WASHINGTON -- Iceland has no military. Luxembourg has no air force. Greece doesn't want to bomb a neighbor. And the three other nations not contributing forces to the NATO air war against Serbia have only been alliance members for two weeks.

But those six countries, including the new members -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- bridle at the suggestion that they are not full partners in the allied attack.

"What Greece is doing," said Alexander Philon, the Greek ambassador to the United States, "and what we decided a long time ago to do with the full agreement of NATO, is to open all of our ports, roads and airfields to the mission but not get involved directly in the actual bombing of our neighbor. We are going to live in the future with those countries, and we don't want resentments."

Even without an air force, Luxembourg has contributed by giving money to the Belgian Air Force and registering the only planes common to all NATO members, the AWACS reconnaissance planes, under the Luxembourg flag.

Hungary is providing airspace and the nation's parliament has voted to provide airfields and bases for the NATO attack on Hungary's southern neighbor.

Poland went further and offered combat troops should the operation require them, said Jaroslaw Kurek, the press officer at the Polish Embassy.

The decision for Iceland was simple. "We have no military, so we are not involved," said Jon Hannibalsson, the ambassador in Washington. But Iceland has provided a naval base to NATO since 1951.

Pub Date: 3/27/99