I agree this is a significant report. It was possibly specially given to the Telegraph. Despite the fact that the editorial department is in favour of the war, there is a vocal right wing opinion in the columns and on the letters page against it. This argues partly that Britain has no selfish interests involved, and partly that the government has sadly run down the British army so much that Britain could not get seriously involved if it wanted to.
Articles such as the one Doug also spotted from the right wing Spectator magazine casting doubt on the KLA, add to the picture (though I would have thought marxism-international would be unlikely to confirm that the KLA should be supported in the same way as the Communist Party of Peru.)
However, the selection of these particular armed forces to go to the Adriatic area is consistent with a hawkish British view that there should be a land war focussed on Kosovo. We have to assume the arguments within NATO are bigger than appear in public. We do not know whether the Blair government is also against the massive bombing of Serbia, and we do not know if it is in favour of a tank invasion through Hungary.
We can be certain that Alistair Campbell, British spin doctor assigned to support NATO, thinks that headlines about bus passengers killed by NATO bombing in Kosovo are an own goal by comparison with Blair being greeted by Albanian children, and pictures of Cherie Blair as mater dolorosa.
Sneer or spit if you will, but it is the political war that really counts.
Chris Burford
London