WASHINGTON -- Operation Horseshoe didn't turn out the way NATO expected.
NATO intelligence calculated that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's mission against Kosovo would cut a horseshoe-shaped swath through the province, drawing in all the historical and cultural sites prized by the Serbs, according to congressional and administration officials.
Both the U.S. military and the intelligence communities believed the ethnic Albanians would be forcibly removed, cast from this prime territory into other parts of the province, the officials said.
But Milosevic's troops weren't settling for a mere horseshoe. They raged through much of Kosovo, pushing more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians out of the province and into surrounding countries, doubling the number of anticipated homeless. The result -- the worst European refugee crisis since World War II -- quickly overwhelmed relief efforts and even impeded NATO's military operations.
Relief workers, lawmakers and officials from the State Department and NATO agree: The West failed to anticipate the vast scale and the sheer speed of the refugee disaster and did not move quickly enough with needed assistance.
At NATO, it wasn't until last weekend that the decision was made to use military forces to handle the complicated and far-flung logistics required by the refugee crisis. Before that, "it was anticipated that NGOs [nongovernmental organizations, private relief groups] would be able to handle the outflow," a NATO diplomat said.
"It doubled the effort. It meant NATO has had to organize a humanitarian operation at the same time we're conducting an air campaign," the diplomat added.
Rep. Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican and one of 11 lawmakers who accompanied Defense Secretary William S. Cohen on a trip to the region last week, was disturbed by what he found.
"They were not prepared for the humanitarian disaster," he said. Once the bombing started, Buyer said, "they never thought [Milosevic] would continue ethnic cleansing."
Rep. Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican, who made his own trip to Albania last week, called the flood of refugees "a catastrophe that should have been anticipated."
"Ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo are now paying a heavy price for [NATO's] not anticipating that," said Wolf. "The overall relief effort was late in getting started, is slow in coming up to speed and, thus far, is overwhelmed by the vast number of refugees."
Catherine Robinson, a relief worker in Albania with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, said late last week that there has been little coordination between the military and relief organizations. "I can't say any military assistance has really been [offered] to the relief agencies," she said, adding, "We could use it."
Relief agencies appear to have been lulled into the same flawed optimism that policy makers were.
"We expected Milosevic to back down, and if there was an influx, we thought it wouldn't happen this fast," Robinson said. "The scale of the crisis has caught everyone off guard."
A year ago, during Milosevic's last offensive in Kosovo, relief agencies steeled themselves for more than 100,000 refugees moving out of Kosovo. Instead, only 20,000 actually fled Kosovo.
Last Thursday, more than two weeks into the war, at least 40 agencies -- from giant Catholic Relief Services of Baltimore to tiny European church groups -- finally held a coordination meeting to organize efforts in Albania.
A top State Department official acknowledged that the Clinton administration was caught off guard by the volume of refugees.
"We didn't know there would be a conscious effort to drive out one-third of the population in such quick order," said Julia Taft, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. In such crises, "the very first few days are always chaotic. There are always people on the ground who don't know how to organize."
But some relief workers complained that it took 10 days after the bombing began before the Pentagon announced humanitarian goods would be shipped to the region. That day, April 3, a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane with a shipment of daily food rations lifted off from Dover, Del. It was the first of about 500,000 requested rations, a request that has now increased to 1.1 million.
A former State Department official who follows Balkan affairs faulted the administration for failure to have a humanitarian relief plan ready, with prepositioned supplies, when its whole Balkan policy was based on the fear that war could spill over from Yugoslavia and destabilize the region.
He complained that more than 10,000 NATO peacekeepers in Macedonia were kept idle while a huge humanitarian catastrophe developed in the country.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon insisted that the administration had anticipated the possibility of a humanitarian problem.
But, he acknowledged: "That's not to say that we knew exactly how it would unfold or the speed with which it would unfold."
The estimates of the refugee problem were low. CIA Director George Tenet told senators in February that heavier fighting in Kosovo would result in a humanitarian crisis "possibly greater" than last year's, which displaced 250,000 Kosovars, including the 20,000 who fled the province.
Bacon said the United Nations had already stockpiled food in the region, enough to feed 100,000 refugees for a day. "The fact of the matter is that there had been provisions made. That doesn't mean you don't have to ship in more," he said.
Asked last week if the Pentagon understood how prepared the international relief agencies were, Navy Capt. Steve Pietropaoli, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "It is not principally our responsibility to know how well prepared they are."
But the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the lead international agency on the Kosovo crisis, always turns to the military for help once it is overwhelmed by a situation. Panos Moumtzis, a spokesman for the UNHCR, said the agency had enough food stockpiled in the region to feed 350,000 refugees.
"We are now in the worst-case scenario, about 650,000 outside the borders," Moumtzis said late last week. "The needs are outside the ability of a relief organization. You need an army."
Lt. Col. Bill Darley, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday that the military is accelerating the movement of food, clothing and shelter to the region. Darley said all 1.1 million daily rations are expected to reach the region by tomorrow. Additional meals, trucks, tents, clothing and water have been shipped.
Darley said part of the delay rises from the lack of roads and airport space in both Albania and Macedonia. The airport in Tirana can only accept one C-17 and two C-130s at a time.
NATO is building another airstrip in Albania, said Brian Atwood, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who was named coordinator of all relief for Kosovo last week.
In addition, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has asked NATO to provide road-building equipment to shore up the only main road running from the capital Tirana to the Kosovo border. Heavy use of the road has opened huge potholes, according to relief workers.
"It does take time to sort out some of the logistical problems you face," said Atwood. On Albania, "we're looking at two weeks [from now] before we can say we've stabilized the situation."
Meanwhile, there are further delays.
Darley said yesterday that the 100 Marines dispatched to Macedonia earlier in the week to help build refugee camps have been put back aboard the USS Nassau after the refugees moved to other areas.
And NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said it won't be until Friday -- more than three weeks after the airstrikes began -- that the 8,000 NATO troops will be ready to assist in the humanitarian relief of 300,000 refugees in 11 camps.
The efforts to move in humanitarian aid have also crimped military operations. As a result of "juggling" humanitarian and military needs, NATO has had to delay sending in Apache attack helicopters to the region, said a Pentagon official.
One Capitol Hill aide said that Congress would likely review the relief effort once bombing operations come to an end. But for now, all effort is on winning the fight with Milosevic.
Despite the problems, there were some signs of success -- and even praise for the allied effort.
Last weekend, Daan Everts, the OSCE's ambassador to Macedonia, decried the conditions he saw, complaining about the "inadequate presence" of workers and humanitarian goods from the international community.
On Friday, Everts said relief work is rapidly coming up to speed.
"It's getting better," the Dutchman said. "It started a week ago. Now it's gaining strength and momentum."
And he praised NATO's military operations for the logistical and transportation support they are lending relief operations. NATO helicopter flights, he said, have relieved the horrendous bottleneck on the Albanian roads.
Sun staff writer Mark Matthews contributed to this article.