The US chain of command dictates that ONLY the civilian command gets to OKAY these orders. Clark's orders were from Washington. You don't think that is true? Okay, how about this, the same is not true for the British command, and although they had signed onto NATO's plan, they did change the plan.
Now that General (Ret.) Wesley Clark has announced his candidacy as a democratic contender for the title of president, conservatives have come out swinging. Many of these blows have been leveled below the belt, with a powerful amount of spin.
So that the fact that the orders came from Washington and were overturned by the British is incomprehensible....Here's one.
Allegation #1: Clark nearly started WWIII while serving as NATO commander in Kosovo.
This allegation is based on an account Clark writes about in Waging Modern War. Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent 200 Russian troops unannounced to the Pristina airport during the Kosovo conflict, intending to send thousands more. This move was met with critical response from NATO allies and the Russian press. Secretary William Cohen was quoted as saying it put the entire NATO operation at risk.
According to Associated Press reports, in a congressional hearing on July 1, 1999, Senator Olympia Snowe (R) from Maine asked General Clark why the NATO forces had been caught off guard by the Russians at Pristina, to which Clark replied ``We weren't caught off guard,'' Clark said. NATO had a plan to get to the airport first, he disclosed. ``We were prepared to respond, but decisions were made at levels above mine not to.''
When Clark learned that the Russians were en route to the Pristina airport, he claims to have phoned NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, who told him he must beat the Russians to the airport. The Pristina Airport was to be a strategic location for NATO operations (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm). When Clark gave the command to British Lt. General Sir Michael Jackson to send in a contingent of paratroopers and occupy the airport, Jackson responded "I'm not going to start World War III for you." The plan was dropped and the Russians grabbed the Pristina airport unopposed. The Washington Post reported on June 25, 1999, that the British even provided the 200 Russian troops with food because they did not fear such a small force and couldn't understand Clark's concern.
According to the BBC report, produced after the incident, a senior Russian officer detailed how Russia had planned to send in thousands of troops to carve out its own sector of Kosovo independent of NATO control. Clearly that could have been a disaster and justifies Clark's rationale.
Anticipating that the Russians would send aircraft, Clark ordered tanks to occupy the Pristina runways and prevent the Russians from landing, which Clark claims was on orders from the Pentagon. The British again opposed him, and Jackson's superior told Clark that Clark's US superiors disavowed the plan. Clark says he was surprised to hear that but when he contacted the officials back at the Pentagon they told him to drop the plan. Instead, he contacted Hungary and other US allies in the region and requested them to deny the Russians the right to use their airspace. The allies complied, and the Russians' plan to carve out a non-NATO sector for themselves in Kosovo was thwarted.
Would Clark's plan to block the airways at Pristina have led to "WWIII"? Only if Yeltsin was incompetent. The tides had already turned for Milosevic, and clearly the US/NATO forces made far more valuable allies to Russia than Serbia.
Perhaps it should be noted that Lt. General Michael Jackson has his own skeletons. In 1972, he was one of three British commanders present when troops opened fire on Irish protestors, killing 13. Blair convened a new tribunal on "Bloody Sunday" in 1998, and the investigation is ongoing. Recently discovered documents written by Jackson are being examined to see whether they constitute a coverup. Perhaps General Jackson's involvement in this disastrous event impacted his perception of the Russian situation, filling him with undue concern that the situation at Pristina could quickly escalate, mirroring the havoc of 'Bloody Sunday.' It is difficult to rationalize why he would have imagined Yeltsin would start WWIII over what was later referred to by NATO, the US, and Russia as a minor issue.
One further comment for critics to consider. If the French had sent 200 troops unannounced to Baghdad Airport with plans to send thousands more during the middle of the Iraq War, what would have been the right thing for Franks to do about it?
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