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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rolla Coasta who wrote (678)	1/21/2001 1:08:46 AM
From: Rolla Coasta	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Intentionally – London Observer By Lester J. Gesteland chinaonline.com ChinaOnline News (10/27/1999) The London Observer published a detailed investigative article on Oct. 17 claiming that NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on May 7 was intentional. Citing three military sources, "a flight controller operating in Naples, an intelligence officer monitoring Yugoslav radio traffic from Macedonia and a senior headquarters officer in Brussels," the paper said NATO targeted the embassy because it was rebroadcasting radio signals for the Yugoslav military (VJ). On April 23, NATO bombers struck the rebroadcasting station set up at Yugoslav President Milosevic’s residence. The Serbs were using that location because all their military broadcasting sites had been destroyed by the alliance. After Milosevic’s residence was hit, the NATO intelligence officer said the rebroadcasting signals disappeared for 24 hours. When they reappeared, "we discovered they came from the embassy compound," he said. The air controller confirmed this by stating the embassy had an "electronic profile" which NATO "located and pinpointed." This contradicts official statements by the U.S. government that the planes attacked the "wrong target" because their instructions were based on an "outdated map" from before 1996. According to the Observer, the maps could not have been outdated because the CIA, which orchestrated that particular bombing run, and Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency had been monitoring communications from the Chinese Embassy at its current site since 1996. Furthermore, the flight control officer said the Chinese Embassy was correctly located on the special "don’t hit" map that was in use by NATO at the time. The motives for the strike, as outlined by the Observer, were twofold. First, NATO wanted to cripple Yugoslav military communications. Second, they wanted to halt Chinese monitoring of incoming cruise missiles—the study of which could help Beijing develop defenses against such attacks. The newspaper reported that the Chinese military attaché at the time told a prominent Yugloslav that the embassy was gathering data on cruise missiles for the express purpose of developing counter-measures. The article in the Observer has been reported on by Reuters and the European press, but has been largely ignored in the United States. It has received so little attention, in fact, that Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a New York-based group, issued an "action alert" declaring that the U.S. media "overlooked" the "exposé" because American reporters are biased on the issue. Ken Allen, senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center and former U.S. Assistant Airforce Attaché in Beijing, believes the Observer article has some merit. "I still believe it was an accident," he said, referring to the bombing, but, he added, the rebroadcasting center was definitely struck as a military target. "The embassy was struck as a rebro," Allen said, "not as a political target." In other words, once it was determined that the embassy was rebroadcasting signals, NATO selected it as a target without double-checking that it wasn’t also a politically sensitive target. It was "human error," Allen stated. Paul Beaver, spokesman for Jane’s Defense in London, put it more plainly. "For the USA to deliberately target a foreign Embassy is unthinkable," he stated. However, it is possible the maps in use were incorrect, he added. Or, "analysts may well have concluded that the Yugoslav army had set up a mobile re-broadcasting system there [on the Embassy grounds] under camouflage," Beaver stated. What supports this assertion is the fact that the weapons used were highly accurate precision-guided missiles. The targeters may have been planning on a surgical attack that would only take out the rebroadcasting equipment. In determining whether the attack was deliberate or not, the most important question to ask is, What would the Clinton Administration have gained from such an action? True, there were military justifications for the assault, but the political sensitivity of the target was such that no level-headed decision maker would have approved the action. Paul Beaver of Jane’s looks at the issue differently. The question is not whether NATO deliberately bombed the Embassy, but "did the Chinese government knowingly help the Belgrade authorities?" To contact Lester J. Gesteland: P: (312) 335-3022 F: (312) 335-9299 E: lgesteland@chinaonline.com