That led to a series of purges, which has helped cement his support among second-ranking commanders, many diplomats concluded.

German diplomats said NATO intelligence had observed the military buildup north of Kosovo and inside the province, but had wrongly concluded that it was aimed only at the Kosovo Liberation Army.

In any event, another diplomat concluded, "the monitoring system will be destroyed because the inspectors can't work if there is bombing."

Western diplomats in Addis Ababa expressed surprise yesterday that the conflict had been so rapidly and decisively concluded.

In 1997, Western diplomats concluded that the other four hostages - two Britons, a German and the missing American - were almost certainly killed in December 1995.

Mexican diplomats requested the raid after they had met several times with the young men and concluded that they were not political refugees but economic ones.

But one American diplomat whose duties included monitoring the full array of Soviet news accounts presented here concluded: "Writing about international relations is still one of the final taboos of the Soviet media.

The team brought back little evidence of torture or inhumane prison conditions, the diplomats said, and generally concluded that human rights abuses had declined.

Many analysts and diplomats have concluded that the approach pursued by the Bush Administration in the Middle East for the last eight months has nearly run its course.

A Western diplomat who watched the shift concluded: "What this Government wants to do is perpetuate itself in power.