The New York Times

Friday, June 11, 1999

From President, Victory Speech and a Warning

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton declared Thursday night that NATO had "achieved a victory" in the war in Kosovo and warned the people of Serbia that as long as Slobodan Milosevic remained their leader, they would get no help to rebuild their bomb-scarred land.

In a nationally televised speech, Clinton addressed Serbs directly. He called the Yugoslav President "an indicted war criminal," and said, "As long as he remains in power, we will provide no support for the reconstruction of Serbia."

Though the President has said that reconstruction aid would only flow to a Serbia whose leaders respected democracy and human rights, tonight's speech was his most direct declaration that Milosevic had to go.

[Transcript of President Clinton's Statement]

Clinton has maintained a cautious reserve since the deal with Milosevic was first announced on Friday, and chose the start of the Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo today to declare success and victory in an air war that had been given little chance of success by many. The bombing also posed serious political risks, and its cost and destruction roused unease and doubt among Americans and within NATO.

"Tonight for the first time in 79 days, the skies over Yugoslavia are silent," Clinton said. "The demands of an outraged and united international community have been met. I can report to the American people that we have achieved a victory for a safer world, for our democratic values and for a stronger America."

As he did in his address announcing the start of the bombing on March 24, Clinton invoked images of unspeakable atrocities carried out by the forces of Milosevic, against Croatians, Bosnians, and finally Kosovo Albanians.

"We should remember that the violence we responded to in Kosovo was the culmination of a 10-year campaign by Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, to exploit ethnic and religious differences in order to impose his will on the lands of the former Yugoslavia," he said.

In Kosovo, Clinton said, 500 villages were burned, men were separated from their families and killed, women were raped, children watched parents die.

Though delivered in solemn tones, Clinton's message contained considerable satisfaction and relief.

He praised NATO for remaining steadfast. "Nineteen democracies came and stayed together through the stiffest military challenge in NATO's 50-year history," he said.

The President also emphasized that not a single American soldier was killed in combat, and that the Russians, for all their opposition to the bombing, had been instrumental in the conflict's resolution.

But Clinton also stressed that "formidable challenges" lay ahead. He said that NATO remained ready to resume attacks should the Serbs falter in their withdrawal; he described the vast problem of bringing back hundreds of thousands of Kosovo refugees to destroyed homes; he spoke of the problem of disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Throughout the brief address, however, the President's theme was one of justice accomplished."Think of all the millions of innocent people who have died in this bloody century because democracies reacted too late to evil and aggression," he said. "Because of our resolve the 20th century is ending not with helpless indignation but with a hopeful affirmation of human dignity and human rights for the 21st century."

"In Kosovo," he said, "we did the right thing. We did it the right way, and we will finish the job."

While considerable questions and criticism persist, the Administration seems satisfied at this juncture to relish that NATO forced Milosevic to back down.

Clinton claimed that the campaign had achieved its goals, which included creating the conditions to bring home the refugees. But that stood somewhat at variance with the fact that the purge of the Albanians became much more extensive after the bombing began on March 24.

On that day, in fact, Clinton declared that NATO's purpose was to avert a "humanitarian disaster" in Kosovo and to prevent a wider conflict. In the end, more than 850,000 Albanians were driven out and many of their properties destroyed, and the stability of neighboring Macedonia and Albania is not assured.

Thursday, Clinton declared that from the beginning, the Allies had three objectives, all of which had been met: the withdrawal of Serbian forces, the deployment of a NATO-led security force and the return of the Kosovars to their homes.

Earlier, the White House spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said that Clinton had called leaders of NATO and its members, and President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia, to share the victory, but also to caution "that there remains a great deal of hard work to be done." On Friday Clinton is to visit the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the staging base for B-2 sorties to Yugoslavia.

At a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined in trumpeting the victory with color slides and a videotape of retreating Serbian forces.

They also provided the most detailed account to date of what allied planes had destroyed: 450 artillery pieces, 220 armored personnel carriers, 120 tanks, more than half of Yugoslavia's military industry, and 35 percent of its electrical power.

The officials said allied warplanes had flown 35,000 missions, including just under 10,000 bombing runs, dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles. About a third of these were guided weapons, used largely by B-52 and B-1 bombers against Yugoslav troops in the past few weeks.

"Milosevic miscalculated badly," General Shelton said. "He did not believe that NATO would carry through on its threat to use air power, and he surely did not expect that the alliance could sustain and increase that effort as the operation progressed over the last 79 days."

The satisfaction and relief were even more evident in an earlier statement by Clinton in which he thanked various participants in the military and diplomatic drama.

He singled out Vice President Al Gore, who had the most to fear politically from a conflict that threatened to stretch into his Presidential campaign but can now claim that he had contributed to the peace through his camaraderie with the Russian envoy, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, reportedly the most hawkish official on Kosovo, was praised for her "passionate commitment."

The President reserved the highest praise for Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser, "who has barely slept for the last three months."

All those he named had come under varying degrees of criticism for the operation, and in naming them Clinton appeared to be vindicating their judgment. But while there was general agreement that Clinton and his lieutenants could feel satisfaction at their escape from potential disaster, there was no certainty that they would harvest long-term political benefits.

Even through the jubilation, critics could already be heard. At a Congressional debate on financing the security forces, Republicans took turns casting aspersions on the claims of success.

"For us to go in there and do what we have done is unconscionable," said Representative Randy Cunningham of California. "We have killed civilians. That is not a win. Hundreds of thousands of people are refugees. That is not a victory."

And Representative Mark E. Souder of South Carolina said: "After 11 weeks of bombing, we have a settlement we probably could have achieved at the beginning. If this is a victory, what would defeat look like?"

There was also continuing criticism from experts on foreign policy, though some acknowledged they had been wrong in their conviction that bombs alone would not bring Milosevic to heel.

Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said: "The feeling is the situation was very bad to begin with, and NATO and the Clinton Administration made it worse, and much to the surprise of the critics, they came out with a deal far better than anyone expected. But they got it at a hell of a heavy cost, and because of that, people aren't going to give President Clinton credit for 'success.' "

At the Pentagon news conference, Cohen said the Defense Department would request additional spending from Congress to pay for the 7,000 American troops who are to join the NATO force. Congress has already approved $5.5 billion in additional spending through Sept. 30, for the air war only. Some unspent money will go toward returning American aircraft and troops to their home bases, and the rest will go toward the cost of the peacekeepers.

But it will not be enough. Cohen declined to estimate how long American soldiers would remain in Kosovo, but he said it would cost about $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year, roughly what it costs to keep the 6,900 American peacekeeping troops in Bosnia.