WASHINGTON -- With Yugoslav forces close to defeating rebel forces in Kosovo and President Slobodan Milosevic expected to declare peace, President Clinton and NATO leaders vowed yesterday to press ahead with its ever-expanding bombing campaign "until we prevail."
After several days of mixed messages, the United States and Britain adopted a coordinated tougher line yesterday, heartened by a weekend of successful airstrikes, improved weather and polls showing public support for the campaign.
"Our position is to persist until we prevail," declared President Clinton, promising an "undiminished, unceasing and unrelenting" air campaign.
The president seemed more confident than he appeared to be Friday, when he said he "still" believed "we have a good possibility of achieving our mission."
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told reporters, "There has been speculation that when President Milosevic believes he has done enough damage to Kosovo, he will announce peace in Kosovo, and ask NATO to halt its military campaign.
"I tell him now, don't bother offering peace unless you are prepared to reverse the ethnic cleansing of the war. Peace is Kosovo without the population of Kosovo would be a hollow mockery."
White House aides said the new tone was in part a reflection of the changing military outlook.
Last week, administration officials were growing exasperated by persistent questions from thepress and commentators, whom aides saw as overly eager for a quick, decisive victory.
Supporters of airstrikes feared that such questions, coupled with the television images of a sea of miserable refugees and the battered faces of captured American servicemen, would quickly sour the public on any engagement in the Balkans.
A Newsweek poll conducted late last week found that 51 percent of Americans believe the capture of the three soldiers should toughen the U.S. military response; 16 percent disagreed.
A CBS poll taken Thursday found that only 9 percent favored easing military pressure. Nearly 80 percent said the military should keep up the airstrikes or escalate its attacks.
Far from turning public opinion against the war, the images of suffering and captured soldiers may have boosted public support for the air campaign, said a senior Senate foreign policy aide close to the White House.
Meanwhile, NATO plans more intensified attacks against the Yugoslav army troops and police units directly involved in committing atrocities in Kosovo, with additional warplanes from the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt expected to take part in strikes beginning today.
Until now, attacks have mostly been against supply lines, staging areas and headquarters for those forces.
"We're going to bring a lot of heat down," said one NATO military officer.
Fuel depots are targets
Early this morning in Yugoslavia, NATO planes and missiles targeted fuel depots, bridges and army barracks throughout the country on the 13th night of airstrikes.
Two strong explosions were heard late last night in the northern city of Novi Sad, the official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said.
Serbian television showed pictures of a massive fireball.
Pentagon intelligence reports say Milosevic has all but defeated the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Yugoslav operation in Kosovo could end in about five days.
By forcing hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians into neighboring countries and destroying their homes, the reports say, Milosevic also is destroying any support base for the KLA in the province.
Some KLA forces appear to be regrouping in Albania.
Despite Milosevic's success in the field, the allies reiterated their demands for an autonomous Kosovo to which refugees could return.
Cease-fire is expected
Officials predicted that Milosevic will shortly announce a cease--fire and try to negotiate a deal with moderate Kosovo leader Ibrahim Rugova, since Milosevic is rapidly approaching his own goal of driving out Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and suppressing the rebels in the KLA.
But the United States and Britain rejected the idea of a cease-fire called by Milosevic. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said that would only produce a "phony peace deal."
People's resolve is being stiffened by the horrifying news, said Rubin: "It's making clear that the refugee crisis is not a result of the bombing but the reason for the bombing."
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon was asked whether NATO would continue to bomb should Milosevic complete his mission of defeating the KLA and clearing out all ethnic Albanians.
"Milosevic may think he's finished," said Bacon. "We will not be finished."
The Pentagon conceded that the unrelenting Yugoslav attacks supported by tanks and artillery are having an impact on the KLA, which is lightly armed.
But there are still "pockets of resistance," it said, particularly in the western portion of the province.
"Despite the magnitude of the brutality, it is taking [Milosevic] longer than he anticipated," Bacon said.
While the ethnic cleansing is drying up the KLA's support base, Bacon said, "a lot of recruiting" is taking place outside Kosovo.
Military officials also point to the additional firepower heading into the region to take on the Yugoslav troops, which number about 20,000 inside Kosovo and another 20,000 poised outside the province.
They are supported by hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces. In addition, there are an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 special police joining the army troops in the fighting.
The USS Roosevelt has 72 support and attack aircraft. There are 13 additional radar-evading F-117 Nighthawk fighters, which recently arrived.
Yesterday NATO gave its military commander the authority he sought to send 24 U.S. Apache helicopter gunships to Albania, with surface-to-surface missiles and about 2,000 American soldiers who will use them to attack Serbian forces in Kosovo.
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana also got approval for the deployment from the Albanian authorities, officials said.
That air power will expand a NATO air armada that now numbers about 450 aircraft.
Debate, not division
Yesterday, Clinton and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen also mounted a defense against hints that there was division between military and civilian leaders. Some reports have suggested that Clinton was warned by top military officers that both air power and ground troops would be necessary to defeat Milosevic's forces.
Clinton and Cohen insisted that while there was debate, there was no division. Cohen said the debate involved the efficacy of air power against a country with chronically poor weather, a rugged terrain and a strong air defense system.
But, Cohen and Clinton said, once Milosevic began his offensive against Kosovo, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were unanimous that the air war was the only option other than doing nothing.
"We have a lot of tough questions to answer about this operation," Clinton admitted.
"But I would far rather be standing here answering these questions than I would to be standing here having ethnic cleansing and the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees and not lifting a finger to do anything."
The Pentagon also said yesterday that it has yet to have any direct communication with the three U.S. Army soldiers who were captured Wednesday as they patrolled along the Macedonian-Yugoslav border.
"We are trying to communicate through Sweden, which is our representative power. And the Yugoslavs have refused to deal with Sweden," said Bacon.
But Bacon said it was "encouraging" that the Yugoslav government announced that the Americans will be treated as prisoners of war.
That status means they will be entitled to humanitarian treatment under the Geneva Convention.
The Yugoslav government also said the soldiers would not be tried and would be released after the end of hostilities.
Meanwhile, the first of tens of thousands of Kosovar refugees began leaving the crowded and filthy camps in Albania and Macedonia for other countries yesterday. Some 1,360 refugees arrived in the Turkish town of Corlu, the first of 20,000 destined for Turkey.
About 20,000 refugees are expected to be accepted by the United States and might be sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. officials are still trying to determine how those refugees will be transported, saying they probably will be flown to the naval base, possibly on charter flights.
Sun staff writer Mark Matthews contributed to this article.
Pub Date: 4/06/99