FEUILLETON 25 years since the NATO bombing of Serbia (9) - Milosevic to Short, “So, you're the man who's going to bomb me?“

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic

The General Staff, as testified by David Halberstam in his book "War in a Time of Peace," reluctantly accepted the idea of "bombing the Serbs without any enthusiasm." NATO and the White House were prepared, although unanswered questions remained about the level of bombing and the targets.

That's what the administration wanted; Sandy Berger gave the crucial signal, and Bill Cohen, filled with doubts, never an enthusiast, accepted it, especially since ground troops were excluded, which would limit opposition hostility in Congress in the early days of the fighting. The opposition was still there, but it would speak more discreetly than openly in most cases. But as the first step in military action was taken, the Pentagon had its foot on the brake as it had the exact same question for the exact same reason six years earlier. There was no consensus on Plan B. As Powell often asked, what happens if the bombing doesn't work?

Very precise details of the bombing plan were provided by the NATO air commander, General Michael Short.

General Short himself was, incidentally, a proponent of brutal bombing from the outset. The testimony of General Short is all the more interesting, as interpretations emerged that it was a war "nobody wanted," which is actually a formulation from the time of US President Bill Clinton. "Before I came to this task, I was the Director of Operations in the United States Air Forces in Europe," General Short recounts.

"Sometime in February, General Clark went to see my boss, apparently in the chain only for the US, and asked him what we could do in Kosovo. I tasked my smart young people, and within a few days, we came back with what was essentially one of the limited options in Kosovo, which was to bomb targets south of the 44th parallel and then establish a no-fly zone. Zone south of the 44th parallel."

That was something we could do in a relatively short time, probably using the US forces currently stationed in Europe and forces from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. We could certainly hope for the participation of NATO allies. But we could only put this together in a fairly short time frame – hit the airport in Pristina, remove the threats of surface-to-air missiles south of the 44th parallel, and establish a no-fly zone.

Certainly, the Third Army (Serbian forces) would still be operating. But we could take some measures in a short time. In June, when the NATO alliance was planning, we gave Admiral Ellis and General Clark our options for the air operation. We started to develop a classic air operation, to go that first night on what we felt was a strategically set target in Belgrade.

Interestingly, the Yugoslav General Staff also believed in this "limited option." According to the testimony of the Air Force and Air Defense Commander, General Spasoje Smiljanic, there was no complete agreement among the Yugoslav commanders on what the NATO military operation would look like. "In February 1999, an assessment was made in the General Staff, concluding that the first phase of the 'warning strike' would include several selective and extremely limited strikes, exclusively on military targets, followed by a pause and an ultimatum for Yugoslavia to fulfill the demands. In addition to this, the assessment concludes that these strikes will primarily be carried out on the territory of Kosovo and south of the 44th parallel. Some generals in the General Staff, including myself, opposed this assessment, pointing out that the aerial aggression would start strongly throughout the territory of the FRY and would target, in addition to military targets, a wide range of civilian and infrastructure objects," General Smiljanic stated.

General Short emphasized that after 34 years of service, it was clear to him that the first thing to do was to establish air superiority as quickly as possible to act in the air. "You have to control the air so that your attacking aircraft can go to the target and back without great danger from enemy air-to-air defense capability. You have to take control of the surface-to-air threat from the ground, and you do it as quickly as you can – otherwise, you simply won't be able to operate," Short stated.

The first step in any air operation is to destroy what we call the Integrated Air Defense System - IADS. After that, we recommended going after what we believed was the strategic target set in Belgrade – the power grid, communication lines, how they affected Belgrade, bridges over rivers, roads in and out of Belgrade, and at least six to eight military command centers in Belgrade," General Short testified.

He emphasized that all these targets were supposed to be hit in just one night.

Describing further what was happening in the NATO command, General Short states that target planning was handed over to the US military in June 1998 and practically taken out of NATO structures.

"Then we informed General Clark in his office with his senior leadership. General Clark said, 'Mike, this is a big effort, and I appreciate everything you and your people have done. I'm concerned that if we continue planning through NATO channels, we'll have security problems with the operation, and the essence of our planning will end up in Paris or Belgrade newspapers. So I'll take this planning process and put it solely into US channels.' He assigned the task to the commander of the US Air Force in Europe. The other allies were no longer a part of the planning. Two US officers at that time took on the total effort in planning. This became a 24/7 effort," Short explained.

He added that "the folks in Ramstein, and I say kids because they're all younger than me, worked continuously until sometime in late July when they briefed General Clark. I stayed connected with them, my folks from the US in the CAOC in Vicenza, and my folks from the US here in Naples also stayed connected, so we on the US side were aware of everything that was happening. The planners briefed General Clark on a detailed version of the air operation. This version analyzed each individual target, the sequence we would go in, the weapons to be applied, the forces required," Short explained.

He then went to see General Wesley Clark. Meanwhile, NATO continued to plan the phased approach. "With the alliance, we finally settled on a phased air operation. There were five phases. If Milosevic didn't respond after one phase of execution, we would give an ultimatum: 'If you don't stop what you're doing, we're coming after you.' And then we would execute the next phase. Throughout that entire time frame, Belgrade is excepted, except for the air defense around Belgrade.

So we planned five phases. But in that approved plan, except for the integrated air defense in and around Belgrade, the airports, SA3 locations, etc., the fight wasn't taken north of the 44th parallel until the third phase.

This wasn't the way we wanted to operate. But this was the plan approved by SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). So it ended up in a drawer.

All of this clearly indicates that NATO was planning for a real war, not just a diplomatic threat, as General Nauman put it. To some extent, General Short was among them. "Certainly there was a certain mindset to plan for a diplomatic posture—to some extent, to go through the motions. I'll be very candid, I thought to myself, number one, we probably will never drop a bomb. Number two, if we do, cooler heads will prevail. We'll have on the shelf the campaign we've developed on how to conduct an air campaign, and we'll pull it out at the last minute—a classic escalation," Short speculated.

In September, Holbrooke and Hill were on a diplomatic mission, along with General Short. "This was an amazing thing for me as we went through this. In early October, we started gathering our forces, both US and NATO. I was at a social event at Admiral Lopez's villa. A group of us spent most of the evening upstairs on the secure phone, talking to General Clark. In the United States, there was concern that the US contribution to the buildup was out of proportion to what it should be and that our contribution was too large. They were worried about numbers.

General Clark told me to work on the numbers. The next morning, I jumped on a plane, flew to the CAOC, met with my staff for several hours, shifting forces, and finally did some 'creative accounting.' He had a video teleconference with General Clark around five o'clock Sunday evening. The numbers were acceptable, and I was getting ready to leave the CAOC when General Clark called me directly and said, 'You have an hour to give me a plan to conduct reconnaissance over Kosovo that we'll use to confirm whether Milosevic has or has not conducted ethnic cleansing.'

We gathered Randy Gelwix, Garry Trexler, our generals with one and two stars, great, great young generals, and three out of my four colonels upstairs, and in an hour, we put together a plan that would use the reconnaissance version of the F-16 and Tornado accompanied by F-15 and F-16, Predator drones, U-2s, other national reconnaissance systems over Kosovo. I called Joe Lopez, my commander in my chain of command: 'Boss, what do you think?' He said, 'I think that's right, and you only had an hour.' I called General Jumper in my chain in the US: 'Boss, what do you think?' 'Yeah, that looks good.' And I put together two pages and sent them to General Clark, honestly thinking I wouldn't hear any more about it," Short described.

Around October 5th or 6th, Holbrooke was in the midst of his mission, and everyone was watching very carefully. The NATO action was prepared. General Clark called General Short in Aviano and said, "Mike, besides me, who would you like to send to Belgrade to represent the alliance air commanders and negotiate with Milosevic's generals on how to establish reconnaissance over Kosovo?" I said, "It probably should be me, but I wouldn't want to leave my forces and my staff at that moment."

The next morning, the phone rang, and General Clark's people told him, "Be in London at 6:30 p.m. local time to meet with Mr. Holbrooke. Get any instructions that Madeleine Albright might have, and then go to Belgrade to negotiate this reconnaissance regime." So, in a big hurry, I flew to London and met with Mr. Holbrooke. As we flew to Belgrade, we talked about our thought processes. I had some concerns because I certainly wasn't trained as a negotiator, although during my career, I served in command units and worked on what I considered difficult issues.

But the things I worked on as a squadron commander paled in comparison to the fact that I would now, at some point, sit down with Mr. Milosevic, his generals, the commander of his air force, and his chief of defense. If successful, maybe we could prevent a conflict. If not successful, maybe we would go to war," Short recounted.

Holbrooke asked General Short about his plan. I said, "I intend to propose to the Serbian generals a reconnaissance regime over Kosovo that will be unobtrusive. It should truly be transparent to people on the ground, although Serbian leadership will certainly know it exists... It will be high enough and quiet enough that they shouldn't be concerned that their country is under occupation. We'll photograph during the day, whenever weather permits, to see what's happening. But I have a threat with me. Essentially, I will say to the Serbian generals: 'I have a U2 in one hand, and a B52 in the other, and the choice is yours, gentlemen.'"

Holbrooke said, "Oh, that's great, that's so excellent. Use it tomorrow."

A meeting with Milosevic was scheduled for the next day, during which Holbrooke and Hill were supposed to speak with him. After some time, Short was supposed to meet with the generals. Instead of a routine meeting, the general faced a surprise. "I'm starting to relax because I'm pretty sure there's going to be about an hour of banter—maybe some serious conversation between Holbrooke and Milosevic—but Lieutenant General Short certainly won't have any role. But then Milosevic leans forward and says, 'So, you're the man who's going to bomb me.' I was stunned. I didn't expect that. I said, 'Well, I hope that won't be the case. I have a plan to propose to your generals that will prevent the bombing of your country, but essentially, you're right. I have a U2 in one hand and a B52 in the other, and the choice is yours.' That broke the tension, and the discussions continued from there," Short said once he composed himself.

President Milosevic simply nodded. Then he and Holbrooke talked for ten or 15 minutes, after which Holbrooke said, "Mr. President, as General Short said, he plans to conduct reconnaissance over Kosovo. This will allow the international community to confirm that you are doing as you say you are— that you are not conducting ethnic cleansing... that you are not burning villages or driving people from their homes." So for ten minutes, and in detail, I went into our plan. I talked about how my son is an A10 pilot who is already deployed in Aviano, and that I hope the Serbs and NATO alliance could reach an agreement that would prevent my son from going to war. I said that most of my life has been spent trying to keep my son from going to war, and I hope we can reach an agreement there," General Short recounted the conversation.

Tomorrow: Clark's assessments that Milosevic wants to kill all Albanians