|
BBC on
Nato's Inner Kosovo Conflict
From BBC London, Newsnight
Friday, August 20, 1999 Published at 03:34 GMT 04:34
UK
General Clark: "didn't always defer to those who
wanted targets withheld"
In a special Newsnight programme Mark Urban
investigates Nato's handling of the Kosovo crisis.
Interviewing the key players he finds that the Allies were
far from united. (Newsnight - BBC Two - 10.30pm - Friday 20
August).
Talk to the people running Nato's war against Slobodan
Milosevic and many will tell you it was a "near run
thing".
Strobe Talbott: "A good thing that the conflict ended
when it did"
Strobe Talbott, the American Deputy Secretary of State,
told BBC's Newsnight Kosovo Special "there would have been
increasing difficulty within the alliance in preserving the
solidarity and the resolve of the alliance" had the Serbian
leader not given in on 3 June.
Mr Talbott, regarded as the man closest to President
Clinton in the Washington foreign policy team, adds: "I
think it was a good thing that the conflict ended when it
did."
From last summer, when the western alliance first began
to think seriously about intervening, until the last day of
the airstrikes this June, there were enormous difficulties
getting members of the organisation to agree a common line
on the use of force.
General Wesley Clark sums up the campaign as "high-stakes
coercion"
Not only would it have been very hard to get an agreement
in Nato for a ground war against President Milosevic, but
even continued airstrikes might have been jeopardised by
disunity.
The decision to go on bombing was the only thing the
Allies could agree because hawks (arguing for all options up
to a full-scale invasion) and doves (who wanted a pause in
the bombing) cancelled one another out. Alliance decisions
had to be agreed by all 19 members.
Military frustration
This meant that clear warnings from Nato's military
experts had to be ignored in the interests of consensus.
General Klaus Naumann, chairman of Nato's Military Committee
during last summer's first alliance discussions about
intervention says he formally cautioned Nato's top political
body that, "one has to be prepared to escalate, if one
doesn't achieve the political objective with the first
military actions".
Nato's member countries were divided over bombing
raids
That warning that everything up to a full-scale invasion
might be needed was ignored.
Gen Naumann is critical of the Americans for ruling out the
commitment of ground troops.
Even last October, America's reluctance to endanger its
soldiers was limiting Nato's freedom of action.
When an agreement was signed for a ceasefire in Kosovo to be
monitored by outsiders it was thought the absence of western
soldiers was a concession to President Milosevic.
Richard Holbrooke: "I asked him if he understood, and he
said 'Yes, you will bomb us'"
In fact it did not happen because, as Javier Solana the
Nato Secretary-General told Newsnight, the American who
negotiated that agreement, "didn't have instructions to go
that far from this country".
On 13 October last year, when Nato voted through the
airstrikes plan that it actually used this March, its
governments ruled out even planning for a ground war - a
restriction which American officials later tried to blame on
the Europeans.
When June's deal was finally done to send in the
international Kosovo Force (K-For), the whole operation had
to be postponed for 24 hours because US troops were not
ready to go in.
The reason: the White House had refused to let them go
ashore until it was absolutely clear they wouldn't have to
fight their way into Kosovo.
President Clinton was determined to conduct the operation by
airpower alone.
And if President Milosevic had still been holding out right
now? Then he might have had to consider seriously using
ground troops, but what would have been the chances of such
an operation being approved by Nato as a whole?
Decidedly slim it is now clear.
Division over bombing
As for the "increasing difficulties" Mr Talbott thinks
might have plagued the continued air campaign - it is now
becoming clear that several allies came close to trying to
"pause" the bombing and that America had to stop them by
fair means and foul.
Richard Holbrooke: "Milosevic wanted to clean up the KLA,
whom he called Narco-Mafioso"
Within two days of Operation Allied Force starting, Italy
suggested there be a diplomatic solution.
Several countries - including France, Germany, Italy and
Greece - decided at this early stage that they were not
prepared to escalate the bombing beyond certain limits
clearly laid out in the war plans approved the previous 13
October.
General Wesley Clark: "Milosevic told me: 'We know how to
handle these Albanian killers'"
On 27 March these dissenters agreed to an escalation from
Phase One of that blueprint to Phase Two, which allowed Nato
to bomb Yugoslav forces and supply bases.
These countries made clear though that they were not
prepared to got to Phase Three which included targets such
as power stations and buildings in central Belgrade
connected with Milosevic's system of rule.
Washington had a big impact on how the Nato Kosovo
campaign was conducted
Those countries felt they had a cast-iron case, since the
resolution passed back in October by the alliance's top
political body, the North Atlantic Council, made clear that
moving up the ladder of escalation required a unanimous vote
from all members.
General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander by going
to Mr Solana and telling him the war could not be run on the
basis of "least common denominator solutions".
On 30 March, Mr Solana, Gen Clark and Gen Naumann jointly
informed Nato ambassadors that the old phased war plan with
its political safeguards was being thrown away.
George Robertson: "We had to delegate quite a degree of
authority to military commanders"
In return for a promise that Nato would only hit
"strictly military targets", the lukewarm allies were
pursuaded to back them.
Gen Clark then hit the Milosevic party HQ, the presidential
palace and the TV stations - all targets taken from the
Phase Three list that several allies had refused to vote
for.
The Supreme Commander then proceeded with his escalation,
occasionally phoning the key political leaders to get
particularly sensitive targets okayed.
"I didn't always defer to those who wanted targets
withheld," Gen Clark now reveals.
Many people at Nato feel the Supreme Commander did the only
thing he could to win the war under what were initially very
tight political restrictions.
"You cannot fight wars by committee", says one.
Power struggle
The political/military dilemma at the heart of the air
war remains unresolved which is why ministers continue to
insist only "strictly military targets" were hit whereas it
is obvious that most people would not call a TV station or
electricitical power plants "military".
So Nato had to sideline its reluctant members in order to
win.
Richard Holbrooke: "Milosevic and his military knew the
bombing was ready to go"
Those who had tried to brake the escalation either ducked
questions about their attitude to what had happened or tried
to claim they had stopped Gen Clark escalating further.
President Jacques Chirac of France for example boasted that
it was thanks to him that any bridges had been left standing
across the River Danube.
What about those like Germany and Italy who were suggesting
a bombing pause?
London and Washinton thought this would be disastrous, so
they made clear they would not even allow the idea to be
formally tabled.
Strobe Talbott: "Rambouillet was tough, but the only way
of dealing with an impossible situation"
As Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Secretary and
leading advocate of a halt to airstrikes now reflects, "I
had to realise that this was not workable in an alliance.
This was too complicated."
The "triumph of Nato resolve" trumpeted by some leaders
after Milosevic agreed to withdraw is therefore emerging now
as a triumph of ruthless alliance management by
Washington.
When it suited them - for example in keeping the 'bombing
pause' lobby in check they used Nato's constitution with its
stress on unanimity skilfully.
When Washington needed to escalate the bombing and it didn't
suit them, they worked their way around these same
rules.
For the decision-makers involved the ends justified the
means.
The alternative, a humiliating climbdown for Nato, was too
awful to contemplate.
The war though, did not win them a permanent solution to the
Kosovo issue. Allied splits are once again evident about
what should happen there in the future: America favours
independence for the Albanian community, France and Germany
are dead against it.
Without the imperative of an on-going war, it will be much
harder to keep the allies united on resolving these future
problems.
© BBC 1999
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/default.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
|
