Jamie
Shea: Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon,
welcome to this afternoon's briefing. As I mentioned to you this morning, we
are very pleased to have with us live on the video link from Skopje airport
where he has just arrived in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, of
course the Secretary General. What I am going to do is ask the Secretary
General to comment on the impressions that he has gained from his trip thus
far. As you know, this morning he has been in Albania, he is just beginning now
the second leg of his trip in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Secretary
General: Thank you Jamie, good afternoon
everybody. I am here at the airport in Skopje. I have just arrived from an
early morning trip that started at 6.00 in the morning to Albania where I had
the opportunity of meeting with the authorities of that country, and then I
visited a couple of refugee camps, in particular in the region of Elbasan.
Let me say that
the reason for this trip is I would say threefold: first to show solidarity to
these two countries, FYROM - Macedonia - and Albania which are two countries
which are committed with us to stop ethnic cleansing, to reverse ethnic
cleansing and at the same time to give support and help to the refugees;
second, to show the fantastic work that is being done by the troops of NATO
deployed in both countries, together with the UNHCR people; and third, after
having talked to many, many people in the camps, I would like to convey to you
my very deep sentiment that I have been always convinced that the task that we
have started to make all the possible efforts for all the refugees to return to
their homes, to their country, after having talked to them I am more and more
convinced that we have to continue our battle until we see through. I would
like to say that the five points that NATO is defending are the very same
points that all the refugees are defending: to stop the killing, withdraw the
troops, allow the refugees to return, it is a Kosovo multi-ethnic, safe and
democratic and a political agreement for the future. Today I am more convinced
than ever that this is the right course.
That is, Jamie,
what is my experience of today, a very intense day, a very profound day that I
would like to be able to transmit to you in all the intensity.
Mark
Laity, BBC: Secretary General, you are there,
you have described that you are more and more convinced that your course is
correct. But you are 50 days now into the campaign. President Milosevic shows
no signs of backing down. When do you believe that you will be able to have the
troops that are in Macedonia and Albania escorting refugees back in after 50
days of air campaign.
Secretary
General: I would like to see that as soon as
possible. We will continue with our air campaign steadily, intensively. This
past night has been a very effective night in order to hit the troops which are
deployed in Kosovo and continue doing criminal acts against the Kosovar people.
I would like to see them returning to their home, to their country as soon as
possible and that is what I have conveyed to the refugees with whom I had the
opportunity of talking today.
Patricia
Kelly, CNN: In the last couple of weeks NATO
has celebrated two 50th anniversaries, one 50 years of NATO and one 50 days of
airstrikes. Which do you think is going to be the most significant anniversary
for the future of NATO, which period do you think, the 50 days or the 50 years,
will make the most difference to the future of NATO, especially if the
airstrikes do not succeed in fulfilling their objective?
Secretary
General: I think that I don't like to celebrate
specific dates. I think that we have a mission, that the mission is going to
continue until we obtain the objectives. But let me say that the meeting that
we had in Washington not long ago was again a very important meeting, probably
the most important of NATO's history, in which the determination of all the 19
Allies to continue with our campaign until we see it through was total. And let
me also insist that we are not only the 19 countries of the Alliance, but
another 35 countries that belong to the Partnership for Peace, to the EAPC, who
are together with us, with the same aim, with the same goal. Ethnic cleansing
cannot prevail in Europe and we are making in all our capability not only to
stop it but to reverse it. That is my aim, that is our aim.
Dimitri
Khavine, Russian TV: Russian President Yeltsin
made a statement today that if the Russian position wouldn't be taken into
consideration seriously, Russia may withdraw from the negotiating process.
Could you comment on this?
Secretary
General: Well I don't have any comment to make
because as you know we are working together with the Russians in very many
places, in very many institutions, and in particular in the G8 where the
position of Russia, the ideas of Russia are taken into consideration. So I do
hope very much that in the coming days we will continue the diplomatic effort
so that in a few days from now we will move forward the process and we will
have UN Security Council resolution codify the points that were approved in the
meeting of the G8.
Jamie
Shea: We are going to start today with the
briefing by General Jertz of SHAPE on the operational activities during the
last 24 hours and I will come back for the Q and A session.
Major
General Jertz : Thank you Jamie. Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
Before I begin I
want to be clear on one point. At no time during our last 24 hour operations
did we detect any indication that Serb forces were moving out of Kosovo. Let me
therefore re-emphasise once more. All our military actions against Serb
military forces are in accordance with set political guidelines. Our goal is to
degrade Milosevic's military power to a point where he is unable to continue
his brutal policy of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Yesterday we hit his forces in
Kosovo very hard. To give you a better picture on operations conducted in the
last 24 hours, this briefing will be more detailed than usually.
Turning to
yesterday's effort, I will start with a quote from SACEUR's daily video
teleconference held this morning. One of our Field Commanders who we talk to
every day, opened his address by stating: "We have experienced our most
successful day of the campaign." This map shows today's extent of Serb
ground forces and ground activities, noticing that in the Podujevo area it was
less heavy than yesterday, perhaps because of our previous pounding of Serb Air
Forces.
Let me give you a
rundown on our operations in more detail now. Our day started around sunrise
with a streamed package of 36 aircraft, including A10s, GR7 Harriers, Etendard,
AMXs, F16s, Jaguars, CF118s. In the area of Suva Reka we attacked military
vehicles, revetted artillery, dispersed artillery and tanks. At the same time
F16s struck the Kosovska Metrovica radio relay station.
A late morning
package of 32 aircraft, including Tornadoes, Jaguars, F16s, AMX, AV8B Harriers,
returned to the Suva Reka area and repeatedly attacked Serbian forces on the
ground. More tanks, vehicles and troops were struck. In addition some of these
aircraft attacked the Popovac highway bridge and the Nis airfield and petroleum
facility.
The next package
of 30 aircraft following up included F15E, F16, GR7, Etendar, CF18s, and they
struck the Kacak ordnance repair facility, the Juvica radio relay station, the
Kovinbrod highway bridge and Ponikve airfield.
In the early
afternoon, 16 aircraft, including F16s again, CF18s, F15Es, attacked the Savak
army barracks and the Novi Sad radio relay site. During this period F15Es
attacked the highway strip and destroyed 2 MiG 21s on the ground, on the highway
strip.
By mid-afternoon
the next package of 28 aircraft set out with A10s, GR7s, EF18s, Jaguars and
Tornadoes. They continued the attacks against Serbian forces in Kosovo. They
struck self-propelled artillery and vehicles, a tunnel used to store equipment
and munitions, you will recall my earlier discussions of the importance of such
tunnels, and the field command post and other targets in the field, for which
we await details yet.
Early evening marked
the launch of another package of 24 aircraft, including again A10s, F16s,
CF18s, F15Es. They struck ground force targets in the Djakovica area and the
important area around Stimulje. This package also attacked the bridges at
Gerdelica, Kozomaca, Vlarajine highway bridge and the important Kozumilje
highway bridge, a critical line of communication in and out of Kosovo.
Our attacks
continued throughout the night. A midnight package of 38 aircraft, including
F16s, F15s, B1Bs, B52s, CF18s and Tornadoes. They hit strategic targets
including airfields at Obrva and Sunitca, Kupria barracks, Paracin ammo depot,
Kargujevac army factory. This factory is a surface to air missile factory
producing so-called surface to air missile fixers, a very important, very dangerous
weapon. And they also struck bridges at Kuprija, Ucen, Svetose, Revo, Baren and
Maglij, doing considerable damage to the supply routes.
Our early morning
pre-sunrise package of 24 aircraft included B52s, Tornadoes, F16s and CF18s.
They went back again furthest in the field carrying out strikes against the
Junic area and the Simlje area again, and also again against Pristina airfield
and the Kavovo support base.
We know we hit
vehicles, Sam launchers, surface to air missile launchers, armour and not least
3 more MiG 21s on the ground close to Pristina. We also hit other strategic
targets like Rakovica air defence operations centre, Kacarevo tactical
reporting post, Horgos highway bridge, Vrsac radio relay and the Sombor
petroleum production facility.
The range of our
targets engaged once again demonstrated the superb co-ordination of our assets
- strategic surveillance, reconnaissance, early warning, command and control.
This allowed us, with great success, to detect Serbian forces as soon as they started
to move, confirmed their position and attacked them.
Let me give you
one example to the flexibility of air power. A target was confirmed at 1515h by
tactical reconnaissance, its position was verified by a controlling strategic
asset who was able to direct an airborne forward air controller on to the
target. This forward air controller in turn directed A10s on to the target at
1600h, that was 45 minutes from the detection.
Throughout the
day's action we observed 16 surface to air missile shots against our aircraft
again and there was significant anti-aircraft artillery.
I also would like
to mention that all of these packages I have discussed in such detail were only
strike aircraft. Of course you know that there are a lot of supporting air
assets necessary to be successful.
Outside air
assets, NATO personnel are supporting these operations at all levels from the
support aircraft, the engineers, the maintenance personnel, the weapons loaders
and other ground crew, the planners in the operations centres and all of the
others who make it possible to fly these attack missions. I am very pleased to
report again that all Alliance aircraft returned safely to their bases.
As a summary, what
I have given you is only a comprehensive picture of the damage we have done to
the ethnic cleansers inside Kosovo. This was a day in the life of Operation
Allied Force where it really matters, against the forces on the ground. When
the final battle damage assessment is done we will be able to give you more
exact figures of what was hit, but the damage done so far, as you can see, was
considerable.
At the end of this
morning's video conference SACEUR was able to thank his Commanders for what he
called the best day's work of the air campaign so far.
Thank you very
much.
Paul: General, you said it was the most successful day of our campaign.
Why was it that successful today? What military made you do what you haven't
done before?
Major
General Jertz : Well once again the main
reason was that the weather was good again and it was in favour to our
operations, and the numbers of course of sorties we have flown, you have been
told this morning already, are already clear and in the open, the numbers were
about the same level, however these numbers were almost all directed against
Serbian forces in Kosovo which of course is so far our first goal to really hit
them so that they will not be able to continue to do their atrocities.
Patricia
Kelly, CNN: At the 50 day mark NATO has not
achieved its stated goal of forcing President Milosevic to agree to NATO's five
demands. Are you prepared to concede the ineffectiveness of your campaign,
especially in view of reports today quoting western intelligence and defence
specialists saying they now believe President Milosevic has achieved his goal?
Jamie
Shea: Usually incoming governments are given
100 days before they are judged, but if you wish to judge us after 50 days, I
would simply say that the game is not over yet quite frankly and I don't think
we should start writing the history books until the final results are in. I
wouldn't rush to any premature judgment here. We are starting to hit Milosevic
very hard indeed in Kosovo and it is going to get harder, and harder in the
days ahead. General Jertz has just given you a very comprehensive briefing that
makes it clear that we really are now turning our attention not simply to those
who are being killed, but to those who are doing the killing, and we are going
to continue to do this. And the fact that President Milosevic may not have
agreed to the five conditions yet is no logical reason for saying that he won't
agree to them tomorrow or the day after. He will and we are going to keep this
up.
We said right from
the beginning when we started this campaign that it would not be an overnight
wonder. This is not instant coffee. We knew that we were up against a very
cynical person, a very strong military machine, well-dug-in in Kosovo and with
a great array of forces, paramilitaries, military police and so on. Secondly,
we made a decision from the outset that we were not going to use all of the
means at our disposal because we are democracies and we would not resort to the
same barbaric methods of terrorising the civilian population that has
characterised what President Milosevic is doing, but I don't think our public
opinions want us to do that either, and that therefore on this one we would
have to demonstrate a little bit of perseverance, a little bit of patience. But
believe me, we are going to prevail. When the final score is in at full time I can
assure you the result will be that it will be five conditions for NATO and
Milosevic will accept them, that will be the score at the end of the day.
CNN: The second part of the question is a response to these reports
quoting western analysts are saying that Milosevic has achieved what he sought
to in Kosovo?
Jamie
Shea: Obviously it depends on what you
consider are Milosevic's objectives. If his objective is to lay what, about 10%
of his country into a wasteland, if his objective has been to drive out
hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, if that really is what you would
call his objectives then perhaps, but I personally don't think that is a very
productive tally at the end of the day. And no I don't believe frankly that
even if those macabre objectives are the ones that Milosevic is pursuing, that
he has achieved them. The fact that he is still fighting, as General Jertz has
shown, in four significant areas against Kosovar Albanian groups, notably the
KLA, I think shows that he is far from doing that. And when he said the other
day that he was going to have a partial withdrawal of his forces because he had
defeated the KLA, I immediately showed that that is far from the truth indeed,
and we are not going to allow that situation to stand. It is not what President
Milosevic's objectives are that count, it is what our objectives are that count
and we are going to make sure that at the end of the day all of those refugees
are able to go back to their homes. That is the key. I am not interested in President
Milosevic's objectives, I am interested in our objectives and we are going to
fulfil those.
Question: Jamie on parle les derniers jours des efforts diplomatiques qui ont
aboutis à un accord, un texte, du groupe G8. Après, si on veut avoir une
résolution basée sur ce texte, après vous allez insister que Milosevic accepte
cette résolution ou les cinq points de Rambouillet?
Jamie
Shea: Mais c'est -à-dire une résolution du
Conseil de sécurité aura la force du droit international, que President
Milosevic sera contraint de l'accepter, mais comme nous savons, comme nous
savons bien, Milosevic n'a pas accepté les résolutions du Conseil de Sécurité
antérieur du nécessité pour l'OTAN de continuer son opération aérienne jusqu'au
point où il accepte formellement cette fois-ci les cinque conditions
fondamentales de l'OTAN que je suis sûr seront reflété dans une résolution du
Conseil de Sécurité et c'est pourquoi également nous demandons des garanties de
respect de ces cinq conditions dans le retrait de ses forces du Kosovo. Donc
nous voulons qu'il accepte formellement, mais nous voulons également qu'il nous
fournisse des garanties en retirant toutes ses forces du Kosovo.
Mark Laity
(BBC): Accepting that you are saying that you
are hitting them very hard indeed now, you also said that you are starting to
hit them very hard indeed. Would there be some acknowledgement that whatever
results you are achieving now, it has taken you a long time to get there which
would suggest that the start of the air campaign was flawed because you were
hoping President Milosevic would back down very quickly and as a result you
didn't hit him, from a NATO point of view, hard enough early enough?
Jamie
Shea: Mark, General Jertz can give a
specialist answer there but just from the political side let me say that
obviously first of all we had to start with the air defence system, clearly
that was important. NATO military commanders always made it clear that that
would have to be severely degraded and diminished so that we could operate with
relative safety over the skies of Yugoslavia and we never underrated the
capacity of the Yugoslav air defence system.
Secondly, it is
much easier to start having a significant impact against the Serb forces in
Kosovo if you have already cut them off, deprived them of fuel, demoralised
them, cut their lines of communication and reduced their mobility which is what
we have been doing, then they are obviously much easier targets than they would
have been under more normal circumstances. As General Jertz has made clear, we
have also had some bad luck with the weather quite frankly, which has begun to
improve lately but now that the correlation of forces - if I can use that term
- is moving in our favour, it won't stop moving in our favour, it will move
increasingly in our favour and we are going to use that to really strike hard
against those forces until they withdraw so obviously there is more of what we
had last night to come.
Major
General Jertz : Let me just add to what has
been said by Jamie about bad weather. I indicated and also explained yesterday
that the weather could have an effect on fighting capabilities. If we were not
careful about collateral damage of course we could use our weapons in all kinds
of weather but we don't do it because we are not as brutal as Milosevic is and
that is one of the reasons of course why the weather, especially against ground
troops, makes it difficult to achieve the goal and that is why at the beginning
- and we said this right from the beginning and you will recall in my last
briefing - in the first, I would say, two-and-a-half weeks we only had about 13
per cent of favourable weather where we could attack forces on the ground but
this has now improved and as we can see, the command-and-control capabilities
and the mobility of Serb forces in Kosovo have now been severely degraded.
Antonio: One week ago, we came from Bonn with some news about a possible
agreement in diplomatic terms. Can you tell us where we are now concerning this
meeting of Political Directors?
A follow-up
question: how is the bombing of the Chinese embassy and the internal problems
of President Yeltsin affecting this process?
Jamie
Shea: I understand, Antonio, that the G8
Political Directors are going to meet this Friday and start working on the text
of a UN Security Resolution to start dealing with some of the difficult issues
of how we translated our five core objectives into reality on the ground and
they are going to get on with that work.
I don't believe that
the political developments will have a significant impact on the diplomacy, I
hope not. I believe that Russia is now working with us very consistently on
that G8 framework, I think that is going to continue. As you know, Strobe
Talbott is in Moscow and incidentally, Strobe Talbott will also be here on
Friday to consult on his meetings in Russia with the North Atlantic Council, he
should be here if all goes according to plan on Friday morning. President
Chirac is going to Moscow tomorrow and I believe that this co-operation with
Russia is going to stay on track, I think it is in the objective interests of
both sides and I hope it won't be affected by the internal developments.
Certainly those internal developments as announced by President Yeltsin this morning
were not linked to Kosovo. I heard what President Yeltsin said and he said that
they were linked to the internal economic situation.
As for China, I
was encouraged yesterday to see that China is no longer insisting in the UN
Security Council on a resolution condemning NATO even if the Chinese are still
angry, I recognise that. Chancellor Schröder is there today on behalf of the
Alliance and I am certain that he will be successful in convincing the Chinese
that this mistake was that - a mistake and a very bad mistake but nonetheless a
mistake - and it was not the result of any political intention at all. I think
he will appeal to China to put its long-term interest in having peace in Kosovo
in working with the other Security Council members above the short-term
reactions and I believe that will work, I believe that the anger will calm and
that we will be able to work with China in the Security Council. The fact that,
as you know, Mr. Chirnomyrdin came back to Moscow yesterday and said in a press
announcement that the Chinese might be interested in participating in a
peace-implementation force in Kosovo I think is an indication that the Chinese
are looking at this constructively and I believe they will continue to do so.
Question: General Jertz, can you shed some light on the story in Byron,
Albania? Apparently, KLA forces were bombed by a plane yesterday - we got
pictures of that at home - and then the AP this morning said that they had been
bombed by a Yugoslav plane which then crashed or landed on the Albanian side
and the pilots are unheard of. Could you explain the whole incident and what
happened to the plane and what is going on, please?
Major
General Jertz : I have seen the reports about
it and we have some background information on it but we are still investigating
the whole case. Yes, we do have to say that there was one Serb aircraft which
we obviously did not hit early enough to really go airborne attacking troops on
the ground.
Same
Questioner: Inside Albania?
Major
General Jertz : No, according to our
information it was in Kosovo but we are investigating the case and have no more
information on that. I also heard, as you have, that the aircraft was downed
but we do not know who downed it.
Same
Questioner: You do not know who downed it, but
not NATO?
Major
General Jertz : We didn't, no.
Same
Questioner: Do you know where this aeroplane
took off from?
Major
General Jertz : Yes, from what we have found
out so far it was close to Pristina but once again, as it is under
investigation and I would be speculating if I continued to try and explain what
I don't know for sure at the moment. Let me re-emphasise again that there was
one aeroplane, it was not detected early enough so it at least could fly and we
are now reinvestigating how long it was in the air and then I will come back
with the answer but I am not in a position to give the answer now.
Same
Questioner: How is it possible that a plane
taking off in Kosovo could elude the attention of NATO observation means?
Major
General Jertz : You have to bear in mind that
of course there are a lot of own operations (solo operations?) going on and a
lot of own flights (solo flights?) going on and it is a very difficult task to
find out which aircraft would be not of your own force. Of course, we have a
good picture of our aeroplane but once again if it flies very low it is very
difficult from the air - like helicopters which are also very difficult to
identify when flying very flow - so it takes a little while before we find it
out but once again I don't want to speculate on this matter. I have already
make it clear that yes, we do have the reports about this aircraft but no more
information than that.
Same
Questioner: And type of aircraft if I may add
a last question?
Major
General Jertz : I cannot confirm the type of
aircraft yet.
Doug: General Jertz, from your briefing today, it is clear that NATO is
now going in harder and lower against fielded forces in Kosovo. I am told that
the Apaches have completed their training and they are ready to go whenever
President Clinton gives the green light and that SACEUR wants to put them in.
Is this not the time to put the Apaches into the battle or does the heavy
anti-aircraft cannon that you described also on Day 49 still preclude their
use?
Jamie, is there a
sense in the Council that the air war is turning a corner now in the last few
days with the successes against ground forces in Kosovo?
Major
General Jertz : I think I have elaborated on
the Apaches in the last few days because the question comes up every day; give
the boys and girls a chance to be ready to go to war and once they are ready
they will be in and they will be in in time once the masters have decided that
they are ready.
Jamie
Shea: Doug, as to your question, no, I think
the mood in the Council is one of determination. We don't know when we are
going to turn the corner but we know that we will sooner or later, it is as
simple as that but we are not going to give up now, no way, things have gone
too far. We have seen too many atrocities, too many massacres, too many rapes,
too many suffering people to do that. We have an obligation to the Kosovar
Albanians and we are going to keep that obligation.
I think that we
are satisfied that we are now having the type of military impact which will impress
President Milosevic and which will start making him think of how he is going to
get himself out of this crisis and we are going to keep that pressure up. We
have had our setbacks but we have shown that we cannot be blown off course and
at the end of the day that is the most convincing thing, that every time
Milosevic thinks that maybe with a propaganda ploy or a setback he is going to
see cracks in the Alliance, he sees that none of that happens, we take it and
we come back the next day and we continue and I think that is the sense now
that we have shown we can get through a setback or two and we can continue and
that at the end of the day we are going to be successful because of that.
Thomas: The Belgian Army yesterday made public some figures of the
achievements of the operation and there are certain differences between those
figures and what NATO has made public. Is there any explanation of this?
Jamie
Shea: Yes. I saw those figures and my
immediate reaction is that they are old figures and I believe that they are old
figures, they don't correspond to the figures of today.
Question: General, were the planes flying lower last night than they had in
the past, are they using different tactics against the ground forces than have
been used in the past?
Major
General Jertz : Once again, as I have always
said, I am not going into specifics on tactics. We do fly precise weapons and
whenever the circumstances allow it, the aircraft are allowed to fly lower to
make sure that they do attack the right targets.
Alex Nicol
(Financial Times): Could you please give
details of the aircraft that are being deployed to Turkey and Hungary - I
believe there have been announcements about this - the numbers, types of
aircraft and the purpose of the aircraft?
Major General
Jertz : This is still under negotiation, as
you know and I am not going into more detail on that I hope you understand
because it is an issue for the countries involved and there are no aircraft yet
at the present time but the negotiations are ongoing but there is nothing on
specific numbers, type of aircraft, airfields and so on.
Jamie
Shea: Things are slightly further advanced
politically in Hungary. With Turkey, negotiations are still going on but you
have seen already public announcements vis-à-vis Hungary regarding some
tankers, A-10s and F-18s but the exact numbers, as General Jertz says, are
still subject to negotiation as well as the timing and as for Turkey, we will
wait for Turkey to make a public announcement when the time is right.
Jake Lynch
(Sky News): General, it is just over a week
ago that you gave us the estimate, I believe, that NATO had destroyed 20 per
cent of Yugoslav heavy ordnance in the form of tanks and artillery pieces in
the field in Kosovo. I recall you saying that it will be a little before the
full battle-damage assessment of yesterday's raids comes in but a week on from
that assessment, i.e. at this stage yesterday, what had the percentage gone up
to because I recall you saying that that 20 per cent had largely gone in the
previous fortnight and it was accelerating and given that you also offered the
view that once it got to 50 per cent the operational effectiveness of that army
would be effectively removed, that must be close - a week, two weeks?
Major
General Jertz : I am not going into numbers,
days. As long as Milosevic doesn't accept the five points, we just continue
until he does and he might be thinking that he can even fight with only 30 per
cent of his armed forces. When I mentioned 50 per cent, that was of course what
we in the West think brings down the fighting capability but I am not at the
present time in a position to give you the exact total of what we destroyed so
far but I was about to announce that in the near future you will get another
update on the effect of the attacks against forces on the ground so once again
I can refer to what Jamie already said, let's wait until the battle damage of
today's raids is really in our hands and we just have to wait and make sure
that we don't give you figures which might be misleading.
Julie: This question was posed yesterday and I feel the need to ask it
again. It has to do with the impressions that have been created in the
briefings in the past three days, not so much contradictory perhaps but they seem
to be at odds with one another in some way.
On Monday, you
reported diminished Serb activity owed to Allied air strikes that you said had
pinned down the Serbs and taken them out of a lot of the action and that there
were large places across Kosovo where the KLA was providing protection to
hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Then we hear that at a rate of
10,000 a day refugees are still being expelled from Kosovo and at the same time
the Serbs were engaged in intense skirmishes with the KLA. What is the
impression that NATO wants to leave here and what is the most accurate picture
of those two different characterisations?
Major
General Jertz : A conflict like this one is a
very dynamic situation and of course one day might look a little different than
the other one. Once again, I have to reiterate that we are successful because
we are in the air for 24 hours night after night, day after day, we are
pinpointing the assets on the ground, we are going back, they don't have any
place to run, no place to hide any more. However, we still talk about other
forces which are very hard to pinpoint, talking paramilitary because they do
behave like they are normal civilians and they of course do still harm the
Kosovars and that is one of the reasons why we also have to make sure that even
those people are identified.
I hope I didn't
give you the wrong picture in the last few weeks because we are successful, we
are really cutting the capabilities of the Serb forces down and we do see a
decrease in mobility but we were also honest with you that we could not make
sure right from the start that ethnic cleansing would be stopped which we would
have liked to do as you know. Of course there are still people fleeing from
their homes but there might also be other reasons why they flee from their
homes, they might be hungry, they might be afraid of being shot at and so on,
those are other reasons why they do leave their homes and not stay home.
Jamie
Shea: Yes, I agree, that bears out the
assessment that we have on the political side as well, that Milosevic's main
army units are suffering increasing problems, four in particular; the 243rd
Brigade, the 125th, the 252nd and the 211th have been damaged by NATO air
strikes and there we see signs of slowing down, of dispersion to avoid NATO air
strikes and morale problems and the rest but Milosevic as you know, has never
relied purely on his army, he has spent a lot of money in recent years on his
MUP, his special police forces as well, and as the army forces suffer enormous
problems so he relies more and more on those special police forces and on
paramilitary units as well but of course, to the extent that the army is not
able to provide protection for those paramilitary forces in terms of artillery
and tank support, they are going to have a harder and harder time against the
Kosovo Liberation Army and sustained losses and they also of course will be
targeted by NATO as well so I see this as a progressive thing.
We have begun with
the army forces and as I say, the fact that Milosevic is now calling on his MUP
or special police, I think clearly shows that the army is less and less up to
the job here of keeping control in Kosovo and then we will move on to those
special police forces and to those paramilitary forces. The moment we can
oblige the main army to leave Kosovo, then of course the other forces,
particularly paramilitaries, will have no logistic base of support any longer,
they will be forced to leave as well. But it is the easiest thing in the world
for somebody with a gun to go along, knock on the house of a family that don't
have any guns and order them out and that is again the reason why all of these
Serb forces have to leave and they will. As General Jertz says, if the people
are fleeing from Kosovo it is also because they have seen what the Serb forces
can do and of course they want to try to protect themselves as best they can by
seeing refuge in other countries.
Neil: There are reports of stepped-up Serb ethnic cleansing in Montenegro
near the Kosovo border. Are you aware of such phenomena and if you are, does
this pose yet another threat or challenge to NATO?
Jamie
Shea: I reported this some weeks ago, Neil, in
fact even inside Montenegro some villages in the south but I haven't heard, I
must say, in the reports that I have been seeing anything on that in the last
couple of weeks.
Major
General Jertz : On the military side there is
no evidence that something was going on which we had not known before as Jamie
already mentioned.
David
Shukmann (BBC): Jamie, in the last big
campaign of this kind, the Gulf War, after Day 50 the West had achieved its
principal war aim of liberating Kuwait and here we are at Day 50 in this
campaign and the main war aim of making Kosovo safe has obviously visibly not
been achieved. Are you surprised and what do you say to commentators, critics,
including British Opposition politicians in the Conservative Party, who say the
campaign is not working?
Jamie
Shea: David, the fight against Facism in
Europe in the 1940s took six years. Does that mean to say that it was a failure
or shouldn't have been done? No. If the cause is just then the timing is
secondary and this cause is just. Obviously we don't want to take six years and
of course we won't take six years but you cannot, I am afraid, judge success by
times, you judge success by objectives, we are successful because we achieve
our objectives. That is the criteria, not we are successful because we happen
to do it in 24 hours and the other guys last time did it in only 36 hours, no.
I find these
comparisons, quite frankly, of little practical use, all the more so as the
Gulf War was an entirely different type of scenario without refugees for one
thing, in totally different geographical terrain and it was a completely
different type of military operation so what counts for us is getting those
refugees back and if it may take three weeks longer or four weeks longer than
foreseen, it still doesn't matter. You ask the refugees if they would rather
wait for NATO to finish the job and go home and be asked to wait another couple
of days or for NATO to give up now because we haven't performed a 36-hour
wonder and remain in refugee camps for the rest of their lives, I think you are
going to get a very clear answer. Again, it is results that count here. As I
said in reply to CNN, the final score is the score that counts, not the score
at half-time. Thank you very much!
http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990512b.htm