tougher now.

Having said that, let us get on with it. The Ahtisaari plan is clear guide path to independence even if the "I" word is not in his report. It needs to be embedded in a Security Council resolution. The Bush administration has appointed a brilliant American envoy whom I know you know, and I know that the chairman knows, Frank Wisner, on a pro bono basis to support that. He has just been in Moscow. I believe this is a key issue in United States-Russian relations.

I want to be clear on this. The Russians have said at the Putin level they will not support something that the Serbs oppose in Belgrade. If that means they will veto the Security Council resolution, which will come to a vote in either March or April, if they Russians veto it, the Russians will unleash upon all of us in the middle of Europe another high-risk situation which could lead to a renewal of ethnic tensions in an area where we don't need it.

I know that Ambassador Wisner has made this point, as has Marti Ahtisaari to the Russians. I hope that the Secretary of State and the President are also making this point because this last question, Mr. Chairman, may turn out to be the first question of another hearing if the Russians act to veto this resolution.

As for the Albanians, your friends, you probably are widely regarded as Albania's best friend in the House, they must agree to protect minority rights, and you can play a big role in this Congressman Engel. And as for Belgrade, they have to choose between the future which lies toward Brussels and the past with lives in the deep myths and legends of things that did or did not happen in the year 1389. This is a big issue and I thank you for giving me an opportunity to comment on it.

One last point in the 46 seconds remaining: Bosnia, this administration has been not aggressive enough in implementing a successful outcome in Bosnia, and now the United States, the Europeans, and the Russians are all diverging on how to extend the office of the high representative. The U.S has lost a lot of leverage by withdrawing all its troops prematurely. We should have left some.

Having said that, I think we need to focus again on Bosnia to make sure that the current forces to not disintegrate what has been 11 years of peace and American commitment without a single American troop in either Bosnia or Kosovo killed or wounded in over a decade because we went in heavy, unlike Iraq, and we enforced it by shooting first and asking questions later.

Thank you, Congressman.