Mr. Speaker, to help my colleague, I am going to ask him a few questions. But first I would like to mention that the member said he agreed about the need to maintain peace in Kosovo.
My question concerns how long we are prepared to stay. This relates to something that happened two weeks ago in Washington. We were briefed on what the United States was going to do. It is starting to sing a different tune.
Now it says it is prepared to go to Kosovo, but for a very short period, at the request of other NATO members. It says that this is a conflict taking place in Europe and one that should therefore be covered by Europeans, who are right there.
This is perhaps not a bad idea. It wants our presence, it wants visibility, particularly at the beginning, to put together a peacekeeping system. Once the system is up and running, we should withdraw. We should stay perhaps three months, six at most, and not become mired as we are in Bosnia, where we will be stuck for a long time.
We know that Kosovo will be the same, that it will drag on if we become involved. Should we not perhaps consider something like that, taking part at the beginning and then providing support for ground forces?