Statement on Kosovo

April 27, 1999

As representatives of the NATO countries meet in Washington to commemorate NATO's 50th anniversary, the world's most successful military alliance is waging the first combat operation in its history.

In the past few weeks, more than half a million KosovarAlbanians have fled their homes or been herded onto trains with little more than the shirts on their backs, simply because of their ethnicity and because they are Muslim. They are struggling to survive in the mud and squalor of camps in Macedonia and Albania, or in third countries.

Families have been torn apart. Men and boys have been taken away and their fate is unknown. Women and girls have been raped. Children have been lost or abandoned. An estimated 3,500 ethnic Albanians have been murdered.

Another half million are said to be displaced inside Kovoso, with little access to food or medicine. It is a humanitarian disaster on a scale not seen in Europe for half a century.

We could debate how we got to this point, about the way the negotiations were handled at Rambouillet and whether Serbian President Milosevic might have refrained from invading Kosovo had the diplomacy been conducted differently.

Legitimate questions have been asked about whether the ultimatum put to the Serbs at Rambouillet, which could have led to the partition of their country, was realistic, fair or sustainable. Many knowledgeable people have said that U.S. officials did not fully understand the history of the former Yugoslavia or the importance of Kosovo to the Serbs, that they seriously underestimated Milosevic, took a bad situation and have made it worse.

We could also ask whether our relations with Russia, which have been badly damaged in recent weeks, could have been managed better, and what role the Russians should be encouraged to play in helping to resolve this crisis.

But after the collapse of the Rambouillet talks, and after Milosevic had ignored dozens of United Nations resolutions, violated every agreement he had signed, continued to slaughter innocent KosovarAlbanians and amassed tens of thousands of troops and armor on the KosovoSerbia border and there apparently is evidence that Milosevic planned the expulsion of ethnic Albanians well before the NATO bombing began we had but two choices:

Do nothing as Milosevic's forces rolled through Kosovo while savagely beating or executing and burning the homes of every man, woman and child who refused his "ethnic cleansing;"

or try to deter him with force.

I favored the latter.

Like so many others who hoped that Milosevic would accept autonomy for Kosovo secured by an international peacekeeping force, I have seen my worst fears realized.

The NATO air attacks have damaged Serbia's military infrastructure, but they have failed to achieve their primary goal: preventing the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

Milosevic's forces have swept through Kosovo burning whole villages, brutalizing and killing civilians, leaving nothing in their wake and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee. It may not be on the scale of Nazi Germany, but it is certainly reminiscent of those days.

Not many people would have anticipated the magnitude of the catastrophe that has befallen Kosovo today. But many people predicted that Milosevic would fight to hold on to Kosovo, and many doubted that air power alone would stop him.

I supported the use of force. But, like many others, I have been disappointed by the way the air campaign has been carried out.

We probably could not have stopped Milosevic's forces from invading Kosovo after the Rambouillet talks collapsed. NATO was unprepared as some 40,000 Serbian soldiers, with tanks, moved into position on the border. And, again, there is evidence that he had already decided to expel the ethic Albanians, figuring that NATO could not stop him and that he could withstand whatever punishment NATO inflicted.

But I certainly expected that we would hit him with enough firepower so that among the first targets bombed would be those Serbian forces, and that we could have prevented the wholesale destruction and slaughter that has occurred. Instead, they encountered almost no resistance as they emptied Kosovo of its inhabitants, destroyed their homes, and achieved complete control over Kosovo in a matter of days the very result we had sought to prevent.

Now Milosevic's soldiers are hiding in the villages and rugged terrain of Kosovo, and NATO faces the far more difficult, dangerous and costly challenge of forcing them to withdraw and creating a safe environment for the refugees to return and rebuild their lives.

Despite claims by NATO and Pentagon officials that they predicted everything, the United States and the rest of NATO were clearly unprepared for the debacle that has unfolded. I suspect historians may not look kindly on the U.S. officials who did not have a contingency plan if Milosevic refused to back down after a few days or weeks of NATO bombing, who seem to have no strategy except more bombing, and who apparently selected their targets by committee.

The fact that NATO leaders have been scrambling to get more aircraft to Kosovo, and that it has taken weeks to put a few Apache helicopters into service there, is perhaps the best evidence of this.

But we should not lose sight of the reasons we are in Kosovo. While the crisis there may one day be remembered, in part, as the result of a series of diplomatic blunders in the Balkans, I believe that today, in the year that is also the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, NATO could not turn its back on the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of defenseless people in the heart of Europe.

The alternative would be to give a green light to Milosevic and other wouldbe Milosevic's, and to severely curtail NATO's future role as an enforcer of international humanitarian law in Europe.

Some have suggested that because we did not act to prevent the slaughter in Rwanda, or in Sierra Leone, or any number of other places, that NATO should not intervene here.

I disagree. In fact, I believe that we and our allies in and outside of Africa should have tried to protect the innocent in Rwanda, where half a million people, in the span of only three months, were murdered because of their ethnicity.

If we have learned anything from that experience and others, it is that by not acting, by allowing genocide to occur, we diminish ourselves and we invite similar atrocities elsewhere.

While we should all condemn Milosevic's actions, we should also feel empathy towards the Serbian people for the abuses that Milosevic has inflicted on them, as well as towards innocent Serbs who have been injured or killed as a result of NATO's actions. Any war, no matter how just, results in civilian casualties, losses we all should mourn.

Yet the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia continue. Contrary to the lies of Serbian officials that the ethnic Albanians who were rounded up and forced to flee were only trying to escape the NATO bombing, the refugees, many of whom saw their relatives murdered and some of whom I have spoken with personally, see NATO as their only hope.

The facts are –

whether or not we believe that diplomacy handled differently might have achieved a different result;

whether or not the NATO military campaign should have been conducted differently once the decision to use force was made;

whether or not the President should have publicly ruled out the use of ground troops;

whether one likes it or not —

we need to recognize the unavoidable fact of which the senior Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, has so consistently reminded us: Our country is the leader of NATO and NATO is fighting a war. Now that we are in it we need to achieve our goals. If we do not stand up to crimes against humanity on this scale, as we and the international community have often failed to do, we will be telling future Pol Pots, and Idi Amins, and Milosevic's that they have nothing to fear.

The outcome of this conflict will determine whether war crimes on a massive scale are rewarded or punished. And it will determine the credibility and future role of NATO.

Let us remember. It is President Milosevic's forces who have systematically destroyed the lives of the people of Kosovo, the very people whom he claims to represent. It is he who has driven them from their homes. It is his forces who are killing, raping and pillaging. It is his forces who are laying landmines where refugees are fleeing.

And let us remember that this is not the first time President Milosevic has laid waste to an entire country. In Bosnia his troops murdered thousands and buried them in mass graves, and uprooted hundreds of thousands, again because of their ethnicity.

We should all be concerned by the damage the NATO military campaign has caused to our relations with Russia.

I am told that the Russian people are united in their anger at the United States like never before since the end of the Cold War.

They have seen their country transformed from a superpower to a crippled giant. They felt that NATO's expansion was unnecessary and an attempt to gain advantage over Russia. They see the air attacks against Serbia as one more example of the unchecked misuse of American power.

I am told that our policy has only strengthened the hardliners in Russia. I am disturbed by the photographs of Russian Prime Minister Primakov coddling President Milosevic. We have also heard threatening statements by President Yeltsin and other Russian officials.

No one can deny the overriding importance of our relations with Russia and the need to find a way for Russia to join with us in trying to resolve this crisis. Perhaps that includes a major role for Russian soldiers in any international security force in Kosovo.

But the fact remains that it would be foolhardy for Russia to become militarily involved in Kosovo. The NATO attacks against Milosevic are not in any way directed at Russia. All of NATO's members are collectively standing up against war crimes in Europe. Russia's longterm economic and security interests are clearly better served by joining with the United States and Europe, rather than casting its lot with the likes of Milosevic.

We must also reflect on the reaction of the Serbian people. For years our policy has failed to account for the complexities of the history of the Balkans, and we are paying a heavy price for that today.

We have a tendency to oversimplify and overpersonalize our foreign policy, to forget that this began as a civil war, and that the Serbian people have suffered, too. But while we know that they also have been victimized by President Milosevic and others, we cannot excuse them for rallying to his defense when all of Europe is united against everything he represents.

While we need not equate Milosevic with Hitler, let us not forget that millions of Germans supported Adolf Hitler. That was hardly a reason not to fight him when so much was at stake.

There is increasing talk, both pro and con, about the deployment of American soldiers as part of a NATO ground force in Kosovo.

As much as I hope that ground troops are not necessary, I felt it was unwise to rule them out because I believe it only emboldened President Milosevic.

Despite the insistence of U.S. and NATO officials, few people believe that this mission can be accomplished by air power alone. The Administration needs a credible plan with realistic goals that is based on policy, not on polls.

What are our goals NATO's goals today? In my mind, they are a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Milosevic's forces from Kosovo, the safe return of refugees secured by an international force, and a political status for Kosovo that can withstand the test of time. Whether that is independence, partition, or autonomy remains to be seen.

And beyond the fate of Kosovo and its people, our goal NATO's goal, is to deter others in Europe who might seek to inflict such atrocities on future generations.

Perhaps the Pentagon can prove the naysayers wrong and accomplish that without ground troops. If NATO, with Russia's help, can find a diplomatic solution, so much the better.

If not, if ground troops are necessary to achieve our goals, we must be prepared. The bulk of those forces should come from Europe, but as the leader of NATO we would be expected to contribute our share. The Administration would need to make a convincing case to the Congress and the American people, including a great deal more clarity and specificity about its goals and strategy, both military and diplomatic, than it has provided thus far. Any use of ground troops should occur only after congressional authorization.

To those who complain that Kosovo is not worth the life of a single American soldier, I would say this: As Americans we cherish the life of every American soldier, and we give our armed forces the best available training and technology to defend themselves. Military missions always involve danger. In this mission, an enormous amount is at stake for the people of Kosovo, for our country, for NATO, and for humanity.

What is the alternative? To turn our backs on ethnic cleansing after taking a principled stand against it? That would be a terrible defeat for the cause of international justice and security. It would be a terrible precedent for us to bequeath to the generations that will follow us in the next century.