IN THIS MESSAGE: They Call It "Intelligence"; NATO Refuses to Release Evidence
in Bombing Mishap; Italian Fishermen Net Bombs; NATO Bombs Jail Holding KLA
Fighters
Human Error
By Barbara Starr -- ABCNEWS.com
W A S H I N G T O N, May 20, 9:37am PT The United States
mistakenly bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade because an
agent or “human intelligence source” gave NATO the wrong location
for the target.
ABCNEWS has learned that although the intelligence
community had a correct street address for the Yugoslav Federal
Directorate for Supply and Procurement, the agent on the ground in
Belgrade gave the wrong location resulting in the embassy being
bombed.
It turned out that the directorate was about a block away from
the embassy.
This preliminary finding would be particularly damaging to the
entire U.S. intelligence community, which publicly prides itself on
the concept of “all-source intelligence,” a term meaning that nothing
is done without multiple sources of information.
Nothing New
The intelligence community has been wracked by several
intelligence debacles in recent months.
Last year it bombed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan
based on information from another single individual that pointed to
the possible production of chemical weapons material there. That
finding has never been proven.
The intelligence community also missed India’s test of a nuclear
weapon because the Indian government successfully conducted a
deception campaign that kept U.S. intelligence from “seeing”
preparations at the launch site.
They Call it Intelligence
Some of the problems for U.S. intelligence gathering include:
Unused Data. Only a fraction of the imagery and other
intelligence collected around the world is ever looked at and
assessed, based on priorities of the moment.
Computer Databases. They are woefully outdated in some
sectors.
Not Enough Spies. Use of actual human beings at critical
locales rather than electronic eavesdropping and other
mechanical techniques is limited and many in the
intelligence community feel has been overlooked in recent
years.
Satellites. Many feel that the emphasis on intelligence
collection by satellites, which can only observe from miles
away and which can sometimes be fooled is at least
somewhat misplaced.
Who Targets? Selection of targets traditionally has been a
military function. It is now increasingly being handled
politically.
Until now, much of the public discussion about the Belgrade
bombing attack has focused on whether the National Imagery and
Mapping Agency (NIMA) provided an outdated city map in which the
Chinese Embassy was located in another part of town.
But new emerging details clearly point to a more significant
series of intelligence problems.
‘Process Was Truncated’
A senior U.S. defense official said the directorate began to be
considered as a target in early April.
He also revealed that while the Yugoslav weapons agency is
publicly identified as being involved in the arms industry, there is
also evidence it was directly involved in possible programs to
develop weapons of mass destruction with other nations.
When U.S. intelligence agencies and NIMA began considering
striking the weapons agency, they first looked at their own
intelligence. No information in their computers corroborated its
exact location but the site provided by the agent was bombed
nonetheless.
Several critical steps in the highly detailed targeting process
were bypassed in the stepped-up pace of targeting central Belgrade.
“The process was truncated,” said the defense official. “People
that should have been consulted may not have been.”
Lack of a Good Map
The senior official says the NIMA mapmakers did not take on the
role of identifying the actual location. Instead, NIMA provided
imagery of the location already determined. NATO fighters then
targeted that incorrect location.
While critics of the embassy bombing claim a tourist map can
be purchased in Belgrade for $2.98 showing the location of the
Chinese Embassy, the official contended the United States has yet
to locate a single map which accurately marks the embassy
location.
The Chinese Embassy moved about three years ago from “old”
Belgrade, across the Danube River into a newer section of the city.
While the Belgrade telephone book had the correct address, the
capital’s streets are often randomly and haphazardly numbered,
making locating address difficult.
However, many U.S. officials had visited the new Chinese
Embassy but failed to report the new location to the U.S.
intelligence community so it could update its information. If that had
happened, planners may have found the mistake before the attack.
Learning from Mistakes
In the days since the bombing, several changes have occurred to
avoid a repeat of the mistake that killed three Chinese nationals.
Two new maps have been produced detailing dozens of locations
of every diplomatic site in and around Belgrade.
And U.S. intelligence will now require that there be more than
one source of target location information for any sensitive site.
The ongoing U.S. intelligence investigation of the May 7 mishap
is scheduled to wrap up next month.
Copyright 1999 ABC News Internet Ventures
==========================================
NATO Won't Release Korisa Evidence
By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 21, 1999; Page A26
BRUSSELS, May 20When NATO precision-guided bombs
killed scores of ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo town of Korisa,
alliance spokesmen blamed the deaths on Yugoslav authorities,
claiming they had used the refugees as "human shields" by
forcing them to spend the night next to a military command post
and artillery bunker.
But a week after the embarrassing mishap, NATO's military
command announced today that it will not release surveillance
photographs and summaries of intercepted radio transmissions
to back up its claim that the site was a "legitimate military target."
"Everything that's going to be released on that has been
released," said Capt. Steven Warren, a spokesman for Gen.
Wesley K. Clark, NATO's military commander.
The Yugoslav government said 87 refugees were killed, making
the attack the deadliest NATO assault of the war in civilian
casualties. The victims were part of a group of several hundred
refugees who had been hiding in the Kosovo hills for 10 days.
After the bombing, several members of the group said they had
been directed by Serbian police to spend the night at an
agricultural cooperative. Contrary to the assertion of military
spokesmen here and at the Pentagon, however, the refugees
said they saw no signs that the compound was being used as a
local military or police command center. Nor did they report
seeing any of the artillery pieces that NATO claimed were
destroyed in the attack.
A Washington Post reporter who visited the scene and talked to
survivors a day after the attack also reported seeing no evidence
of a recent military presence or bombed military equipment.
NATO spokesmen have suggested Yugoslav authorities removed
military equipment from the scene before Western reporters
arrived.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
=============================================
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Fishermen Net NATO Bombs
Jettisoned Payloads Pose Threat off Italy
By Sarah Delaney
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, May 21, 1999; Page A27
ROME, May 20Italian fishermen plying the Adriatic Sea are
afraid that in their daily catch of scampi, scallops and squid they
might haul up small yellow canisters that could blow up in their
faces.
Last week, the captain and two sailors on the Profeta, a fishing
vessel from the port of Chioggia, were seriously injured when a
canister pulled up in a pile of flapping fish exploded and sent
shrapnel flying across the deck.
These gifts from the sea, courtesy of NATO, are the unused
bombs that pilots returning to Italian bases from air raids over
Yugoslavia sometimes have to dump before landing. Since the
air campaign began on March 24, more than 100 of them have
been picked out of the nets of fishing boats working in the
uppermost part of the Adriatic, near Venice.
NATO has designated six areas in international waters between
Italy and the coasts of Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece
for the disposal of unexploded bombs. Some have been in place
since 1995, when the alliance conducted bombing missions over
Bosnia.
The problem was, however, that NATO did not inform the Italian
government or authorities at the ports that are home to the
fishermen who trawl the sea for a living.
Italy demanded an explanation from NATO, which finally came
Monday when alliance spokesman Jamie Shea said that, while
NATO units were aware of the practice, the government had not
been informed. NATO Secretary General Javier Solana
telephoned Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema to say that
there had been a "breakdown" in communication.
During a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels today, D'Alema
received detailed reports on the location of jettisoned bombs and
secured a commitment that mine-sweeping forces would be sent
to the Adriatic to join an Italian mine-sweeper, the Sapri.
"We can now fully assess the level of danger, which has clearly
alarmed the Italian public," D'Alema said afterward.
The jettisoned bombs have not been limited to the Adriatic. In
April, a pilot was forced to release five unexploded bombs in
Lake Garda in northern Italy before making an emergency landing
at Aviano Air Base.
In the meantime, the 3,000 to 4,000 fishermen who work from
Chioggia are keeping off the water. Fishermen from the port city
of Ancona also have stayed in, and there were angry protests
from fishermen in the city of Rimini.
Massimo Coccia, president of the commercial fishing
organization Federcoopesca, said his and other organizations
have warned fishermen to stay away from the designated areas.
"We don't know how many bombs are out there, or what kind," he
said, adding that they would ask the government to set up a fund
to offset economic losses.
Coccia said that all along the coast of the southern region of
Puglia, where four of the designated areas are found, fishing
revenues already have sunk by about 20 percent since the air
campaign began.
In Chioggia, fishermen are mending their nets and performing
maintenance on their boats. "We want to know how long our
fishermen are going to have to stay off the sea. And how will we
know when all the bombs are found?" asked Mayor Fortunato
Guarnieri. "We have the second-largest fishing fleet in Italy. Who
is going to pay for our losses?"
Gimmi Zennaro, 38, who as Profeta's captain was wounded in
the leg, chest and hand by flying shrapnel from a small cluster
bomb, said the men in his family have been fishermen for
generations. He started fishing with his father when he was 14.
Now he is afraid and thinks others should be too.
"Only someone who really knows the sea understands what it can
do to an armament that light. It can push it miles away in just one
storm," Zennaro said in a telephone interview.
"I'm alive by a miracle. All NATO had to do was tell us and we
could easily avoid those areas. How long did they think they could
keep something like this secret?" he asked.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
============================================
NATO Bombs Said to Kill 19 People
By Katarina Kratovac
Associated Press Writer
Friday, May 21, 1999; 11:13 p.m. EDT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- NATO bombed a Kosovo jail six
times Friday, killing at least 19 people and injuring scores in the
initial strikes, Yugoslav media reported. A new tide of Kosovo
refugees riding tractors poured across Yugoslavia's southern
borders into Albania -- breaking a weeklong lull.
NATO officials said bombers were targeting a ``security
complex'' in the town of Istok but had no word on casualties.
Alliance bombers rained missiles in daylight across Serbia and
returned in the evening. Planes roared over Belgrade late Friday
and early Saturday, and heavy anti-aircraft fire resounded across
the capital. There was no immediate word on casualties or
damage.
Belgrade and nine other cities were dark early Saturday as
NATO jets dropped carbon bombs short-circuiting wires that
conduct electricity, Yugoslav media reported. Earlier this month,
the alliance started using the special cluster bombs that disperse
carbon filaments across wires that conduct electricity,
short-circuiting the transformers.
Two missiles also hit Kolubara power plant, 20 miles southwest
of Belgrade, injuring nine employees there, private Pancevo
radio reported.
Many in the wave of 3,700 refugees spoke of Serb security
forces banging on their doors and ordering them to immediately
leave their homeland. President Slobodan Milosevic blamed the
``NATO aggressor'' for the mass exodus of hundreds of
thousands of ethnic Albanians.
After days of reports of mass desertions by Yugoslav army
reservists, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said troops who
showed up in two central Serbian towns this week were just
``regular soldiers returning home'' as part of a reduction of Serb
forces in Kosovo.
``There are no desertions,'' Nebojsa Vujovic said.
Some 400 army reservists returned this week to Aleksandrovac
and Krusevac, saying they would not go back to the front-line,
said news reports in Montenegro, the republic that along with
Serbia forms Yugoslavia.
Montenegro's government opposes Milosevic and his
confrontation with NATO over Kosovo, a secessionist-minded
province in southern Serbia.
The United States says it has reports of large-scale desertions
by Yugoslav army reservists. There have also been accounts of
anti-war demonstrations by soldiers.
In the Montenegrin town Cetinje, 5,000 people -- almost one-third
of the population -- on Friday protested the recent Yugoslav army
reinforcements around their city and demanded the military
withdraw.
``We are here to ask loudly what these people in fatigues are
doing in our city,'' Mirko Dapcevic declared to huge applause.
The demonstration was one of the first and certainly the biggest
protest against the Yugoslav army in Montenegro.
In Serbia, NATO airstrikes repeatedly blasted the Dubrava jail at
Istok in northwestern Kosovo. Serb officials said the
1,000-inmate prison held mainly supporters of the rebel Kosovo
Liberation Army. NATO officials in Brussels, Belgium, said a
``security complex'' was the focus of attacks and didn't explain
why a jail might have been hit repeatedly.
Western reporters accompanying the first U.N. mission to
Kosovo since the start of the 8-week air campaign saw seven
bloodied corpses covered by blankets in the jail's grassy
courtyard, shrapnel-pocked buildings, and nervous-looking
guards with automatic weapons keeping prisoners at bay.
One prisoner called out, ``Help us! There are a lot of wounded
back there!'' and a guard replied, ``OK, bring them all into the
hall. We've called an ambulance, but the road is bad.''
Milosevic, in a statement after meeting a Greek parliamentary
delegation, reiterated demands for an end to NATO bombings.
NATO's other ``big crime,'' he added, ``is the mean accusation
against our country for the exodus of Albanians from Kosovo,
although it is well known that the movement of Albanians and
other residents in Kosovo from their homes was caused by the
bombing.''
NATO's peace demands include a total withdrawal of Milosevic's
40,000 troops and special police from Kosovo and the
deployment of an international peacekeeping force with NATO at
its core. Milosevic opposes both conditions.
In Kosovo, NATO bombs killed one person late Friday in an
attack on the center of Djakovica, 40 miles from the provincial
capital, Pristina, the media said.
Seven people, including four children, were injured when bombs
slammed into fuel storage tanks -- for the seventh time in the
campaign -- and a TV and radio transmitter in Smederevo, 30
miles southeast of Belgrade, Tanjug, the state-controlled news
agency, reported.
Yugoslav media reported attacks later Friday on bridges and on
several Serbian towns, including Uzice, central Serbia, Pozega
in the southeast, and Bor, in the east, where bombs hit factories
and fuel depots, sending smoke billowing across the town.
In Bonn, Germany, envoys from seven Western nations and
Russia failed to reach agreement on a draft resolution backing
NATO's five main terms for ending the conflict.
In Moscow, the other center of diplomatic activity, Russia's
Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin abruptly canceled meetings.
Officials close to the negotiations could not offer a reason but
said they did not think the talks were in trouble. Russia opposes
the NATO air campaign.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, meanwhile, met in
Moscow with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou and
U.N. envoy Carl Bildt.
Talbott and the Finnish president who has become an
intermediary in the talks over Kosovo are to return next week to
Russia, which has religious and cultural ties to Serbia.
They met for more than seven hours late Thursday and early
Friday at a government retreat outside Moscow with
Chernomyrdin for what Talbott described as ``constructive'' talks.
In New York, Russian U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov warned
that the alliance's intensified bombing campaign and civilian
casualties were making peace negotiations more difficult.
But British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Russia realizes
that a peace agreement means getting Milosevic to accept an
international peacekeeping force in Kosovo with a strong NATO
role.
``We've closed the gap enormously with movement from Russia,
because Russia was uncomfortable that it was so isolated,''
Cook said in an interview with the United States' Public
Broadcasting Service. ``It found it was just about the only country
in the world ... solidly with Milosevic.''
Some 800,000 ethnic Albanians have fled Kosovo, mainly to
Albania and Macedonia, since NATO airstrikes started March
24.
About 2,000 people died in Kosovo from February 1998 until
NATO intervened.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
