Getting Both Clark and Kosovo Wrong
Hero and Soldier
The New Yorker today did a story on General Wesley Clark and his tenure at NATO during the war in Kosovo. The story is interesting, more for what it doesn't say than for what it does.
The general thrust of the story is that Clark was an overeager warmonger who miscalculated the war in Kosovo and made enemies in the Pentagon and the White House by going over their heads or behind their backs in order to get things done. Numerous quotes are dragged up to buttress the author's weak case, most of them have already been used but the character assassination by Gen. Hugh Shelton is again brought into the light, and once more paraded around without any further backup or questioning for the reasons behind the statement, which Shelton has refused to elaborate on.
The author, Peter Boyer, is almost 100% wrong when he states that the reason the war in Kosovo ended was because "The Russians, who had been supporting the Serbs, backed away from Milosevic, and the Serbs agreed to withdraw from Kosovo." This is incorrect. The Russians did inform Milosevic that they were withdrawing their support for him while at the same time providing him with evidence that American, Italian and German combat engineers were strengthening the road from Tirana in Albania to the border with Kosovo to support an armed land invasion. This, coupled with intense NATO bombing of the Serbian capitol of Belgrade is what led Milosevic to withdraw from Kosovo.
Wes Clark was correct when he urged the Pentagon to increase the pressure on the Serbs by planning for a land invasion and by targeting Belgrade itself. The Serbs until that point had been sure they could outlast NATO and were buttressed by statements from President Clinton that there would be no use of ground troops. Their thinking was that they could hunker down and outlast the fracticious NATO alliance, and they were almost right. The deciding factor in bringing about a Serbian withdrawal was Clark's insistence on the preparation for planning a ground war and his push for wider targeting of the FRY's (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) command and control structure (Washington Post).
Much has been made of Clark's working to strengthen his case for a ground invasion in Kosovo against the wishes of the Jt. Chiefs and others at the Pentagon. This isn't a liability in anyway. Clark was the SACEUR of NATO and as such it was his role to argue for a successful conclusion to NATO's first war. It was as a result of his pressure and pleading that the preparation for a ground invasion began and which led to the Serbian withdrawal from NATO and the ultimate ending of the Milosevic regime.
Those at the Pentagon that carp and complain about Clark are ignoring the fact that the war was successful and all its goals were achieved, without the loss of a SINGLE American life. Clark did what was necessary to ensure the success of his mission despite the objections of his compatriots. In that regard and so many others he is a true American hero who will make a spectacular American President.
1:54:31 PM 
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