Chapter 9: Operation Allied Force: 78 Days of Infamy

(EXCERPT pages 275-329)

Overall War Statistics

NATO flew 35,219 sorties with the participation of 720 U.S. planes. About 36,000 U.S. personnel were involved. According to Associated Press. Chernomyrdin said, ''there were 12,000 air raids, which dropped 10,000 bombs and fired 3,000 missiles. Furthermore, about 50 factories were destroyed, as well as about 40 bridges, 18 power plants, six airports, and 18 churches or monasteries. Over two million people were left unemployed.'' Damage to the Serbian infrastructure was assessed at $30-$100 billion. These statistics later proved to be quite an understatement.

Human Tragedy

Milosevic, in his address to the nation stated that 462 Yugoslav soldiers and 114 police had been killed in fighting as opposed to initial NATO claims of 5,000. To my knowledge nobody has seriously challenged Milosevic's numbers. Chernomyrdin stated that some 3,000 people, including 642 soldiers, were killed and 5,000 wounded. Serbian media claimed 2,000 civilian fatalities which is identical to the total number killed over the 13 months of conflict. At a Novi Sad symposium ''NATO aggression on FRY,'' figures of 2,500 civilian casualties and 10,000 wounded have been quoted. There is no ''reliable'' estimate yet on the number of Kosovo Albanians killed by Serbian forces. The British Foreign Office minister, Geoff Hoon, just 6 days into NATO's presence, estimated that at least 10,000 people were killed in the Serbian crackdown. This British estimate amounts to nothing more than a guess, which, however, has by virtue of repetition become almost a ''fact.''

ICTY investigators have been diligently searching for and discovering mass graves as a part of the NATO slander campaign against the Serbs, justification for the intervention, and Milosevic's plus four other indictments. Beyond this, the emphasis on mass graves is ill placed for a number of reasons. Most important, it detracts from the fundamental issue of how women, children, and elderly died. Everybody knows that vicious fighting between the Serbian forces and the KLA resulted in numerous casualties. These victims had to be buried somewhere. The KLA fighters typically lived in villages with their families. Some family members became victims of what the Pentagon would call ''collateral damage.'' How many of them died from NATO bombing, from the KLA, or from Milosevic regime forces will never be fully established.

The Pentagon admitted only two American fatalities; these reportedly occurred during Apache training exercises in Albania. Serbian, Russian, and Greek sources reported many more American and NATO casualties. The Greek newspaper Athinaiki, reported on April 7, 1999, that NATO lost a total of 88 servicemen, of which 44 were Americans, 11 Germans, seven British, and 19 other nationalities. Another Greek paper, Vradini, reported that during the first 28 days NATO lost at least 81 servicemen, most of them pilots of downed aircraft and members of special rescue forces.

Yugoslav and Russian sources reported that a Strela-2M portable SAM shot down an SFOR helicopter with 22 on board on March 27; there were no survivors. Another SFOR helicopter, an HH-60 Pave Hawk with 12 soldiers on board was downed on March 28; while two crewmembers survived. Fifty-eight crewmembers were reportedly killed in two CH-53 Stallion helicopters. Two NATO SAR helicopters with 40 commandos on board were downed with no survivors. Athinaiki reported that 12 bodies of American servicemen were delivered from Macedonia to the 424th General Army Hospital in Thessaloniki on March 31, 1999, and later shipped to the United States. Seven more bodies were delivered on April 1. Macedonian customs officials independently confirmed the delivery of 19 bodies to Greece. Two U.S. visitors to Serbia at the time, with whom I spoke, reconfirmed the transport of 19 body bags.

NATO Commits Ecocide in Serbia

Ecocide

In addition to causing a huge humanitarian catastrophe, the NATO bombing unleashed an environmental catastrophe (ecocide), with untold health consequences to come, not only in the environment of the FRY but possibly beyond. Ecocide could be defined as a massive and organized degradation of environment in a war conflict. Ecocide could mean an introduction into genocide as it leads to destruction of humans and its habitat. The world experienced ecocide in Vietnam first. Between 1962-70, the U.S. armed forces threw 50,000 tones of herbicides destroying 10 percent of the Vietnamese territory according to Kosovo Daily News on June 8, 1999.

Almost daily attacks on the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical plants, plastic factories, refineries, fuel storage tanks, and the electric power grid have caused numerous technological, chemical and industrial accidents throughout Serbia. These accidents, as well as the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, have resulted in large releases to the environment of various substances with carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic, and other perilous consequences to human, plant, and animal life. Most of these substances are unlikely to kill people instantly. Soaked into the soil they percolate into the aquifer and hence the people of Serbia will be repeatedly exposed to them, wrote the Guardian on April 22, 1999. Large quantities of ammonium and ammonium elements, oil and oil derivatives, acids, and alkali leaked into rivers-including the Danube River destroying aquatic flora and fauna. The Danube is partially dead, although it provides drinking water for some 10 million people.

As a part of my professional career, I have studied the anatomy of catastrophic nuclear and non-nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Challenger, Piper Alpha, and others. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee, I studied oil spills such as the Exxon Valdez, Amoco Cadiz and many others. These were, however, man or management caused accidents. Humans are fallible and represent weak link in the technological systems. Mark Twain said: ''Man is a creature made at the end of the week when God was tired.'' Millions and millions of research dollars have been spent to prevent occurrence of these accidents. In addition to man caused accidents, there are accidents caused by natural phenomena such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc. These are acts of God. The Turkish 7.4 magnitude quake in August 1999, set an oil refinery ablaze, disrupted water and power supplies, flattened overpasses, and killed 17,000.

In the case of NATO ecocide in Serbia, we are dealing with deliberate and calculated poisoning of the human habitat. According to NATO, targeting encompasses an environmental assessment. Hence, the consequences should have been known. Chris Hedges, reporting in the New York Times, called NATO officials in Belgium who told him that the environmental damage caused by the attack was taken into consideration. ''When targeting is done we take into account all possible ''collateral damage,'' be it environmental, human, or to civilian infrastructure.'' It is apparent that NATO showed disregard for human life and the environment. We are talking about low intensity chemical and radiological warfare banned under the Geneva Convention and by the International Court. It is also a violation of the 1992 Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development, which explicitly protects the environment during war conflicts. This is a hideous stain on the moral fabric of the U.S. and its NATO allie! s.

Chemical Releases

The chemical substances released include but are not limited to: burning of vinyl-chloride monomer (VCM) to form dioxins, EDC (1,2 dichloroethane), mercury, burning of oil and oil products releasing dioxin and other noxious gases, ammonia, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, polychlorinated biphenyl's (PCB's), etc. These chemicals are highly toxic, and carcinogenic. Destruction of electric power relay stations led to release of the highly toxic chemical piralen. A large number of people had to be treated for poisoning. The City of Pancevo and its surroundings is without any doubt the environmental ''hotspot.''

Pancevo Hot Spot

NATO repeatedly pounded Pancevo, a town of 80,000 inhabitants, located on the Danube River only 12 miles from Belgrade with its 2 million population. Pancevo is major industrial complex including a petrochemical plant, a fertilizer plant, and a major oil refinery. An artificial canal carries wastewater and storm water runoff directly into the Danube. NATO destroyed all 3 major industrial plants with bombs and missiles: City Refinery, Petrohemija petro-chemical plant, and Azotara fertilizer nitrogen processing plant. Petrohemija and the oil refinery were leveled. NATO bombings leave a dreadful legacy. Fires raged for 10 days. The cloud of smoke was more than 10 miles long. The sun was blotted out for a day. An estimated 100,000 tons of various carcinogens were released into the air, water, and soil as 1,500 tons of VCM were released. Shortly after the strike on Azotara, on April 18, levels of VCM rose to 7,200 times normal in between 5-6 a.m.;10,600 times normal in between 6-8 ! a.m.; and 9,000 times normal in the interval 8.40-9.45 a.m. Subsequently, the concentrations were much reduced as the wind carried it north of the city, poisoning the land and the crops of grain and fruit. Incidentally, permissible VCM concentration in the United States is essentially zero.

About 15,000 tons of ammonia and associated substances were poured into the Danube, Europe's most important waterway. The river runs almost 2,000 miles through 11 countries, which are already heavily polluted. According to some, this method of disposal was necessary to avert a Bhopal-type of accident. Fishing was barred downstream of Pancevo. Potentially more deadly is the river's contamination with heavy elements-mercury in particular, which sweeps the poison downstream into the Black Sea. Over 100 tons of mercury was released.

The Serbian government imposed a 60-day moratorium on publishing environmental information as of June 9. It was doing that for fear of those who are affected and for fear of facing pressure to do something to remedy the problem. On the other hand, government officials are aware that they cannot do anything. In addition, the regime wanted to reassure people that the country is returning to normality. Nonetheless, farm workers have developed rashes that burn and blister. Those who eat fish caught in the river and vegetables grown nearby or drink tap water reported diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach cramps. Miscarriages have doubled.

Fears of birth defects are tormenting pregnant women. Mark Fineman reported in the Los Angeles Times on July 6, 1999, physicians recommend that all women who were in town on April 18, 1999 avoid pregnancy for at least the next 2 years. Women who were less than 9 weeks pregnant were advised to obtain abortions. Most did comply. Pancevo pro-democracy mayor Srdjan Mikovic said: ''Only in the next 2 years or 20 can I tell you the full consequences... I am afraid you will find a lot of our people in the oncology ward fighting cancer, or perhaps in the hematology department or center for respiratory diseases, or perhaps in the morgue. But for today, it's enough to worry just how to get through the summer and the cold winter that lies ahead.''

Other Towns

Other places have been affected, such as Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Kostolac, Lazarevac, Nis, Belgrade, Bor and Smederevo. The water supply of Novi Sad was contaminated after 30 fuel tanks and the refinery were hit and spewed oil. Novi Sad streets were drenched with slimy, sooty rainwater. Even vast quantities of fire-extinguishing foam needed to dose the 11-day blaze pose their own ecological threat.

Bombings of the Zastava car factory in Kragujevac resulted in high levels of PCB's and dioxins; high levels of PCBs around high voltage transformers, contaminated water tanks. Some of the transformers used the highly toxic and cancerous coolant piralen, 1 liter of which can poison four million liters of water.

Severe air pollution from sulfur dioxide emissions, PCB contamination at transformer stations in the town of Bor in Eastern Serbia near the Bulgarian border.