To date, fewer than 500 bodies have been found, and hundreds of those were individually buried – not what you would expect during a mass-murder campaign. Forensic teams have expressed frustration as they follow up specific stories of atrocities and find no evidence at the precise alleged site. Undoubtedly, the site of the best-known and most horrific NATO allegation was the infamous mine at Trepca, where, according to reports shared with the Western media, more than 700 murdered Kosovo Albanians were thrown down the mine shafts and boiled in vats of hydrochloric acid. The ICTY itself investigated this site and found no evidence to support the allegations. There are those who hope that 9,000 more bodies are found so that NATO’s justification of its bombing campaign will be vindicated. I am not one of them. I am delighted that only a small percentage of the original estimates of those murdered are being exhumed. I hope that means 9,000 fewer fellow human beings died than we were led to believe. I would hope NATO agrees. That is the good news. What is extremely disturbing is the thought that the Western public was knowingly misled – lied to – to hold the NATO alliance together and to justify bombing a sovereign nation. This absence of evidence is not a big story in North America, where we have the luxury of putting Kosovo behind us and getting on with life. Not so in Europe, where numerous governments trusted U.S. intelligence. If it transpires that they knowingly sold their citizens a lie or were duped by the United States, NATO solidarity could be seriously jeopardized, with all that implies. Perhaps we should stick to what the alliance does best – defence! Retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie reported for Canadian television from Belgrade during four weeks of the NATO bombing campaign. [Reprinted from and copywrite by THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Tuesday, November 9, 1999 COMMENT p. A17]