Granted, NATO has a lot to spin these days. But as another week passed without a military or diplomatic breakthrough, the disconnect between what NATO briefers say and the reality on the ground grew wider. Alliance spokesmen insist Serb forces are being “degraded,” but reporters have begun to snooze during the daily videos of smart bombs blasting targets–most of them long-deserted buildings.
While the air war was again stepped up last week–raids on Belgrade were the heaviest so far–bombers were said to have destroyed fewer than 50 of the 400 Serb tanks in Kosovo. Many others were hidden or dug in. There was more “collateral damage”; on Saturday jet fighters destroyed a bus near Luzane, Kosovo, killing as many as 35 civilians, Serb officials claimed. Pilots flew the Army’s tank-killing Apache helicopters, but just on training missions, and one crashed in the hills of Albania. Pentagon officials fretted publicly about the strain the war put on Defense Department resources. The diplomacy didn’t hold out much promise–though Slobodan Milosevic scored a publicity coup on Saturday when he said he would turn over three American POWs to the Rev. Jesse Jackson (following story). And while the administration has been pushing Russia as lead mediator–in part to keep lines of communication to Moscow open–Moscow and NATO spent most of the week negotiating with each other over what to say to Belgrade.
Worst of all, the central, brute fact of the conflict remained: that in a campaign ostensibly launched to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, the alliance has done little to stop the mass ethnic cleansing, alleged executions and rapes in Kosovo. When Jamie Shea, NATO’s doggedly optimistic spokesman, once described how an ethnic Albanian refugee said the alliance jets flying overhead “sound like angels,” he elicited a collective groan from reporters. “Everybody’s tired,” said a senior NATO military analyst. “We’re just grinding it out.”
Bill Clinton, meanwhile, was just scraping by. The president’s once lofty approval numbers on Kosovo dropped below 50 percent in the newest NEWSWEEK Poll. On Capitol Hill, too, doubts about the war grew. In a stunning tally, the House deadlocked at 213 on a resolution expressing support for the air war. Clintonites, who had expected to win easily, dismissed the vote as another act of vengeance by Tom DeLay, the GOP whip who was the president’s impeachment nemesis. (DeLay denied marshaling the nay forces.) While the vote was merely symbolic–Clinton is likely to get more money than he needs this week in a Kosovo appropriation bill–a top GOP aide said that “the president’s got a lot of explaining to do up here,” adding, “frankly, his credibility isn’t great.”
Even at the White House there were signs of anxiety behind the usual show of solidarity. At NATO’s request, Clinton abruptly decided Friday to travel to alliance headquarters in Brussels this week for a firsthand briefing. He’ll also fly to Germany to address the ever more dire refugee problem. War-crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour, standing beside Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a briefing Friday, scolded NATO for not arresting indicted war criminals from the Bosnian war. She suggested that Milosevic, as a result, seemed to have little fear for his own hide. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been so close to Clinton that one official calls them “Franklin and Winston,” began to show frustration with the president’s unwillingness to consider a ground invasion. Blair aides fear that the next chance to push Clinton on ground forces may not come until the G-8 meeting in June–but by then it would be difficult if not impossible to wrap up a ground campaign before the mid-October snows. Clinton has opted for a gradual escalation of pressure, including a new U.S. trade embargo.
Questions emerged, too, about another favorite NATO theme at the daily follies: the Serb Army’s “increasing morale problems.” Those were the words of Navy briefer Adm. Thomas Wilson, intelligence director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week. The evidence on the ground was otherwise. “Our Army is more united now and has greater fighting morale. It has the direct backing of the people,” says Miroslav Lazansky, a leading Serbian military analyst. The civilian population seemed just as united. Vuk Dras-kovic, the loose-tongued deputy prime minister who was sacked last week for criticizing Milosevic’s government, told NEWSWEEK that if a ground war comes, he’ll be “one of 10 million soldiers ready to defend the land.”
There was some progress. At the weekend, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said the United States and Russia were slightly closer on a unified peace plan. Milosevic, showing signs of terminal stubbornness, made a minimal concession: he would permit lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers in the besieged province. Letting in NATO peacekeepers, said Goran Matic, the Yugoslav minister without portfolio who has emerged as a government spokesman, “would be capitulation with occupation.” Albright said: “We are not anywhere near a serious proposal.”
The two sides may remain far apart for some time. On the borders, NATO has begun building semipermanent camps for a worst-case total of 1.5 million refugees, nearly double the number now. Milosevic himself seems to be waiting out the bombing to see what Moscow can deliver. “If the Russians hang in there for him, Milosevic has a buffer,” says one senior NATO analyst. “He’s going to accept being pounded while the political game plays out.” It may be a fate he can live with, as long as NATO’s rhetoric fails to match its reality.
