Clark's Role in Kosovo Exemplifies His Traits
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A01
Third in a series of occasional articles
In the spring of 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal was in full flower, and Washington was stuck in a showdown with Iraq over U.N. inspections. Then violence erupted off-screen: On March 5 and 6, Yugoslav government forces in Kosovo, a small province in a distant corner of Europe, assaulted some rebels and killed more than 50 people, including women and children.
Shortly afterward, an unwelcome fax arrived at the Pentagon from Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a man whose activism vexed his American superiors for much of his 34-month tenure as supreme allied commander in Europe. Writing from NATO military headquarters at Mons, Belgium, Clark urged that the West renew a six-year-old threat of military intervention to protect Kosovo's majority populace, which supported the rebels.
But Clark, as usual, was ahead of others in the administration in his enthusiasm for applying military force. The administration already had too much on its plate, especially on Capitol Hill, Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman Gen. Joseph W. Ralston told him in a late-night phone call, according to the accounts of both men. Washington had not decided whether -- much less how -- to intervene in Kosovo.
A year later, Clark got the exercise in "coercive diplomacy" he had sought, in the form of a bombing campaign that lasted 78 days, then the longest U.S. combat operation since Vietnam. His management of that campaign, which forced the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, is at the center of his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and of criticism of his generalship by some former Pentagon bosses.
A detailed examination of Clark's role in the war and his tenure as NATO's senior military officer from 1997 to 2000 shows that three of Clark's most prominent traits -- his willingness to defy convention, his persistence and his occasionally grating self-confidence in matters small and large -- not only influenced his advocacy of the war, but also helped alienate some of his superiors.
Since Clark began his presidential bid in September, his campaign has described the war as a moment when "he led a multinational force that stopped a campaign of terror, liberated a people and brought peace without the loss of a single American soldier," as a recent advertisement says.
Lately, Clark has taken to pulling out a book of photographs of atrocity victims in Kosovo when he speaks with reporters about his experience. On Monday and yesterday, he confronted deposed Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the first time since the war, testifying behind closed doors at the U.N. war crimes trial of Milosevic in the Hague.
But the campaign's description of the war skips over a persistent debate not only over how Clark managed it and fought with his superiors over tactics, but also whether the war was avoidable or well planned. The debate has intruded on Clark's campaign, as he is frequently asked about recent criticism by former bosses who had argued that the war was an unworthy gamble.
Clark has not wavered about it, then or now. "No" was not a word he liked to hear, or heed, his friends and colleagues say. In April 1998, a month after Clark sent his memo, for example, national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger felt so pressured that he asked Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, a Clark ally: What is it with you people, always wanting to threaten force and bombing, according to two officials present. At that moment, Berger and much of the military's leadership thought the advocates were rushing ahead of the administration's deliberations.
Also in 1998, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen warned Clark, through Ralston, that he should heed the chain of command by limiting contact with Albright, according to Clark. Cohen separately warned him not to work too closely with U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. But Clark wound up collaborating with both to convince others that Western military force should be brought to bear in Kosovo.
"It was Clark's liberal interventionism, very unusual for a general, which played a critically important role in the successful outcome," Holbrooke said. Clark's alienation from his superiors is hardly unprecedented, Holbrooke added, noting that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had furious disagreements with superiors over the North African campaign in World War II.
Clark supported bombing Yugoslavia in an effort to force Milosevic to relinquish control over the province of Kosovo; the predominant Army, Marine Corps and Air Force views were that such a war would be unwise without clearly articulated U.S. interests, and political backing for overwhelming force.
At the same time, Clark's zealousness -- his autobiography admiringly quotes Gen. Douglas MacArthur's remark that "there is no substitute for victory" -- often stoked resentment among those who clashed with him. The frictions, stemming largely from a conviction that Clark had failed to respect his superiors' orders, culminated in 2000 with his dismissal by Cohen at a moment when he expected to be reappointed for another year. |
