In 1999, the U.S., in collusion with its NATO allies, attacked the sovereign nation of Serbia, which posed no threat to America or Europe.

The excuse for the bombing campaign that killed thousands of innocent Serbs and destroyed civilian infrastructure was that Serbs were responsible for human rights abuses in its own province of Kosovo and that the government was responsible for backing a campaign of "genocide" against ethnic Albanians there.

It was all a lie, of course.

Serbia posed no threat to the United States whatsoever. Serbia had no weapons of mass destruction. Serbia did not support international terrorism. Serbia had no ill intentions toward the U.S.

It turns out that as few as 2,108 people were actually killed in Kosovo over a period of months leading up to and including the period of heavy bombardment of Serbia by NATO forces.

This is hardly "genocide," as it was billed by Clinton, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., former Sen. Bob Dole and David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador for war crimes.

By whipping up hysteria for an illegal bombing campaign, all of these men have blood on their hands.

It wasn't hundreds of thousands of dead in Kosovo, as some reports suggested. It wasn't even tens of thousands. It was, at worst, a couple thousand over a considerable period of time. That, of course, is still a dreadful and grisly toll. But, to put it in perspective, no global authority – not the United Nations, nor NATO – ever advocates intervention in the United States or anywhere else when the annual murder toll hits 2,000, which it does early in the first half of every year.

Think of the hyperbole we heard prior to the bombing campaign:

• "By the time the snows fall next winter, there will be genocide documented on a large scale in Kosovo," said Biden.

• "History will judge us harshly if we do not take action to stop this rolling genocide," said Hagel.
  
• "What we have in Kosovo and what (we) had in Bosnia was genocide, and that's why I think we should intervene," said Dole.
  
• "There are indications genocide is unfolding in Kosovo," said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin.
  
• Cohen characterized the bombing campaign as a "fight for justice over genocide."
  
• Scheffer said Kosovo was one of the top three genocides since 1950, rivaled only by Rwanda and Cambodia.

But no one laid it on as thick as Clinton. He compared the atrocities in Kosovo to the Holocaust. Kosovo, he said, "is not war in the traditional sense. Imagine what would happen if we and our allies instead decided just to look the other way as these people were massacred on NATO's doorstep."

Nine years later, the true nature of our "friends" in Kosovo is becoming clear.

While the U.S. and NATO were pretending the bloodshed was all one-sided – conducted exclusively by Serbs – a new book reveals some of the hideous, provocative human rights abuses being conducted by the so-called "good guys," the supposed "victims" of genocide.

Investigators for the Hague tribunal for war crimes in the Balkans found a house where living Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by the ethnic Albanians. The money raised in this grisly trade supported the Kosovo Liberation Army, a Muslim band of terrorists allied with al-Qaida.

Today, the U.S. and much of Europe is supported the creation of an independent, breakaway, autonomous state of Kosovo, presided over by Hashim Thaci, a prominent leader of the KLA.

The allegations are hardly frivolous. They are made in "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals" by Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down earlier this year as chief prosecutor of the tribunal.

According to her sources, hundreds of young Serbs were taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Some prisoners were sewn up after having their kidneys removed. They were then locked up again, inside barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. Other prisoners, aware of the fate that awaited them, pleaded in abject terror to be killed immediately.

The people who committed these crimes were backed up militarily by the U.S. Air Force, by NATO forces, with your tax dollars under the direction and leadership of President Bill Clinton.

How does that make you feel?

Serb prisoners had their internal organs removed and sold by ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war, according to allegations in a new book by the world's best known war crimes prosecutor.

Harry de Quetteville: Snippets from Carla Del Ponte's book

Carla Del Ponte, who stepped down in January as chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal for crimes committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, said investigators found a house suspected of being a laboratory for the illegal trade.

	Carla Del Ponte: allegation

A senior adviser to Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister and a leading member of the Kosovo Liberation Army which is accused of benefiting from the trade, yesterday denied the allegations.

"These are horrible things even to imagine," said Bekim Collaku. "But this is a product of her [Miss Del Ponte's] imagination."

Miss Del Ponte reports that the allegations were made by several sources, one of whom "personally made an organ delivery" to an Albanian airport for transport abroad, and "confirmed information directly gathered by the tribunal".

According to the sources, senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were allegedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the alleged organ harvesting, and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed.

"The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately," Miss Del Ponte writes.

The claims in The Hunt: Me and War Criminals have renewed tensions between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence two months ago. In it, the Swiss ex-prosecutor reveals how her efforts to bring alleged war criminals to justice were stymied by lack of co-operation from all sides - Serb, Albanian and even Nato. But it is her report of the organ traffic that has caused most shock, even in a region long hardened to horror.

Vladan Batic, Serbia's former justice minister, said: "If her allegations are true, then this is the most monstrous crime since the times of Mengele, and it must be made a priority, not only of the domestic judiciary but also of the Hague Tribunal." The book reports a visit by Hague tribunal investigators to a house south of the Albanian town of Burrel where they found traces of blood across a wide area, as well as medical equipment.

"The investigators found pieces of gauze, a used syringe and two plastic IV bags encrusted with mud and empty bottles of medicine, some of which was of a muscle relaxant often used in surgical operations," she writes. However, she concludes that the finds do not amount to sufficient proof for a war crimes tribunal. In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, an association of families of Serbs still listed as missing since the Kosovo war, said it would sue Miss Del Ponte, alleging that she had failed to act over the alleged organ-farming scandal. Serbia's war crimes office announced it had opened its own investigation.

The book has also prompted concern in Switzerland, where it has been criticised for tarnishing the country's celebrated neutrality, particularly as Miss Del Ponte has been named as the Swiss ambassador to Argentina.

In Belgrade, Natasha Kandic, the highly respected head of the investigative Humanitarian Law Centre, said ordinary Serbs "welcome the publication of this book" but said allegations of organ-smuggling were "rumours". "I talked to her many times, she never told me about this," said Miss Kandic.