CHRISTMAS IN BOSNIA?

TIME's Bruce Van Voorst says that timetable for the full deployment of troops may put a substantial number of American soldiers in the Balkans before the end of December: "First, there will be the signing of the peace agreement in Paris on the 14th of December. Then, within a matter of days will follow a Security Council resolution -- since this whole operation is taking place under the rubric of the U.N -- asking NATO to do the job. The North Atlantic Council, NATO's political arm, will then ask its Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, General George Joulwan, to begin the operation. Within days you will begin to see American troops moving from Germany by rail and roads through Hungary into Bosnia." Van Voorst reports that the Hungarian parliament yesterday approved the use of its bases for transportation centers for the operation and today the German parliament debates the question of contributing up to 4,000 troops to the operation. "This would be the biggest deployment of German troops outside Germany since World War II," says Van Voorst. "There is a sizable opposition, but the government is firmly in favor of sending the troops and we expect that the parliament will go along."