The Clinton administration began preparing the nation for military action in the Balkans on Thursday as the Kosovo crisis headed for a showdown over Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s rejection of a peace accord with ethnic Albanian rebels fighting for control of the province.
“NATO will act,” warned White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. But when that might happen remained unclear.
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, co-chairmen of an on-again, off-again peace conference, were expected to suspend the talks Friday. Some reports indicate they might give Milosevic more time– possibly until Wednesday–to reconsider his stance and perhaps capitulate to NATO demands.
As they promised, the ethnic Albanian Kosovars signed the NATO-sponsored peace plan Thursday in Paris. The pact would grant them semi-independence from Milosevic’s regime.
But the ethnic Albanians were the only signatories in a largely hollow ceremony. Milosevic stubbornly ignored NATO entreaties and threats and forbade his representatives at the Paris talks to sign the accord. The Russian mediator, Boris Mayorsky, also refused to sign, even as a witnessing member of the European contact group organized for the peace effort.
A defiant Milosevic, meanwhile, pressed ahead with his deployment of tanks and troops in and around Kosovo, where the Kosovo Liberation Army has been waging a guerrilla war against Serbian rule since early last year.
Serb military leaders also said they would respond to any attack by NATO by launching their own offensive against the rebels.
Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon warned that the peace talks were in “their terminal stages.”
The U.S. “strongly” urged Americans to leave Yugoslavia because of the possibility of NATO military action. Though no timetable has been announced, an air attack would not be expected before the middle of next week.
Complicating matters will be the visit of Russian Premier Yevgeny Primakov to Washington on Tuesday for a State Department conference. Russia is opposed to an attack on Serbia, and a bombing assault while Primakov is the guest of the United States could be viewed as provocative and a diplomatic affront.
But this time, diplomats insisted, NATO was issuing its last ultimatum to Milosevic.
“Belgrade’s security forces are stepping up their unjustified and aggressive actions in Kosovo,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said after briefing Congress. “And if Belgrade (Serbia’s capital) doesn’t reverse course, the Serbs alone will be responsible for the consequences.”
Many in Congress oppose American participation in actions against the Serbs, in part because Serbian air defenses are formidable and there is a significant danger of U.S. aircrews being killed or captured and used as hostages in the dispute.
In Senate hearings Thursday, Gen. Charles Krulak, the Marine Corps commandant, called the air operations “tremendously dangerous.”
Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a Serbian-American, said he thinks Milosevic wants the U.S. and NATO to launch airstrikes.
“They will only help prop him up in power,” Blagojevich said. “The Serbian people will look to him as a savior . . . I think the Clinton administration and the State Department are being terribly shortsighted in this. Milosevic is the problem. The administration’s plan doesn’t eliminate the problem. It makes it worse.”
Blagojevich urged the administration to concentrate on strengthening democratic opposition to Milosevic within Serbia.
Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. and other NATO commanders have selected Serbian targets to hit with sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and aerial precision missiles and bombs. “They will be able to do that very quickly,” he said.
“The military planning is complete,” Lockhart said, adding that the NATO objective will be to “attack and degrade” Milosevic’s ability to wage war against Kosovo’s Albanians, who are 90 percent of the province’s population.
But U.S. planes would be operating over rugged, mountainous terrain, in changeable weather and against modern, sophisticated air defenses, including surface-to-air-missiles and radar-controlled anti-aircraft artillery.
President Clinton sent Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen, National Security Adviser Samuel “Sandy” Berger and Gen. Henry Shelton, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, to the Senate on Thursday afternoon to closed-door briefings. Late in the day, it was announced that Clinton would meet Republican and Democratic congressional leaders Friday at the White House to discuss the crisis and other foreign policy issues.
Congressional opposition to American involvement in the Kosovo conflict has been gaining momentum, especially over using some 4,000 U.S. ground troops as part of a 28,000-strong NATO peacekeeping force under British command.
After a bipartisan group of senators met with the administration officials, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced that he will seek a vote next week on a bill that would deny funds for deploying troops in Kosovo without congressional authorization.
The senator’s spokesman said an amendment to a supplemental spending bill by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) lending qualified support to a troop deployment is being withdrawn to allow the vote to be on denial of funding.
If Democrats object to bringing up the bill, the Senate would need 60 votes to override them. Even if this happens, the Lott spokesman said, Republicans would achieve their objective of debating the possible deployment in public.
Gen. Michael Ryan, the Air Force chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Serbian military has state-of-the-art air defenses and that the U.S. runs a heavy risk of casualties or having American aircrews become prisoners or hostages of Milosevic.
“There is a distinct possibility we will lose aircraft in trying to penetrate those (Serbian air) defenses,” he said.
“We stand on the verge of a significant expansion of what has become a semipermanent U.S. military presence (in the former Yugoslavia),” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) complained in a hearing Wednesday. “The situation in Kosovo, though tragic, does not directly threaten U.S. security and therefore does not warrant the introduction of U.S. ground forces.”
“For six centuries, Kosovo has marked the confluence of three vastly different cultures,” said Blagojevich, who opposes the use of ground troops as well as airstrikes.
“Since the first battle of Kosovo in 1389, these cultures–Western, Slavic and Islamic–have clashed violently at this very spot . . . Placing U.S. troops in the midst of this conflict will not bring an end to the killing, but instead draw Americans into it.”
