After a six-week policy review, Clinton last week returned the favor - by shooting down Cohen’s view. In London, Clinton signaled that America is in Bosnia to do the job right, and pledged to ““work like crazy’’ for 13 months to implement the Dayton accords aimed at a lasting peace. He added, ““I want [to] stop talking about what date we’re leaving on, and talk about what we’re going to do on the only date that matters, which is tomorrow.''

America’s hawks have carried the day on Bosnia, at least for now. And chief among them is the new secretary of state, who has placed her prestige behind the new policy. ““I’ve never been Madame Nice Guy on Bosnia,’’ she told NEWSWEEK, adding that she was heartened by Clinton’s ““very strong recommitment to full implementation’’ of the Dayton agreement. Publicly, of course, officials deny there’s a policy rift in Washington. ““There’s no disagreement on the part of anyone in our government,’’ Cohen maintained last week. ““We need to intensify our activities in the next 12 to 13 months.''

White House officials reject the obvious - that Clinton is considering keeping U.S. troops in Bosnia beyond that deadline. But at State, there’s talk that grim conditions on the ground may require some follow-on NATO presence, possibly based in Hungary. At the Pentagon, Cohen and his aides hope to withdraw as soon as the current NATO mandate ends. ““They’re not using the same sheet of music,’’ says an administration official.

That’s an understatement. Cohen recently said U.S. troops would withdraw even if Balkan residents go ““back to slaughtering each other.’’ That was a red flag to Albright, who, as U.N. ambassador, crusaded to set up the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. ““Cohen’s been talking like a senator, not a cabinet secretary,’’ said a State Department official who was involved in the Dayton negotiations.

This isn’t Albright’s first brush with the Pentagon. In his memoir, Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, recalled that as U.N. ambassador, Albright once asked him: ““What’s the point of having this superb military if we can’t use it [to stop the Balkan conflict]?’’ Powell’s response: ““American GI’s were not toy soldiers.''

In much of Europe, anyway, Albright’s message is a hit. As long as the body count remains negligible, even a long-term commitment of troops in Bosnia doesn’t seem such a bad thing to some NATO planners. And an American presence is vital. ““One out, all out,’’ is how Britain’s new foreign minister, Robin Cook, put it last week.

In the Balkans, the secretary’s message has come across loud and clear. In Zagreb on Saturday, she warned Croatian strongman Franjo Tudjman that his failure to turn over war criminals and protect returning refugees could cost IMF and World Bank support. After hearing horror stories from refugees, she told the Croatian reconstruction minister, ““You should be ashamed.’’ Next stop was Belgrade, where she excoriated Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s ““politics of denial and delay.''

One of Albright’s chief aims is to round up war criminals. Of the 75 people who have been indicted, only eight are in custody. ““The Balkan leaders need to turn them over,’’ says Albright. ““They will not be getting the kind of assistance they’d like if they don’t.’’ Some U.S. planners want to form special quasi-military or police units to help capture those accused of atrocities. But the idea of Americans hunting bad guys in a far-off land evokes the specter of Mogadishu, where 18 U.S. troops died during a botched effort to capture a Somali warlord. Any whiff of another Mogadishu would tarnish Albright’s campaign - and give her rivals at the Pentagon another chance at winning Clinton’s ear.