28 March 1999

The United Kingdom's Defense Minister George Robertson and the Chief of Staff, General Guthrie briefed in London March 28.

Following is the UK transript:

Kosovo Crisis : Briefing

Briefing given by Secretary of State for Defence, George Robertson, and Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen Guthrie,

ROBERTSON: Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. I am sorry to have to report that Yugoslavia's campaign of repression against the Albanian population is continuing. Seven towns on the Albanian border are reported to be burning, and on the Macedonian border, as we have all seen on television, Djakovica is in flames. Thousands of refugees are streaming across the border from Kosovo into Albania and there are also reports that civilians may be used as human shields to protect Milosevic's military machine. If that is true, this would of course be a war crime in its own right.

The Alliance is once again emphasising its determination not to allow this campaign of terror in Kosovo to continue. Last night, the 19 NATO allies agreed that the range of targets for our air strikes should be broadened and the attacks intensified to focus increasingly on the forces involved in the repression. The Yugoslav air defence system remains a threat, although now reduced in capability, and we will continue our efforts at the same time to reduce the risk that it poses to our operation and to the lives of our air crew.

But we are increasingly switching our attention to the military thugs who are causing such misery and suffering directly at Milosevic's orders, and let them get this message because we are going to hit them hard. Overnight NATO's Secretary General, Javier Solana, has given the necessary authority to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Clark, to implement these more wide ranging air strikes. In the light of this, I took the decision last night to increase the number of British aircraft assigned to Operation Allied Force and I can now announce that another four RAF Harriers will deploy to Italy to join the eight that we already have there and which have been playing a full part in NATO air operations. These aircraft will be taking off from RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire in the next few hours and will be ready for operations tomorrow. I have also directed that 8 Tornado GR1 bombers should be prepared for operations against Serbia. To support this increased air effort an additional RAF Tristar tanker from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire will join the NATO air to air refuelling fleet later today.

Other allies are also increasing their efforts. The United Kingdom has agreed to a request from the United States to operate additional United States B52 bombers from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, armed as they are with their air launch Cruise missiles, and some of those have already arrived. These additional aircraft and the wider action we are now planning will hit heavily at Milosevic's ability to pursue his murderous campaign in Kosovo.

I don't use the term murderous lightly. What we see of what is happening and what we hear from those who have managed to escape, and from reports by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Red Cross, are enough, more than enough, to convince us that we are confronting a regime which is intent on genocide. These air strikes have one purpose alone and that is to stop the genocidal violence. And this judgment was strengthened yesterday when we received reports that the notorious paramilitary leader known as Arkan has been operating with the Siberian forces in the region of Pristina. We have a photograph of Arkan on the screen now and it will be in your press pack. Arkan was linked with a number of atrocities in Bosnia, including the killings at Vukovar and Acajic. He is a notorious and a noxious thug and a photograph of this killer, a brief account of his brutal past, is there for the world to see and no doubt the international authorities will be interested in it.

As I said yesterday, we are collecting information on the atrocities of the Serbian security forces in Kosovo and I warn them again today, those carrying out these acts of savagery against the civilian population are committing war crimes and those in authority over them are also responsible and can be brought to justice. So all of those involved should take note. Every day we are watching what they are doing and accumulating the evidence to bring them to book. This ethnic extermination is not going to be cloaked in permanent secrecy, nor will it ever be forgotten by the rest of the world and I urge those thinking of obeying these terrible orders to think again. If they act, they will be called to account. The fact that Milosevic has been recruiting people like Arkan and has sent them to Kosovo tells us, and anybody else, what they need to know about their true intentions. And it also reinforces our determination to stop him.

I spoke yesterday about the widespread support for NATO's resolute action it is attracting among the international community. I am also much heartened by the evidence of today's opinion polls in the newspapers showing that the vast majority of the British public support what we are doing and that should give Milosevic some reason to pause. If he imagined that the Alliance would not remain robust, or that the public would not support this action, then he knows differently. We are solidly together and the public is behind us and we are all determined to stop his brutal activities one way or another. We are not taking the easy path. The loss of a United States aircraft last night well demonstrates this. There are dangers and I salute the bravery and the skill of the Allied Servicemen and women involved in these operations. What we are doing needs to be done and together we will see it through.

GUTHRIE: Yesterday saw further NATO attacks. Poor weather once again disrupted the planned missions by NATO tactical bombers and we would still rather cancel attacks at the last minute than run the unacceptable risk of collateral damage. Cruise missiles have no such limitations and a number of targets were struck last night. All of these were directly connected with the NATO military objective of degrading the Serbs' ability to continue with their campaign of repression against the people of Kosovo.

The Secretary of State referred to the announcement by NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, that the range of targets is being broadened. Whilst the threat from air defence still does exist, the fact that this change of emphasis is possible results from the success of our attacks so far. The broadening of our attacks will now allow us to include many targets that will cause even more disruption to the Milosevic regime. Clearly you wouldn't expect me to go into operational details of the exact types of targets, and I don't intend to do so. That said, Milosevic and his commanders should be warned that the pressure and tempo will not diminish, indeed they will increase. Their unacceptable actions in Kosovo come at a very high price and for as long as they continue that price will continue to rise.

The cause of the loss of an American aircraft last night is still unknown, but I am of course delighted that the pilot has been successfully recovered and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the United States on a magnificent rescue operation carried out in a very skilled and courageous manner. I would also add that despite Yugoslavian claims to the contrary, this is the only NATO aircraft which has been lost since we began this operation.

The Secretary of State has mentioned the additional resources which we are making available to Operation Allied Force. Four additional Harriers, which are dedicated ground attack aircraft, will deploy today from Royal Air Force Wittering to Gioia del Colle to join our other aircraft in theatre. These aircraft will form an important increase in our capability. The Tornado GR1 aircraft that we are preparing to move are also extremely capable ground attack aircraft and like the Harrier it has an impressive range of weapons available. In addition, another Tristar tanker will be deployed today from Royal Air Force Brize Norton. This aircraft does not of itself have an offensive capability but it allows other aircraft to remain in the air for longer, whether on patrol to provide defensive cover, or to attack targets which would otherwise be inaccessible.

On the subject of our Harriers, I should like to show you some pictures of the damage caused by their attacks on Thursday night against the explosive storage facility at Leskovac, and Group Captain Parkinson will now describe the sequence of the attack for you.

GROUP CAPTAIN PARKINSON: Ladies and Gentlemen, on this map you can see the position of Leskovac military complex and I will shortly be showing you a picture of the military complex after the Harriers had attacked it, but before that I would just like to orientate you on a picture of the site before the attack.

Leskovac military complex is an ammunition storage area and these buildings here, these three are large ammunition storage bunkers. You can tell that they contain large amounts of ammunition by the way they are physically separated from each other. This storage site here is the target for the first Harrier at the beginning of the wave and to orientate you with the pictures I am about to show you, I would please like you to take note of these two small buildings here, which are not attacked, these two large buildings here, the shape of the road and the wood here to the north of the target.

We are looking here from a slightly northerly aspect, the Harriers attacked from the south. I am shortly going to show you two films of their attacks and the second Harrier's target was off to the bottom right hand corner of this photograph. But the film will start with the centre of the frame and the target box on this building here which is the first Harrier's target. You will see shortly some more detail here, this is the shape of the road, the bend of the road, and this area here is the rest of the military complex. The wood is the large area here, you will see more of that in a moment, and these are the other two bunker areas around here.

The film is running now, this is the target that the Harrier pilot is attacking, you can see the bend in the road here and this is the wood. There is the explosion as he hits his target. Into the second attack. This is the explosion from the first attack and this pilot's target is off to the bottom left here, the wooded area and the bend in the road is up here. You will recall from Friday morning, this pilot thought he was under attack at this stage and you will see him manoeuvre his aeroplane and the pod temporarily loses the target. As he rolls out the target reacquires and here he is aiming his weapons in at the last second, tracking the target, the bomb is just about to impact there.

I will now show you what the site looked like after the attack. This area here is the building that was attacked by the first Harrier pilot, you can see it is completely obliterated and there are signs of charring and significant fire. This is the bend in the road here and this is the woods to situate yourself with the previous photograph. The second Harrier pilot's target was down again to the bottom right of this photograph. Also indicated here, left and right of the centre of the picture, are the other buildings which were damaged by other Allied aircraft later that same night.

GUTHRIE: I think you will agree that these new pictures show how effective precision munitions can be and what they now are and how we are able to limited collateral damage risks. Of course we cannot completely rule out civilian casualties or damage, but it remains very much our desire to minimise these, which is why we have not dropped bombs if we are not confident that they will hit the designated target.

Since yesterday's conference I have been asked a number of times about the deployment of special forces and the SAS in Kosovo and I think everybody here knows, or the great majority of you know, that it is the United Kingdom's policy never to confirm or deny SAS and special force operations.

To finish, Milosevic will see over the next few days that the military campaign will be stepped up in tempo, it will be broadened and it will be intensified. We are applying additional resources and will act against a wider range of targets.

ROSS APPLEYARD (SKY NEWS): Secretary of State, if the weather clears as obviously you hope it will and when the Harriers arrive on site in Italy, do you expect to see a marked increase in the damage capability you have against those ground forces in Kosovo, will they really be hit very hard as soon as you get the first opportunity?

ROBERTSON: Yes. That is a simple answer. As we said, the whole intention of broadening the number and range of targets and the intensity of the attack is to make a direct impact on the ability of Milosevic's military thugs - because that is what they are, these so-called security forces - and damage their capability and their ability to attack innocent civilians as they are doing at the present moment.

QUESTION (GREEK TV): What made it necessary from the military point of view to send more aircraft to the battleground?

GUTHRIE: The Secretary of State has made it quite clear that the intensity and the tempo are increasing; we are also able now to take part in more attacks than we were in the past because we have eroded the capability of the air defence against aircraft.

MIKE EVANS (THE TIMES): Now that you are switching to, one assumes, actual ground forces, troops and armour in Kosovo, what are the two dangers, 1) there is more danger of collateral damage presumably and civilian casualities possibly and secondly, it is obviously a greater risk to NATO's aircraft, particularly the ones involved in low flying - has that also obviously been taken into account?

GUTHRIE: I don't think we should comment on at what height our aircraft will be flying, that is the first thing I would say. Clearly, we will have to make quite sure, as sure as we possibly can, that there will not be human shields around because, as I have said many times in the press conferences we have had, our desire is not to inflict casualties on civilians but I believe there will be enough targets there for us to hurt the Serbian regime very greatly.

JOHN INGHAM (DAILY EXPRESS): Could you go into a bit more detail about the Tornado GR1s, how many you are sending, which base they are going from and when you expect them to be in action?

GUTHRIE: Eight Tornado GR1s and they are likely to come from Royal Air Force Bruggen which is in Germany but we are still looking at contingency plans and exactly how we are actually going to do this but we have put the Tornado force on notice.

ROBERTSON: But we are not saying when they will be in position but "soon" is the answer.

CAROL WALKER (BBC): Given the extent of the chaos that there appears to be in Kosovo now, do you accept that looking to the long term there will have to be some sort of force on the ground to protect the Albanian people? After all, it is hard to imagine how the Serbs and Albanians will be able to live peacefully alongside one another after this.

ROBERTSON: Yes, there is going to be a force on the ground. The idea was to have an implementation force of around 30,000 including not just NATO but others as well and I would hope that when the day comes that the Russians, Ukrainians and others will also be part of the implementation force and indeed we have the forward elements of that in Macedonia just now, around 12,000 troops are in that country. They would go in with the agreement of both parties as part of a peace settlement that would be looking to the future in Macedonia.

To those who say what is the political strategy, what is the political end-game for us, the political end-game is a peace agreement that has got NATO troops on the ground to implement it. Our military objectives, however, are confined to disrupting the violence that is presently going on and limiting the power and ability of the Serbs to do it in the future and that is what we are doing at the present moment day after day and we have to make sure that we keep doing it until the genocidal attacking stops.

CAROL WALKER: To follow up on that, there is no question of this force going in unless there is some sort of agreement?

ROBERTSON: There are absolutely no plans for an opposed entry into Kosovo.

JOHN DAVIDSON (THE INDEPENDENT): We have seen the films again of those two laser-guided bombs being dropped. Is it true that those are the only two bombs so far successfully dropped by the RAF in operations given the bad weather and the problems on the first night with smoke and fire?

GUTHRIE: Yes, that is right. Regarding the others, as we have said, we aborted the flight because we were frightened of creating collateral damage but this is not just a British problem you know, all NATO forces have been affected by the weather.

ROBERTSON: There was no manned bombing last night or the night before for military reasons and for the understandable caution that we have. We obey very much international law, we take care about civilian casualties which is more than Milosevic does, indeed it seems quite clear that he is maximising civilian casualties, driving people out of their own country and ethnically cleansing in every sense of that word.

DAVID BUCHAN (FINANCIAL TIMES): Secretary of State, the Italians and the Greeks have been calling publicly for the bombing to be brief. Were there any objections by the Greeks and the Italians to the extension of this operation, the start of phase 2 focused on Kosovo and if so, were they ignored by the rest?

ROBERTSON: No, there weren't because NATO acts by consensus. The Greek government has made it clear all along that it is not involved in the bombing part of that but was part of the original decision and the decision that was taken overnight and I think a lot of the differences between them and the Italian government and the broad consensus within NATO have been much exaggerated and the Italian government are very much part and parcel of the whole allied effort here both as host to the air bases but also to the military effort that is taking place. A 19-nation alliance is bound to have different views, different priorities but there is an absolute unity of purpose that the violence must stop and that the military effort must go on in order to stop this ethnic cleansing extermination policy that appears to be being undertaken in Kosovo today.

BOB ROBERTS (PA): Have you given any thought to increasing the number of ground troops in Macedonia and strengthening their forces given the possibility of attack?

GUTHRIE: We are planning to move some air defence assets down there and various other things for command and control.

ROBERTSON: We have got appropriate numbers there and when we are closer to a peace agreement then clearly we will move in the remaining forces that we are going to commit to an implementation force there but that is not necessary in the meantime and our troops there are still in good heart, there is still a lot of training that they can do in Macedonia which they are doing at the present moment and by their very presence they are a reassurance to the Macedonian government.

QUESTION (THE MIRROR): Do you believe Arkan has left Belgrade and gone to Kosovo or do you still think he is in the north and secondly, have we fired any more Cruise missiles in addition to the one that HMS Splendid fired on the first night?

ROBERTSON: We don't talk about the targeting and what is used, occasionally we will give you information, we give you as much as we can but clearly in an operation like this some things have to remain operationally silent for the moment but the information that we - and it is pretty ominous information at that - is that Arkan is in Kosovo in an area near Pristina and that he is operating with the Serbian forces and that these set of hoodlums, the "Tigers" that he deployed in Bosnia with such vicious intent, are now there with the Serbian forces in Kosovo and I think that is pretty ominous news about the kind of tactics that Milosevic is willing to deploy in the area and how necessary it therefore is that his military machine, the war machine, is limited by these air attacks.

QUESTION: Secretary of State, can you enlarge a little about what Arkan is up to, have the "Tigers" reformed? They became so infamous in the Bosnian crisis, have they reformed, are they operating under him and do you have any specific examples of what he has been doing?

ROBERTSON: There are limits on what I can say for reasons that you will find obvious. We know he is there, that is information which is solid; we know that he has permanently got these thugs called the "Tigers" round about him and that they are operating with the Serbian forces but beyond that I am not about to say anything more other than to draw the conclusion that Milosevic has been sufficiently rattled now to put these vicious thugs into operation to do some of the terrorising work that perhaps the Serbian forces are more reluctant to do and if there are Serbian forces who are having second thoughts and there are Serbian force commanders who are doubting the wisdom of following these genocidal orders, then I would encourage to think again because we won't forget what is happening today and eventually people will be brought to justice.

MATTHEW GREEN (REUTERS): Is it possible for air strikes to stop what you are describing as genocide on the ground?

ROBERTSON: We believe that it can, we believe that we can disrupt the efforts that are being made just now to undertake that violence and we believe that we can sufficiently reduce the military capability of Milosevic that he will not be able to continue that repression. It can't happen overnight, there isn't one simple knock-out blow, that much was obvious beforehand, it is obvious now but there is a will and a determination and a stomach to see this through and we are not going to stop until we are satisfied that our military objectives have been achieved.

QUESTION: You told us last week that there was evidence that they had an ethnic cleansing plan anyway but do you not feel that the NATO air strikes have somewhat accelerated this and we are now in a position where it is a fight between NATO and Milosevic to fight it out, NATO to stop the ethnic cleansing and Milosevic to increase his efforts to complete it before the air strikes destroy his forces?

ROBERTSON: I don't believe that NATO has accelerated the violence, I don't believe that NATO is responsible for the violence - that was planned, organised, orchestrated and even as he was sending his Serbian prime minister and Serbian president to Rambouillet to talk peace, he was planning ethnic war and it seems clear that the tempo was picking up well before the air attacks came in. The NATO air strikes are not causing this violence, they are not increasing this violence but they are the only thing that will stop the violence.

CAROL WALKER (BBC): Do you have information about this reported alliance between President Milosevic and Saddam Hussein?

ROBERTSON: No, but they seem to have an equally low view of the value of human life so it is not impossible but we may have something to say about these things over the next few days. I think one can draw certain comparisons between the ruthlessness and the brutality of the two people but we are seeing it right in the heart of Europe, the violence carried out by Milosevic, and that is what our forces are directing their attention to.