The New York Times

Thursday, June 3, 1999

THE PENTAGON

U.S. Military Chiefs Firm: No Ground Force for Kosovo

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of their first meeting with President Clinton since NATO's air war against Yugoslavia began, the Pentagon's senior commanders remain strongly opposed to mounting a ground invasion to drive Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, defense officials said Wednesday.

Even though 10 weeks of air and missile strikes have not forced President Slobodan Milosevic to bend to NATO's demands, the senior commanders, including the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believe there is insufficient domestic and international political support for sending ground troops into Kosovo, the officials said. Among Pentagon strategists there are strong reservations about an invasion that could quickly become mired in the Balkans with no clear exit in sight.

The chairman, Gen. Henry Shelton, and the vice chairman, Gen. Joseph Ralston, along with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, are to meet Clinton at the White House on Thursday afternoon. Although the meeting was previously scheduled as one of the president's periodic sessions with the nation's senior officers, the war in the Balkans is expected to dominate the discussions.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who will also attend, said Wednesday that he expected the discussion to cover "a full range" of issues facing the American military and NATO, including "questions about whether or not there would be any kind of ground option for a nonpermissive environment."

But he emphasized that there was no plan "under any active consideration" for anything beyond the peacekeeping force of 48,000 that NATO has said it would send into Kosovo once a settlement was reached.

"There is a consensus for a strong air operation in the NATO countries," Cohen said Wednesday after a ceremony welcoming Kuwait's defense minister to the Pentagon. "There is not a consensus for a ground operation in a nonpermissive environment. So we intend to focus on the positive."

NATO's commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, has urged the Pentagon and NATO to at least begin planning for a ground invasion because of a timetable that would require deployment in the summer if such a huge force is to return the refugees before winter sets in.

But the prospect of ground troops is so remote to the Pentagon's senior military officers that it was not specifically listed on their agenda for the meeting. Administration officials said, however, that they did expect a preliminary discussion on the option of a ground war.

The discussion on Kosovo is expected to focus on the progress of the air campaign and the larger impact the war has had on the four military services and their budgets.

The chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the commandant of the Marine Corps oversee the administration of their services, including their budgets, personnel and weapons, but they do not command any forces. That responsibility, along with drawing up war plans, rests with the nation's regional military commanders, overseen by the staff of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

From the start, the chiefs have expressed reservations about NATO's strategy and ever deeper misgivings about the prospects of an invasion, which would require thousands of troops and would risk significant casualties. On the 71st day of the air campaign, those views have not changed, the officials said.

"I don't think there's anybody among the chiefs saying, 'By God, if we don't invade Kosovo, it will be a travesty,"' one official said.

Although Clinton ruled out the use of ground troops when the air war began on March 24, he has since modified the administration's public position to leave open all military options.

For the first time Wednesday, the administration tried to play down the idea that winter's approach was creating a timetable that would force a decision on ground troops relatively soon, as Clark and Pentagon and NATO commanders have said.

"There is no deadline for any of these plans," the Pentagon's spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, said Wednesday. "We know how to deploy troops in the winter. We've proven that in Bosnia before. We certainly know how to operate in the winter."

Even though NATO's secretary-general, Javier Solana, said the alliance's goal was to return the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo to their homes before winter, the United States and its allies have already begun preparing to make the camps in Albania and Macedonia habitable through the cold months.

On the Joint Staff and among the chiefs, there is agreement, officials said, that if diplomacy fails to produce a settlement, the alliance will simply continue bombing. "Winterization of the camps will enable this to go right on into the winter if that is required," Shelton said last week.

Although some senior commanders have doubts, others believe the air war might still force Milosevic to accept NATO's conditions and withdraw the Yugoslav forces from Kosovo.

NATO aircraft flew 197 strike missions in Yugoslavia overnight Tuesday, including 150 in the area around Mount Pastrik on the Kosovo-Albanian border, where Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas are engaged in fierce fighting with Yugoslav forces. The attacks continued Wednesday, according to the command.

"If we continue to pound away throughout the summer at the rate we are going now," a senior diplomat said, "we'll eliminate a lot more Serbian ground forces. Milosevic has to decide whether to cash in his chips now, or go on and risk losing a lot more."