WASHINGTON -- The United States and Russia failed to agree yesterday on how to end the war over Kosovo, and President Clinton signaled a prolonged and costly air campaign by preparing to dispatch more than 300 additional warplanes and to call up Air Force and Army reservists.
As NATO's bombing attacks entered their fourth week, Clinton met for a second day with members of Congress to try to shore up support for the military campaign.
The White House told Congress the war would cost $3 billion to $4 billion through September. Congress is expected to overwhelmingly approve such an appropriation as a way of showing solidarity with the armed forces.
"Our campaign is diminishing and grinding down [Yugoslav President Slobodan] Milosevic's military capabilities," the president said after his meeting with lawmakers.
"We have weakened Serbia's air defenses and command and control. We have reduced his ability to move, sustain and supply the war machine in Kosovo. We have damaged his refineries and diminished his capacity to produce ammunition," he said.
"Now we are taking our allied campaign to the next level, with more aircraft in the region, with a British carrier joining our USS Roosevelt and a French carrier in the area."
A divided Hill
Reflecting the wide disparity of views on Capitol Hill, congressional leaders of both parties have decided to put off as long as possible any formal role for Congress in the war planning.
Individual legislators have suggested proposals that range from authorizing the president to use any force necessary to demanding an immediate end to the U.S. involvement in the air campaign.
But the leaders are refusing to allow any of these proposals to come to the floor for a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle say Congress would have to approve the use of ground forces. But they said they saw no reason to act unless or until Clinton sends them a request.
Kenneth H. Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman, said yesterday that Defense Department officials are still reviewing the request by U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO's supreme commander, for 300 additional U.S. aircraft, from attack aircraft to refuelers, which would bring allied air power to nearly 1,000 planes.
'Selective' call-up seen
As a result, Bacon said, "there will likely to be a reserve call-up. The details aren't ready to be announced at this stage."
Most of the Air Force's refueling and cargo plane pilots are in the reserves. In addition, Bacon said, certain Army Reserve support units would be called up to serve in Macedonia and Albania.
Though there were no specifics on the number of reservists needed, Maj. Jerry Herbel, a spokesman for the Air Force Reserve Command at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, said it would be a "selective" call-up for pilots who fly certain aircraft, such as C-130 cargo and KC-135 refueling planes.
There is speculation among Pentagon officials that some of the additional aircraft could come from the USS Enterprise, which has 70 attack and support planes and is scheduled to pass through the Mediterranean Sea in the next week on its way back to Norfolk, Va. The carrier just completed six months in the Persian Gulf.
Yesterday's meeting in Oslo, Norway, between Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov served to ease some of the tension between Washington and Moscow, a Serbian ally that has condemned the NATO air campaign.
But the session in the Norwegian capital failed to produce any new Russian effort to broker an end to the crisis. Ivanov rejected Albright's proposal for an international force that would police Kosovo after Yugoslav forces withdraw.
Though the United States has tried to make the idea acceptable to the Russians by offering them a key role in the international force, Russia still objects to U.S. plans for a NATO-led military presence. Ivanov insisted that Milosevic should have to agree to the deployment.
"What we disagree on, or have not yet reached agreement on, is the character of that kind of force," Albright said. She said Washington reckoned that it "has to have a NATO core, with other countries being able to provide other aspects of it."
'Strengthen and intensify'
Meanwhile, Clark offered a more detailed review of the first three weeks of the bombing campaign and said the additional aircraft would continue to weaken Milosevic's military.
"What we intend to do is continue to strengthen and intensify the air campaign," Clark told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels, the Belgian capital.
Using a pointer and slides to show the bombing targets, Clark said: "We're going to make it increasingly painful and difficult for President Milosevic to maintain his control and the high-level command and control of the armed forces and police, which are essential to maintaining his authority."
Clark said the allies are still going after "two axes of attack" -- ground forces in Kosovo and more strategic targets, from fuel depots, roads and bridges to air defenses.
The allies have destroyed 70 percent of the Yugoslav petroleum and oil supplies, the general said. And the bombing also has resulted in "numerous communication outages" between forces as NATO forces strike radio relay stations and other command-and-control facilities.
One problem NATO has faced is the continued shipment of oil into Yugoslavia even as NATO aircraft attack fuel depots. U.S. officials have been looking at imposing an oil embargo on Serbia through the United Nations, though they acknowledge that Russia, as a member of the U.N. Security Council, would likely veto such a move. Meanwhile, Europeans are trying to curb Yugoslav financial transactions abroad.
'Very dangerous still'
While the allies are continuing to strike at the Yugoslav air defense system, surface-to-air missiles and heavy anti-aircraft artillery have not been suppressed entirely.
"I would say it's very dangerous still," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles F. Wald, a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Pentagon intelligence reports show that despite repeated bombings, the allies are having limited success with the Yugoslav air defenses, which are not only numerous but in fortified bunkers.
Pentagon and NATO officials say Serbian army and police units are still fighting isolated pockets of rebels in the western portion of the province. One Defense Department analysis reports that Serbian forces are trying to resupply their fighting forces in the southern area of Kosovo, between Suva Reka and Stimlje.
Fighting also spread beyond Kosovo yesterday. Washington became alarmed by news that Yugoslav forces had attacked Kosovars in a village in neighboring Albania before withdrawing across the border to Serbia.
While NATO is aiding in feeding and sheltering the more than 500,000 ethnic Albanian refugees in Albania and Macedonia, Bacon said, the alliance is also considering "a range of options" to help the estimated 700,000 refugees still inside Kosovo. Those options, he said, include air drops of food.
Meanwhile, amid mounting reports of atrocities, the West stepped up its rhetorical attacks on the Milosevic regime and made clearer suggestions that he could not escape indictment for war crimes.
'Revival of fascism'
At a news briefing in London, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook spoke of a "revival of fascism," which "must have no place in modern Europe."
Giving added corroboration to rape allegations, Cook said, "We are now getting a pattern of repeated reports that young women were also separated from the refugee columns and forced to endure systematic rape in an army camp at Jackovica near the Albanian border."
U.S. officials say they have received new reports of mass graves at a number of sites in Kosovo but could not corroborate the accounts.
A high-ranking State Department official warned that Milosevic could not expect any immunity from prosecution even as part of a deal to end the war.
Thomas R. Pickering, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, told reporters at a breakfast it was "hard to imagine" that Milosevic would not be indicted after a careful review of the evidence. He described the Yugoslav president as the hand responsible for a wave of arson, executions and rapes.
Sun staff writer Karen Hosler contributed to this article.
Pub Date: 4/14/99