[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: CDR XXX
Date: 24 Aug 2000
Time: 12:31:45
[The author is a Navy Commander assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense]
If the mighty Plentagon ain't already taking a hard, honest look at this, we're in trouble.
I was suspicious of the genocide reports as they were broadcast because the sources all had reason to inflate the numbers: the K-Albanians, the NGOs, the human rights groups, and even the eager young CNN reporters and editors yearning for more human catastrophe to cover on their watch (it's frightening that Christiane Amanpour is consider the premier 'war correspondent') . Naturally, the Administration both dreaded and welcomed the exponentially expanding figures: dreaded, because the pressure was rising to lead an intervention; and welcomed, because the larger and more outrageous the numbers, the greater the justification for intervening.
There is a parallel in the inflated vehicle kills numbers generated by EUCOM. Even our NATO allies now accept the low kill figures (as few as 14 tanks) as realistic, while GEN (ret) Clark and the USAF maintain that it is higher (over 90). But, like the alleged genocide, Clark and the Mitchellantes can't find the 'bodies.' Instead, their disciples like Rebecca Grant continue to disparage the challengers of 'accepted truth', insisting that 'pilot debriefs' confirm higher kills. Having debriefed hundreds of aircrewmen in my day, I can tell Ms. Grant that their perceptions are anything BUT reliable.
We can't completely fault Clark and the flyboys, though. Their MOEs are the very ones we use in our wargame models: sortie rates, kill ratios/weapons efficiencies, fuel and ordnance consumption rates, etc. When the NCA gave them a screwed up mission -- essentially, "Send a Message To Slobo WIthout Getting Our Own Guys Killed" ---- and then wants to know twice per day how the war is going, what else would they fall back on. They did, however, fudge numbers in order to produce 'positives;' I've been told that EUCOM/USAFE counted sorties that found no targets and dumped their ordnance into the Adriatic as successful strike missions, yet didn't include those sorties in the sortie/target hit ratio. Ironically, it smells suspiciously of the SE Asia 'body counts' these Vietnam veterans swore they would never repeat.
Sadly for Clark, he got none of the laurels that Schwarzkopf received (nor should he), and is now spending time in security forums and talk shows trying to convince us that we won a tremendous victory.