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00:02On the night of the 24th of March 1999,
00:05NATO went to war for the first time in its history.
00:09A Dutch fighter pilot flying escort to the bombers
00:12was one of the first into action.
00:15As soon as we crossed the border,
00:16we got the information that three MiGs were airborne,
00:19so we pushed into the area.
00:21He located a target and checked it was an enemy aircraft.
00:25And we were cleared to engage.
00:28So after about five minutes, I fired one shot.
00:33The missile went into the air, a bright flash,
00:35and I looked back over my left shoulder.
00:37I saw debris flying from a burning aircraft.
00:44NATO's war against a small, poor country had begun.
00:48The leaders of the Alliance had taken an enormous gamble.
00:51It was unclear as to exactly how Milosevic might react.
00:55And I felt, as I always do,
00:57if our armed forces are engaged in any form of action,
01:01you feel a very great sense of responsibility
01:03and a great sense of apprehension.
01:06But in military terms, the most powerful force on earth
01:10fumbled the start.
01:12Advice from the top brass had been ignored.
01:14We started out in a way we would not have chosen to start out
01:19as professional soldiers, as professional airmen.
01:21Again, wanting to go for the head of the snake on the first night,
01:26not being able to do that.
01:29So what should have been a walkover wasn't.
01:31It was a nightmare to end the 20th century.
01:35Or I'd be ill.
01:36I'd be ill.
01:38I'd be ill.
01:52I'd be ill.
02:01I'd be ill.
02:02I'd be ill.
02:04I'd be ill.
02:07I'd be ill.
02:09I'd be ill.
02:10The main burden of the attack
02:12was carried by American bombers.
02:15I was looking outside because it was quiet.
02:18And, to me, that meant danger, danger.
02:21That's when I first started seeing enemy triple-A coming up.
02:25The hair started rising on the back of your neck.
02:27You could kind of feel, this is getting serious now.
02:31I hit the pickle button and stared, essentially, at my TV screen.
02:37It's kind of a surreal feeling.
02:39You see this thing blow up in your screen, but you don't hear it.
02:42The big flash, and you smile.
02:45I mean, you did what you were trained to do.
02:49It was surreal.
02:51This was a war of high technology against medieval cruelty,
02:55fought over land that most people couldn't place on a man.
02:59Moreover, the campaign was partly smoke and mirrors.
03:03The first night attack had been so well telegraphed that it did little real harm.
03:07By this time, Serb forces had left most of the targets that we were striking that night.
03:14They had, over the prior weeks, you know, we had watched them field deploy.
03:18Most of their forces' cantonment sites, the garrison sites, were largely vacant.
03:24And really, now we're sending a political message about our determination to carry through with this air campaign.
03:32Yes, this was political.
03:34In 1941, a German blitz on Belgrade killed 18,000 people in one night.
03:39NATO's first night didn't even target the city center.
03:42It was just a noisy inducement to get Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table.
03:48There were people who had worked with the man for decades, and who knew him far better than I,
03:53that opined that all he's looking for is an excuse.
03:57A show of force, a token confrontation of three or four days so that he can withdraw with honor, and
04:03it'll all be over.
04:05The authorized plan contained only 90 soft targets, to the fury of the general in charge of the bombing.
04:12He had wanted to hit Milosevic hard and where it hurt.
04:16But our recommendation was to go after what we believe to be the strategic target set in Belgrade.
04:23I don't want to go to some young man's wife and explain that her husband died sending a signal.
04:30If I'm going to make that trip, if I'm going to write that letter, I want to look her in
04:36the eye and say,
04:37Young lady, your husband was packing the Sunday punch.
04:40He was part of the best we had.
04:43We were going for the jugular.
04:46As the men in uniform fumed, the U.S. Secretary of State received a phone call from the president.
04:51He called around 12.30, and we talked about the fact that the bombing had begun,
04:56and we both went over with each other all the different things that we had tried to do.
05:02He said, I think about this all the time.
05:04So we kind of did an inventory of all the things that we had done
05:10and assured ourselves that this was the only way that we could bring about the result that we needed.
05:17Somehow, after all the bluff and talking, NATO and Yugoslavia had stumbled into war.
05:23In Washington, the prevailing view was that Milosevic was a cowardly bully,
05:28a few days of feeling the sharp end of NATO's stick, and he'd back down.
05:32That was the gamble as the war began.
05:35But Milosevic had his own brutal plans for Kosovo, and now he had no reason to hold back.
05:42From 15,000 feet in the air,
05:44NATO's bombers were incapable of stopping the mayhem on the ground below.
05:53That night, Serbs set fire to the ancient quarter of the city of Djakova,
05:58the start of a long reign of terror in the town.
06:02This video was shot clandestinely by an Albanian in hiding.
06:08One family who were to suffer the horror of Djakova told us their story.
06:14I feel fear inside.
06:16We stay in houses, and we know that the killing, we know for killing,
06:24because we hear the shots, we hear screaming of people.
06:42And they immediately started hitting him.
06:48with rifle butts and a gas canister.
06:51And he immediately fell to the floor.
06:55And here are a canister on the talk.
07:01They start beating my father, telling him, you want NATO.
07:05Here is NATO.
07:06I'm the NATO for you.
07:08And they beat him for death.
07:11We can only hear him, hear him, the noise, before death.
07:17I can't forget that smell.
07:20The smell of drugs, drinks, blood.
07:25I still can't forget.
07:28Before they left, the Serbs set fire to the family home,
07:32with the dying father still in it.
07:37Flames from the house were lighting my way.
07:40I found him where I'd left him, barely alive.
07:45His brains were leaking out.
07:48He was still breathing.
07:51Pieces of burning wood were falling on my head.
07:56I dragged him to the wall.
07:59I couldn't move him any further, so I got a wheelbarrow
08:02and put my husband in it.
08:03And then I walked out into the street.
08:16The terror of Jakova would go on for weeks.
08:19Serb soldiers and police units returned time and again
08:22to kill hundreds of local Albanians.
08:31In Belgrade, people rallied behind their leader,
08:34a night's pinprick bombing had just made them more defiant.
08:44Whatever Serbs may have thought about Milosevic's
08:47Kosovo policy in the past was now irrelevant.
08:50What to the West was murder without excuse
08:53was to most Serbs a sideshow and a battle for national survival.
09:01The RAF's small contingent of Harriers
09:04hadn't hit any targets the first night.
09:07But on the second night, the pilots,
09:09with their laser-guided bombs or LGBs,
09:12could enjoy a lethal video game.
09:16Squadron leader Chris Huckster was the first of them to connect.
09:20As you're running in, I remember it was a starlit night.
09:23You could see the snow on the mountains.
09:24It was beautifully clear.
09:26Halfway to our target, bombs began going off
09:29in other packages' targets.
09:33Huckstep dropped his bombs and climbed away.
09:36When it was getting near,
09:37I put the aircraft over to look down into the target area.
09:40It was pretty black down there.
09:42And then, exactly when I expected it,
09:45there was this huge explosion,
09:46a tremendous, great flash of flame and red explosion.
09:50And it was an ammunition storage dump that we were hitting.
09:54When the films were played on the evening news,
09:57they looked great.
09:58But the politicians had been so sure
10:00that Milosevic would sue for peace,
10:02that after three days,
10:03the pilots had hit all the approved targets.
10:07We kept flying.
10:08Day three came along.
10:10The flying was going fine.
10:11We still had target sets,
10:12but we really didn't have a good plan
10:14for night four, night five.
10:16And as the beginning of day three happened,
10:19we started asking,
10:20OK, what are we going to do now?
10:21We've hit just about everything we're targeted against.
10:24I do remember, on the third night,
10:27cancelling the second wave of 117s
10:29because we were out of targets.
10:31Of the 91 that we had been given,
10:34we had struck that target set.
10:37There was a reason for that.
10:39Wesley Clark, NATO's Supreme Commander,
10:42knew that European public opinion
10:43just wouldn't stand for Short's plan to hammer Belgrade.
10:47In Europe, there's a terrible aftermath of World War II,
10:53quite understandably.
10:54And nations and individuals have memories
10:59of the terror of bombing
11:01and what it does to civilian populations.
11:03And I think European leaders were acutely aware
11:07of the sensitivity of their publics,
11:10their electorate, their leadership
11:12to the dangers of unrestricted aerial warfare.
11:16We had to convince them
11:17of the validity of the targets,
11:20the accuracy of the delivery systems,
11:22the skill and courage of the airmen,
11:24their ability to deliver weapons
11:27with pinpoint accuracy.
11:29We fought this conflict incrementally
11:32for all sorts of reasons,
11:34and we all understand that,
11:36holding the alliance together.
11:38Certainly the belief that many of our leaders
11:41had going into this conflict,
11:43that Milosevic only needed, quote,
11:46a couple of nights of bombing, unquote,
11:49and then he would accept NATO terms.
11:52I am not personally convinced
11:55that all of our leaders had come to grips
11:58with the possibility of a prolonged air campaign,
12:02that they generally thought
12:03that all NATO had to do was, again,
12:06and I'm quoting,
12:07demonstrate resolve.
12:10While the airmen pressed the case for new targets,
12:13the Serb offensive on the ground gathered momentum.
12:16The Serb forces had really begun their operation
12:20against the Kosovar Albanians across Kosovo.
12:22We saw these large-scale operations
12:25now going on against the civil populace
12:27with the police,
12:29but also now with army forces very involved.
12:32Most of those who took part in the ethnic cleansing
12:34have disappeared from view,
12:36but we found one man who revealed the Serb's methods.
12:39They were quick, deadly,
12:41and honed by eight years of practice in the Balkan Wars.
12:46There was a system that was applied
12:48throughout all the Yugoslavian wars.
12:55You would surround the village on three sides,
12:58and the fourth would be left
12:59for the civilians to run out of,
13:02so they had the opportunity of leaving the village.
13:14When a young Albanian was caught,
13:16it was assumed that he was KLA.
13:20Maybe he didn't have anything to do with them,
13:23but because he was young and able to carry a gun,
13:26he'd be taken away and questioned.
13:30And afterwards, everyone would be shot.
13:34The questioning was a formality.
13:40In one operation,
13:42Serb army and police units surrounded the village of Izbica
13:45and rounded up the men.
13:49They had weapons in their hands and knives to cut us with.
13:53Then he said,
13:54all of you will be as good as dead tonight.
13:57We will slice you for the feast,
13:59for Byram's Day.
14:01Screams and cries came from the children.
14:05When we stood up,
14:06they saw my son,
14:07nicely dressed,
14:08large,
14:09healthy,
14:10good boy.
14:11Who's he?
14:12They asked.
14:13I said,
14:14he's my son,
14:15he's disabled.
14:15I clean him,
14:16I address him.
14:17Then he took his weapon from his shoulder
14:19and pointed at us,
14:20saying,
14:21I'll kill you all together.
14:22Take your son over to the men.
14:26The Kosovo Liberation Army,
14:28hopelessly outnumbered,
14:29watched from nearby.
14:33The men were separated into two groups.
14:36One group was taken towards the west,
14:39the other towards the east.
14:41The group that went to the east
14:43was taken to the fields.
14:47Just before reaching the woods,
14:49they were ordered to turn and face the soldiers.
14:56They were shot.
15:05Incredibly,
15:05a handful of men survived.
15:11And when they took us up the hill,
15:13just before executing us,
15:15they ordered us to turn and face them.
15:18We did so,
15:20and then they executed us.
15:22I fell down and stayed down for 20 minutes.
15:25I didn't dare move
15:26until I noticed that they'd gone down the hill
15:29to burn the houses and tractors
15:31and other things in the fields.
15:33And then I crawled into the woods.
15:43They gathered all the massacred bodies.
15:46I swore at my other son,
15:49begged him to take me to see my dead boy
15:51one last time.
15:56143 are said to have died in the massacre.
15:59Sometime after the burial,
16:01the Serbs returned to the village,
16:03exhumed the bodies,
16:04and took them elsewhere.
16:06The graves at Izbica are empty.
16:14NATO planes now began to provide dramatic new intelligence.
16:20By day four of the campaign,
16:22they could start to see a steady flow of refugees
16:24heading for the border.
16:29Some of the pilots told me,
16:32when we were flying over Kosovo,
16:35we saw the flames coming out,
16:38the house was being burned,
16:39and then we returned to the base
16:41and watched the television,
16:43and we saw the faces of the people
16:45that were being driven out of Kosovo.
16:48And they put the two images together.
16:50They went from the plane,
16:51the house being burned,
16:53and later on in the day,
16:54the face of the people
16:56who had been expelled out of the house.
17:02Within a few days of the start of the bombing,
17:05well over half a million Kosovars
17:07were fleeing to neighbouring countries.
17:09It was a tragic paradox.
17:11NATO had gone to war to protect these people,
17:14yet their situation was now worse than ever.
17:17I did feel, to a certain extent, responsible also,
17:21because I was a member of the European community,
17:26and that was taking place in front of our eyes in Europe.
17:31The things that my generation thought
17:35and never again would see that.
17:55The war was four days old.
17:58Milosevic wasn't hurting,
18:00but suddenly NATO was.
18:02A US stealth bomber had been shot down.
18:06As Saab TV filmed,
18:09the pilot, who had ejected,
18:10was hiding in a ditch 200 metres away.
18:13US special forces set off to rescue him.
18:19And the contract we have,
18:21the contract that keeps young men
18:23going after the targets,
18:24said, we're going to come and get you.
18:25No matter where you are,
18:27we're going to come and get you.
18:28We had communications relayed
18:31through airborne command and control.
18:33And, of course, the pilot,
18:35a couple of times, asked for decisions.
18:37Decisions only I could make.
18:39Hey, boss, the weather's going down
18:42and the serves are closing in.
18:43Can we go in and get them?
18:44You bet.
18:46And they did.
18:48I think, I believe the call was,
18:51was Eagle on board,
18:53which meant,
18:54meant that the kid was in helicopter.
18:56And, uh,
18:59that's, that's a moment I'll never forget.
19:04The very same weekend,
19:06the flood of refugees
19:07took on biblical proportions.
19:10Milosevic may have signaled his plans
19:13to expel the Albanians,
19:14but the sheer scale of what was happening
19:17shocked both politicians and the public.
19:19With hindsight,
19:21it was perhaps Milosevic's fatal error.
19:24It was an appalling thing to do to people.
19:27I mean, had there been any doubt,
19:29as there wasn't,
19:30but had there been any doubt in my mind
19:31up to that point,
19:32it would have been removed at that point.
19:33That was precisely,
19:35that that was the moment of test for us,
19:37that we then had to say,
19:38my goodness, no,
19:39we're going and see this thing through.
19:42But for the right reasons,
19:43the Alliance did the wrong thing.
19:46NATO now went after the perpetrators
19:48of ethnic cleansing.
19:49Planes were switched from strategic targets
19:52to raids on Serb army personnel in Kosovo.
19:56It was very important politically,
19:57it was very important militarily.
19:59These forces, after all,
20:00they were the cause of the problem.
20:02They were the agent of the ethnic cleansing.
20:04They were the support for the ethnic cleansing.
20:06Fair enough as a political matter.
20:08Klaus Naumann,
20:09the German who chaired NATO's top military committee,
20:12thought the new policy was nuts.
20:15I said it, I think,
20:17at two or three occasions in the council,
20:19that they are asking for the impossibility.
20:22They want us to stop,
20:24let's say,
20:24the individual murderer
20:25going with his knife from village to village
20:27and carving up some Kosovars,
20:30that you cannot do from the air.
20:32You cannot hit this guy.
20:35You have to be in to stop him.
20:38Worse still,
20:39the man running the bombing campaign
20:41thought the tactic would actually prolong the war.
20:46I believe there was a great sigh of relief in Belgrade.
20:48I just didn't think it was the way to use my assets,
20:51and I didn't think it was going to get us
20:53to where we wanted to get to,
20:54which is have Milosevic modify his activity
20:57and stop ethnic cleansing.
20:59And we felt that we were going to spend a lot of assets
21:03to get minimum return.
21:05It was going to take a lot of sorties to kill a tank.
21:08And there was enormous risk of hitting the wrong target,
21:12because we knew refugees would be moving around
21:14in this ethnic cleansing environment.
21:16These high-tech manhunts were unbelievably difficult.
21:20Spotters were sent in to find targets
21:21a bit like World War I flying aces.
21:24They then guided the bombers in for the kill,
21:26as if they were finding a parking space at the supermarket.
21:30I said, okay, let's imagine you're in a car,
21:32and I'm telling him this on the radio.
21:34I want you to drive the car up until you get to the warehouse
21:37that's green on the left, and I want you to turn left there.
21:40And I want you to take that up,
21:42and you're going to go past two houses on the right,
21:44a blue one and a pink one.
21:45When you get the pink house, I want you to turn right.
21:48I want you to go down that road until you see the four.
21:51And he's telling me all the time on the radio,
21:52yeah, I see that, yeah, I see that.
21:55Found the target, happy with that.
21:57I can see the little tiny vehicles that we're talking about.
22:00And then I just, um, I run outbound to set up for the attack.
22:03The American calls, you know, hold it, worse to that effect.
22:06There's a civilian bus that's pulled up next to them.
22:09Well, the Serbs put their forces in villages,
22:12under bridges, in towns,
22:13anywhere near human refugee-type habitation.
22:16So it would make it difficult for us to go and attack them.
22:19Anywhere the refugees could be,
22:20they put forces and hide them away.
22:22So first, the problem was finding them, first of all,
22:24and the second thing is making sure there are no refugees around.
22:27And if there's any doubt, there was no doubt, don't drop.
22:30Air power can do an awful lot,
22:32but it's never going to stop the ability of a guy on the ground
22:36taking a can of gasoline in a match and lighting a house on fire
22:39or lining a group of civilians up against a wall and shooting them.
22:45Our thought process was, just to simplify it,
22:47that if I have ten sorties to spend,
22:50I will impact Milosevic more if I send those ten sorties to Belgrade
22:55than if I send those same ten sorties into Kosovo,
22:59perhaps find a tank, perhaps not,
23:01but the impact on ethnic cleansing, zero.
23:06The Serbs had a simpler way of taking soldiers out.
23:10One week in, three young American soldiers
23:13on the Macedonian border came under fire.
23:15They radioed for help,
23:17but by the time support got to the scene, they were missing.
23:20A huge surge was launched.
23:23Too late.
23:24The three had been taken captive.
23:27They rushed us, rushed at us,
23:30and immediately threw us down
23:32and began stripping away our equipment.
23:35I know I was receiving many blows from rifle butts and kicks.
23:39Immediately after they pulled us out and roughed us up
23:42and took us back into the village,
23:45we were all placed on our knees,
23:47the three of us with our hands behind our head,
23:48where they put a rifle to the back of my head.
23:51So obviously my reaction was
23:53this was a classic execution position,
23:56so I really believed that was going to be the end.
24:00You know, I looked to my left.
24:02I could see Gonzalez on the floor, or on his knees.
24:04I looked to my right.
24:05I could see Stone.
24:06I could see him, you know...
24:08I could see him.
24:09He seemed like he was praying.
24:11And myself, too, in my head, I'm doing the same thing.
24:14It was enough time for me to contemplate, maybe,
24:18that my life was probably about to end.
24:21But even worse than that, I think, was before my life ended.
24:26I thought I was going to see, actually,
24:29both of the other guys die first.
24:32Thankfully, not so.
24:34Milosevic reckoned the Americans
24:36were more valuable alive than dead.
24:40Who knew how many more young men would be captured,
24:43maybe killed, or planes shot down?
24:46For NATO, nothing was going right.
24:50But yellow ribbons on American streets
24:52should never be confused with white flags.
24:54This was a turning point.
24:56It was time to go into the next ratcheting up
25:01of the intensity of the air campaign.
25:02We had to take the targets in downtown Belgrade under attack.
25:06And that means, since none of us knew
25:07what Milosevic's threshold for pain would be,
25:11it meant doing as much damage
25:13to the assets he valued as rapidly as possible.
25:21Fresh targets had to be approved
25:23by NATO's 19 member governments.
25:26Secretary-General Solana knew bombing Belgrade was sensitive.
25:31Belgrade is a city of Europe,
25:34and you cannot launch a military campaign
25:38without the support and the understanding
25:40of the people that support the governments
25:43who take that decision.
25:45Actually, no formal decision was ever taken.
25:48But with America pressing,
25:49Solana was authorized to go after a wider range of targets.
25:53I think in this phase,
25:55the Secretary-General was very courageous
25:58and took a lot of risk and said,
26:00based on military advice,
26:02I believe it's necessary to do this.
26:05He informed the Council,
26:07told him, this is my decision,
26:10and I take it that you can go along,
26:13and this is still within the authority
26:15you have given to me.
26:18Ten days into the war,
26:20central Belgrade had become a priority.
26:22It was what the generals wanted,
26:24but they knew there were risks attached.
26:26General Clark asked us,
26:29the Secretary-General and myself,
26:32to authorise a strike against the police headquarters
26:35and the Minister of the Interior in downtown Belgrade.
26:38When we saw that some 500 or 600 metres away
26:41from the Serb Minister of the Interior,
26:45there's a hospital in Belgrade.
26:48And when we saw this,
26:51I said to Solana,
26:52if we hit by sheer accident,
26:56this hospital,
26:58then the war is over.
27:22At last, the high-tech wizardry and hardware
27:25on which NATO's strategy was based paid off.
27:28The bombs hit their targets with devastating accuracy
27:32as buildings all over Belgrade were smashed.
27:38Then, warriors within the alliance started to lose their nerve.
27:42The French led those who feared that thousands of civilians might be killed.
27:46Solana was reined in,
27:48and for those in uniform,
27:49agreeing targets became a bureaucratic nightmare.
27:53To convince the Capitals of contentious targets,
27:56we probably ran a 50 percent,
27:58I probably ran about a 50 percent success rate
28:01of explaining to them
28:03why this target was militarily significant,
28:05why it could be struck with a minimum risk
28:08of unintended collateral or unintended civilian casualties.
28:12There were numerous occasions
28:14where airplanes were airborne,
28:16and a senior national rep would run in to me
28:18and say,
28:19our parliament won't allow us to strike that target,
28:22or our authorities will not allow your airplanes,
28:25which took off from our soil,
28:27to strike that target.
28:31Our plan was to escalate as rapidly as possible,
28:35to do as much as we could,
28:36but we also recognized that no single target,
28:40no set of targets,
28:41no bombing series
28:44was more important than maintaining the consensus of NATO.
28:49But for short,
28:51it was precisely that need
28:52to maintain a 19-nation consensus
28:55that hamstrung the whole plan.
28:58Oh, if only the tough guys from the Pentagon
29:00had been able to run the show on their own.
29:03Let me shoot very straight with you.
29:06I believe before the first bomb was dropped
29:09that the door should have been closed
29:11with all those who wish to go to war.
29:14And the United States should have said very clearly,
29:17it appears NATO wants to go to war,
29:19in the air,
29:20and in the air only.
29:21If that is the case,
29:23and that is the sentiment
29:25of the nations here,
29:27we will lead you to war.
29:28We, the United States,
29:29will provide the leadership,
29:31the enabling force,
29:31the majority of the striking power,
29:33the technology required.
29:34We will take the alliance to war,
29:37and we will win this thing for you.
29:39But the price to be paid is,
29:41we call the tune.
29:44An angry General Short repeatedly considered resigning,
29:48but was persuaded out of it by his colleagues.
29:52The saving grace in this entire thing
29:56was the professionalism,
29:58and the commitment,
29:59and the courage
29:59of the young men and women
30:01flying the airplanes.
30:03And I felt the best contribution I could make
30:06was to keep doing my job as best I could,
30:09to continue to try to advocate
30:11what I thought was the right way to do business,
30:14to take care of the kids as best I could.
30:20But did the kids make Milosevic buckle?
30:24They did not.
30:26When did Mike Short realize
30:28we were in for the long haul?
30:29I'm going to say
30:31after the first strikes on Belgrade.
30:35And you saw Belgrade in,
30:37parts of Belgrade in flames,
30:38and Milosevic wasn't even talking to us.
30:43Milosevic wasn't talking,
30:46NATO wasn't winning,
30:47and Belgrade's people
30:49simply dared the alliance to do more.
31:16It reminded me a lot
31:17to everything we've heard
31:18about the Second World War.
31:20It was an ambience of fear,
31:22basically.
31:22Then they would just load them,
31:25literally like animals,
31:27because everybody wanted to be
31:28on the first train,
31:29because nobody knew
31:31whether it was going to be a second one.
31:42And those on the trains
31:44were the lucky ones.
31:45Miserable, yes,
31:46but escaping to see another day.
31:56In towns like Jakava,
31:57the terror continued.
31:59Families cowered together
32:01while Serb policemen and soldiers
32:02roamed the city,
32:03burning,
32:04looting,
32:05killing.
32:11We blocked the door with the car.
32:13We were asleep.
32:15My mother woke me up
32:16and told me that the police had come.
32:18They shot at the car
32:20and set it on fire.
32:22I said,
32:22let's run away, quickly.
32:24She said,
32:26no, no,
32:27they're guessing in any way.
32:28They fired with their machine guns.
32:31I saw them killing everyone,
32:33but I made no sound.
32:34I didn't speak.
32:39When they killed my mother,
32:41I didn't speak.
32:43I pretended to be dead.
32:45They were leaving.
32:46They'd shot my hand.
32:48I made no noise.
32:50Then I heard my two-year-old sister crying.
32:53I thought to myself,
32:55shall I take her with me or not?
32:57But I couldn't
32:59because of my wounded hand.
33:02I could hardly walk.
33:04The window was open.
33:05I took a deep breath
33:07and then I escaped.
33:13As his house went up in flames,
33:1610-year-old Dren
33:17escaped to his grandparents.
33:19He left behind 18 dead,
33:21including his mother
33:22and his three little sisters.
33:29Nearly the whole population
33:31of ethnic Albanians
33:32was fleeing the terror,
33:34trekking over muddy mountain tracks.
33:37Milosevic was unrepentant.
33:39It was nothing to do with him.
33:40It was all NATO's fault.
33:46There are a lot of refugees,
33:48but they are a result of bombing.
33:51And they are not only Albanians.
33:54Everybody is running away
33:56because of bombing.
33:59Serbs, Turks,
34:02Gypsy, Muslims.
34:04Of course, Albanians,
34:06their number is biggest.
34:11The refugees were another
34:13massive problem for NATO.
34:15Hundreds of thousands of them
34:17now had to be given food and shelter.
34:20Moreover,
34:21their suffering strengthened the argument
34:23that NATO was hurting
34:24the very people
34:25it was pledged to protect.
34:32I think the ethnic cleansing
34:35and the expulsion
34:36was not triggered by NATO.
34:39It may have been accelerated by NATO
34:41and definitely some of the atrocities
34:44which happened
34:46I think were caused by NATO bombs
34:50since this was simply this vendetta feeling
34:54which is prevailing in the Balkans anyway.
34:56And they saw that their compatriots were bombed.
35:00They saw that Belgrade was bombed.
35:02So they took revenge
35:04with these people
35:05who could not defend themselves.
35:11The numbers of refugees increased.
35:14So did the dangers of NATO's new tactic
35:17of targeting Serb troops on the ground.
35:20The planes, remember,
35:22were three miles up
35:23trying to figure out
35:24what was happening far below.
35:27Near Jakova,
35:29NATO flyers spied
35:30what they thought
35:31was a Serb military convoy.
35:33They were cleared to attack.
35:41When we were approximately
35:42200 meters
35:44from the Bistrezin bridge,
35:47more or less that distance,
35:49our tractor was attacked.
35:52We were all watching
35:53as the bombs went off.
35:55So many people
35:57all packed together.
36:01Then the noise hit me.
36:04It threw me
36:0515 meters into the air.
36:08I stood up straight away.
36:10I didn't lose consciousness.
36:13And in that moment
36:14I saw people
36:16falling on top of each other.
36:26I was walking with my son
36:28when I saw my other son.
36:29He was wounded.
36:31Oh, mother, he said.
36:32What happened, I asked.
36:34And then he told me.
36:36Blood was pouring.
36:37His eyes were all covered with blood.
36:40He had a hole here in his neck
36:42and blood was pouring out of it.
36:45Then he walked two, three steps.
36:48Then he slumped.
36:52Around 70 Albanians
36:54died in the incident.
37:00When I went,
37:02what could I see?
37:03The women who'd fallen
37:05from the tractors
37:06were crushed underneath.
37:07On the asphalt.
37:09Flames everywhere.
37:11My granddaughter
37:12was lying on the ground,
37:13hardly alive.
37:15She was taken to hospital
37:16but she died the same night.
37:19My youngest daughter
37:20had her neck
37:21completely blown away.
37:23Only her body, you know.
37:26I didn't know
37:27if it was my daughter.
37:28I could only tell
37:29by her clothes.
37:31Then I turned around
37:32and searched
37:33to see my brother-in-law's family.
37:35Some had no legs.
37:37My brother-in-law
37:38the same.
37:40My husband
37:42only clothes.
37:53NATO was to blame.
37:55Nobody could convince me otherwise.
37:58That was the pilot
37:59who shot.
38:00He's guilty.
38:01I'm not saying
38:01all are guilty
38:02but that one was
38:03the one who shot.
38:10The grim news
38:11quickly reached
38:12the world's press.
38:14NATO had yet another
38:15crisis on its hands.
38:17What happened
38:18is a journalist
38:18in Belgrade
38:19phoned me up
38:20and simply warned me
38:22that they'd been invited
38:23to get on a bus
38:24and go down to Jakovicja
38:25to film a NATO
38:27bombing of a convoy.
38:29And what I did,
38:30of course,
38:30is immediately
38:30get on the channels
38:32and try to find out
38:33what had gone on.
38:35But, you know,
38:36in this type of operations,
38:38you know,
38:38air sotters
38:39are taking place
38:40all the time.
38:40The pilots
38:41are not yet back.
38:42You know,
38:42they haven't yet
38:43been debriefed.
38:44The gun camera footage
38:47hasn't yet been analysed
38:48so you don't get
38:49an immediate reaction.
38:52A few hours later,
38:54Shea was shown
38:55a gun sight video
38:56of a military target
38:57being hit.
38:58So he denied
38:59responsibility
39:00for the convoy.
39:01So, first result
39:03is we've looked at it.
39:04It was north of Jakovicja.
39:06It was a bona fide
39:08military target.
39:10Therefore,
39:10we don't have
39:11to accept responsibility.
39:13A couple of hours
39:14later,
39:15media were telling me
39:16that the place
39:18that they had visited,
39:19where they had
39:20filmed the tractor,
39:21the bodies,
39:22seen the bomb craters,
39:24was the...
39:25was south of Jakovicja.
39:26I find it
39:27absolutely impossible
39:28to believe.
39:29Journalists
39:29clamoured to know
39:30the facts,
39:31but Shea could only
39:31tell them
39:32he'd look into it.
39:34We've told you
39:34what we know
39:35and we don't know
39:36anything more
39:37for the time being.
39:38So, uh-uh,
39:39you know,
39:39this terrible feeling
39:40of deflation
39:41and depression
39:42when the first
39:44euphoria of
39:45It's Not Us
39:46fades,
39:46and you obviously
39:48know that, uh,
39:49you're going to have
39:50to start the investigation
39:51all over again.
39:52Well, what we
39:53ended up doing
39:54is, over a period
39:55of four days,
39:56we ended up
39:56going back
39:57to the airmen
39:58who flew
39:59and then taking
40:00all the TV footage
40:01and all of the
40:03gun sight imagery,
40:04all of the
40:04through gun sight
40:06video that we had,
40:08putting it all together
40:09and laying out
40:10exactly what happened.
40:12They identified
40:13what turned out
40:14to be tractors
40:15pulling trailers
40:16as military vehicles.
40:19They saw
40:20these vehicles
40:21moving from house
40:22to house,
40:22setting houses
40:23on fire,
40:24and they struck
40:25what they thought
40:26were trucks.
40:28And, very honest
40:29with you,
40:30the first time
40:30and the second time
40:31I looked at the film,
40:32boy, it looked
40:33like a truck.
40:34Because here was
40:34what looked like
40:35the cab
40:36and then the body
40:36of a truck.
40:37And when you looked
40:38out of the third
40:38and a fourth time,
40:39yeah, it was a tractor
40:40pulling a wagon.
40:47We then had a difficult
40:48internal debate,
40:50which was,
40:51should we own up
40:53and present the facts
40:54or should we basically
40:56ride out the storm
40:57and move on?
40:59I argued that we
41:01should establish the facts.
41:04It appears possible
41:06the vehicles
41:07are tractor-type vehicles.
41:10As I reviewed
41:11the tapes
41:12with the pilots,
41:13they agreed.
41:14However,
41:15they were emphatic
41:16that from the attack
41:17altitude
41:17to the naked eye,
41:18they appeared
41:19to be military vehicles.
41:21Politically,
41:21it was damaging
41:22without any doubt.
41:23It was difficult
41:23to maintain
41:26the cohesion
41:27of the alliance
41:27under these circumstances
41:29and the nations
41:30were angry.
41:33But I think
41:34we had to tell them
41:37we tried to avoid
41:38collateral damage.
41:40Yes, we do.
41:40And we do successfully,
41:42but we cannot avoid it
41:43by 100%.
41:45I did not
41:47for one instant
41:49feel that those events
41:51meant that the action
41:52was wrong
41:52because I'm afraid
41:53this is what happens
41:54and the reason why
41:54I tried so hard
41:57to bring about
41:57a peaceful
41:58negotiated settlement
41:59is that if you start
42:00military action,
42:01people die.
42:02I mean,
42:02that's what happens
42:03in wars.
42:04And the innocent
42:04die as well
42:05as the guilty.
42:06And you hope
42:07there's more
42:08of the latter
42:08than the former,
42:09but that is what happens.
42:12The trouble was
42:13the public
42:14don't always appreciate
42:15the realities of war.
42:17The PR operation
42:18needed an overhaul.
42:20I was in the office
42:21very late one night.
42:22The phone went
42:23and it was
42:23an old NATO colleague
42:24of mine
42:25who had gone
42:26to the National Security
42:27Council in Washington
42:28and he said,
42:29Jamie,
42:29I need to tip you off.
42:30I've just listened in
42:31on a phone call
42:31between President Clinton
42:33and Prime Minister Blair
42:35and, you know,
42:36they think that
42:37the information policy
42:38has got to be toughened up,
42:39it's got to be improved
42:41and they're going
42:43to send you reinforcements
42:44that you need help
42:44and your life
42:46is about to change.
42:48The risk was that
42:49Milosevic was winning
42:50the public relations war
42:51if nothing else.
42:53Blair detached
42:54Alistair Campbell
42:54his own press secretary
42:56to help revamp
42:57the NATO news machine
42:58in Brussels.
43:00Prime Minister,
43:01thank you so much
43:02for coming.
43:03When you fight
43:03an action like this
43:04in modern politics
43:06in our modern media world,
43:08you're fighting it
43:09on television.
43:11You know,
43:11it's an extraordinary thing.
43:13But if you'd look back
43:14at any military action
43:15in history,
43:16the idea that you didn't
43:17have things happened
43:18that shouldn't have
43:19meant to have happened
43:19or, you know,
43:21errors of this sort
43:22of mistakes of that sort,
43:23I think what is a
43:24small miracle
43:25is that there were
43:26so few of them.
43:27And of course,
43:28you know,
43:29it was a frustration
43:29to us too,
43:31which is the second point,
43:32is that Milosevic,
43:33in a sense,
43:34had charge
43:35of the media agenda.
43:38There were tactical
43:39changes to come as well,
43:41prompted by the pilots
43:42themselves.
43:44They came back to me
43:45and said,
43:45we need to let
43:46the forward air controllers
43:47go down to 5,000 feet.
43:49We need to let
43:50the strikers go down
43:51as low as 8,000 feet
43:53in a diving delivery
43:55to ensure that
43:56they verify their target
43:58and then right back up
43:58again to 15,000 feet.
44:00We think that'll get it done.
44:01We acknowledge that
44:03that increases the risk
44:04significantly,
44:05but none of us
44:06want to hit a tractor
44:08full of refugees again.
44:10We can't stand that.
44:11It was only three weeks
44:13since the Prime Minister
44:14had agreed with
44:15the rest of the alliance
44:16that the war should start,
44:17but it must have felt
44:18like a lifetime.
44:19The day war broke out,
44:21President Clinton
44:22had effectively ruled out
44:24a ground war in Kosovo.
44:25But now,
44:26after three weeks
44:27of self-inflicted wounds,
44:29it was time to think
44:30the unthinkable.
44:31Without troops on the ground,
44:33it seemed,
44:33Milosevic might actually win.
44:37NATO's 50th anniversary
44:38was just a week away.
44:40General Clark
44:41called his senior officers together.
44:43He wanted to make sure
44:44that when the alliance's leaders
44:46met in Washington,
44:47he would have the option
44:48to plan for anything,
44:49including a ground war.
44:52Both Solana and I
44:53have the opinion
44:54we cannot get it
44:56within a week's time.
44:58It's impossible
45:00at the NATO summit
45:01to get the decision
45:04on something as controversial
45:06as the ground forces issue
45:08with seven days preparation time.
45:10That's simply impossible
45:11in a coalition of 19 nations.
45:13He was very delicate, yes,
45:15because many countries
45:16were not prepared
45:17at that time
45:18to approve
45:19military invasion
45:20or military activity.
45:24But I thought,
45:26and I think that it was right,
45:28that we had to
45:30have everything planned
45:32just in case.
45:34What we can do
45:35is to make them aware
45:36of what it would mean
45:39to go for ground forces,
45:41how much time
45:41it would take us
45:42and what it would mean
45:45in terms of deployment
45:46and stability
45:48of the other countries.
45:52This wasn't just a question
45:53of persuading wimpy Europeans
45:55to get ready
45:56for a ground war.
45:57As the Washington celebrations
45:59drew near,
46:00the U.S. administration
46:01was every bit as nervous.
46:05Given the fact
46:06that we had
46:06a lack of enthusiasm
46:08for even a peacekeeping mission
46:10in Kosovo,
46:11then it became very clear to me
46:12that it was going to be
46:13a very hard sell,
46:14if not impossible,
46:15to persuade the American people
46:17that we were going to put up
46:18150,000 or 200,000
46:19American troops
46:20to go in on the ground.
46:22For Blair, though,
46:24the ground war option
46:25was essential.
46:26Before the main event,
46:27he had a private meeting
46:29with Clinton.
46:31Well, it wasn't that
46:32I had a message,
46:33but, I mean,
46:33I had a view,
46:34which I think coincided
46:35really with the president's view,
46:37which was that we started it
46:39and we had to see it
46:39through and finish it.
46:40I think that these two leaders
46:43of Great Britain
46:45and the United States
46:48looked at each other
46:50after a long conversation
46:52and said,
46:53we will not lose.
46:55Whatever it takes,
46:56we will not lose.
46:58And that was taken
46:59into the meetings at NATO
47:00and the NATO meetings
47:02in the next two days.
47:04For the generals, though,
47:05there was a key point.
47:07Time was of the essence.
47:08If there was any chance
47:10of a ground war,
47:11they had to start
47:11planning for it now.
47:14We told them
47:15how much time it would take us
47:17to deploy the forces,
47:18how many forces we may need,
47:20how many countries we need
47:23to involve in terms
47:24of supporting us
47:25by giving us access,
47:27basing rights and all this stuff.
47:29Immediately,
47:30the German government
47:31raised an objection.
47:33Committing ground troops
47:34in Kosovo
47:34was completely out of the question.
47:37Germany would not have taken part
47:39in a ground war.
47:41This was no option.
47:43We would have had
47:45no support whatsoever
47:46in the German parliament.
47:49And when I talk
47:49about the German parliament,
47:51I mean from the extreme left
47:53in the parliament
47:54to the parties
47:56on the middle
47:58and on the right.
47:59The only time
48:00I would have been
48:01really agitated
48:03is if,
48:04although this didn't happen,
48:06people had said,
48:07let's remove that option
48:08from the table
48:09because I thought
48:10that would have sent
48:10all the wrong signals
48:11to Milosevic.
48:12He had to know
48:14that we were prepared
48:15to do whatever it took
48:16to win
48:16and we had to be prepared.
48:19So the summit
48:20dodged the issue.
48:22NATO didn't agree
48:22to a ground war
48:23but didn't decide
48:25not to have one.
48:26That classic phrase
48:27all options are open
48:28was enough for Clark
48:30to keep planning.
48:32Meanwhile,
48:34the air campaign
48:34would be bigger
48:39and with luck,
48:41better.
48:56They fled Kosovo
48:58but now one lives
48:59in Glasgow
48:59and the other
49:00has returned.
49:02Girlfriends from Pristina
49:03discuss Britain's role
49:04in their destiny
49:05tonight
49:06at five to midnight
49:07on four.
49:18They fled after Trump
49:21the only thing
49:21is to do this
49:32inالs
49:32and to have
49:32and to have
49:33a lovely
49:33him.
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