It does, however, fuel the view that French policy is biased in favor of the Serbs, as do other recent incidents. In December, a French officer was convicted of treason for leaking NATO's bombing plans targeting Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis. The officer said he was acting on orders from French intelligence, but Paris claimed he acted alone. Also, a spokesman for a French peacekeeping contingent in the region was removed from duties in 1998 after leaking details of two earlier operations to capture Karadzic, the BBC reported March 4.

The facts in the most recent case are sketchy. Several European papers cited an unnamed U.S. diplomat as saying that British intelligence intercepted a cell phone call from a French Army captain to a Bosnian policeman early Feb. 28. The captain reportedly warned him to "pay attention to Foca," the town were the operation was launched. This message was passed on to Karadzic's bodyguards, allowing him to sneak across the border into Montenegro just as a NATO peacekeeping force prepared to launch the capture mission.

The NATO alliance's swift move to defuse the situation and quash the allegations is not surprising. The United States is eager to finally hand the Balkan quagmire over to Europe so it can pursue the broader war against international terrorism. Though this war will certainly intersect with the Balkans -- requiring distinct U.S. intelligence operations -- Washington does not want its forces or resources tied down in Europe's backyard.