Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- "There is no question that had we been able to escalate more rapidly, we would have put more pressure on Serb leadership but it is also true that had we escalated more rapidly, we would have fractured NATO and lost." NATO War Against Serbia Hobbled by Alliance Politics, GAO Says By Tony Capaccio Washington, Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 1999 war against Serbia may have been longer than necessary because it violated at least seven principles of U.S. military doctrine, says the U.S. General Accounting Office. Political leaders' concerns that casualties be limited and the alliance remain unified plus an expectation that Serb leaders would crack within days under minimal pressure led the military to pull punches -- forsaking certain air targets and withholding ground troops, the congressional audit agency says. The GAO report is the first independent U.S. government assessment of the 78-day air campaign to stop Slobodan Milosevic's effort to run ethnic Albanians out of the Serbian province of Kosovo. It acknowledges the campaign was successful and it doesn't pass judgment on NATO's political concerns. At base, the report is a reminder of the constraints of coalition warfare, and it notes that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force in particular, have modified their doctrine to accommodate these new realities. ``These concerns will likely weigh as heavily in the decision- making process as achieving military objectives,'' it says. ``These operations may not be conducted as effectively or efficiently as operations that more closely follow U.S. military doctrine.'' The 30-page assessment -- which is slated to be made public Monday -- was prepared for Representative John Murtha from Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and House Armed Services Committee chairman Bob Stump, an Arizona Republican. Clark's Reaction NATO's commander during the war, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, agreed with GAO that the Kosovo operation is a model for the constraints U.S. forces face in multinational operations. But the report paints a misleading picture of the role politics played in running the Kosovo campaign, Clark said. ``It tells the American public that when the war started `you bad politicians got in the way and didn't let us military do what we needed,'' Clark said. ``The simple fact is we won.'' ``The report is useful but I think we have to be careful that we don't fall into the trap of taking politics out of conflict -- you can't and never will and shouldn't,'' Clark said. NATO political leaders weren't responsible for the alliance's failure to deliver on promises to destroy Serb forces, Clark said. ``We had problems striking Serb forces -- the Air Force needs to work on that,'' Clark said. ``We had problems taking out Serb air defenses. The Air Force needs to do more work on that. Neither of those problems had anything to do with the politicians. I'm not blaming the commanders. It was beyond their capability to make the kind of difference I believe they needed to make,'' he said. Seven Departures According to the GAO, the campaign departed from the following principles of U.S. warfare: -- starting campaigns with clear military objectives; -- using overwhelming force early in a campaign against vital enemy interests such as command headquarters, war production facilities and key support infrastructure; -- conducting simultaneous operations against a variety of targets such as bridges, communications systems and electric power supplies; -- launching air strikes in conjunction with ground operations to draw out and destroy enemy armor and mobile forces; -- attacking targets in a systematic way to achieve a clearly defined military or political effect; -- approving targets through the military chain of command instead of through a political process; -- setting up a joint command representing the forces used in combat. `Vague and Less Decisive' NATO's objectives were ``vague and less decisive'' and ``not easily attainable through military means,'' the report says. The operation's civilian chiefs -- President Bill Clinton, U.K. Defense Minister George Robertson and NATO Secretary General Javier Solano -- said the air strikes were launched to stop Serb forces from driving Kosovar Albanians from their homes and to impel a peace. ``Since the goals of the military action were not to defeat the Yugoslavian leadership but to get it to stop the violence and reach a peace agreement, it was unclear how to achieve the goals with air operations,'' said GAO. Clark didn't agree that the war might have been shorter had ``overwhelming force'' been used early on against Serb roads, bridges and electrical power grids, fuel storage facilities and transportation networks. ``NATO believed that if it used minimal force against Milosevic, there was a chance Milosevic could crack,'' Clark said. ``You couldn't refute that. If you started your operations with the intent of wiping out Serbia, you'd be irrational. It wasn't started as a war. There was some reasonable hope at the outset that Milosevic would crack.'' ``There is no question that had we been able to escalate more rapidly, we would have put more pressure on the Serb leadership but it is also true that had we escalated more rapidly, we would have fractured NATO and lost,'' he said. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
