Center for Research on Globalization
Remember Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia
Speaking of Blackouts
www.globalresearch.ca 17 August 2003
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PRI308A.html
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Speaking of blackouts.....maybe after experiencing a mere 16 or so
hours without power, people in the Canadian province of Ontario and in
the American states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York might
think a bit about what it means when we wage war on civilians in other
countries and bomb electrical power plants.
And of course, when a power plant is bombed, the power does not come
back on in 16 hours as it did here. It is out for days, weeks , or
months, along with water treatment and pumping facilities, sewage and
sanitary systems, all food refrigeration and storage, hospitals and
medical facilities and communication and transport that depend on
electricity.
As very brief reminder, here are a few news items from [Iraq
April-August 2003] and May 1999 when we bombed power plants in
Yugoslavia. Remember, but more importantly...think.
Mart (PRIME News Group)
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THE IMPACTS OF THE ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT IN IRAQ (2003)
The Age, Melbourne, 21 April 03
"Hundreds of people are dying who should not die, simply because there
is a lack of adequate nursing and because basic operations cannot be
performed due to the lack of medicines and electricity. Unless they get
the power and the water back on soon we are facing a disaster," (The
Age, Melbourne, 21 April 03)
Morning Star, 21 April 03
But the lack of electricity means that medicines cannot be refrigerated
and much hospital equipment lies idle. The UN children's fund Unicef
says that piles of rubbish are accumulating at the hospitals and up to
70 per cent of patients at the children's hospital now have diarrhoea.
(Morning Star, 21 april 03)
Department of Defense Press Briefing, 12 August 03
MR. BREMER: The problem of power I have addressed before; I will say it
again. The structural problem in electricity in this country is due to
malfeasance and incompetent economic management by the Ba'athists over
a period of almost 40 years. [It is not related to the bombing] When
the war started, this country had about 4,000 megawatts of generating
capability, but the demand was more than 6,000 megawatts. In other
words, before the war, there was a gap of almost 33, 34 percent, a
deficiency.[i.e. not due to economic sanctions and the 1991 Gulf War]
We are working to restore all of the generating capability in the
country. That means getting it back to 4,000 megawatts. We are running
between 3,3(00) and 3,400 megawatts a day. We will try to get to 4,000
megawatts by the end of September. We are affected by the kind of
sabotage which continues to be conducted against transmission lines and
by the lack of maintenance of these systems for a very long time and
the complete lack of capital investment in the power industry.
So getting to the point where we can provide every Iraqi with the
amount of power that he or she wants is a long-term problem, at least
another year, because you cannot create 2,000 megawatts of power
overnight.
What we are trying to do is, therefore, arrive at a solution which has
-- takes into account everybody's interest, not just the interest of a
few elite Ba'athists or people in the Republican Guard or the killers
of the Fedayeen Saddam, but trying to say to all Iraqis: We will share
all of the power we have, but you have to remember we don't have enough
power for everybody.
So three weeks ago, I instituted a policy of sharing the electricity
around the country, which means that at least you can plan on when the
blackouts will happen. Of course, this depends on not having attacks
against the power industry and not having breakdowns because of poor
maintenance.
On the whole, that system is beginning to work, and parts of the
country now are enjoying more electricity than they ever had before,
because we are able to share it.
But it will take time, and I'm sympathetic with the problem of the
people sleeping on their roofs and not having air conditioning at this
time. We simply have to work at it, and we will. We intend to restore
basic services to every Iraqi man, woman and child here, and we will do
that. (DoD Press Briefing, 12 August 03)
Pensacola News, 14 August 03
Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, told reporters it
will take "staggering" sums - about $30 billion - just to restore
Iraq's electricity and water systems. [contracts to Western energy
companies to be financed on borrowed money]. That comes on top of a
reported $4 billion a month to maintain military forces and operations
there.
"It does leave us with a substantial problem in the next year - as we
have to make these major infrastructure investments - about where we're
going to get the capital," he said. Incredibly, Bremer apparently is
hoping that a lot of the money will come from a conference of "donor
nations" [creditors not donors] scheduled for October. Given the lack
of international support for the U.S. effort so far, it seems more
likely that American taxpayers will be the top "donor."
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is angering both Republicans and
Democrats by refusing to provide even rough estimates of what Congress
will be asked to appropriate next year for Iraq.
Bremer rejected an Arab reporter's assertion that the country was in
chaos, despite the fuel riots in Basra, more attacks on U.S. forces
that left two G.I.s dead, severe shortages of electricity exacerbated
by continuing sabotage, last week's bombing of the Jordanian embassy,
and new reports of accidents or sabotage at oil pipelines that have
resulted in fires, interrupting the flow of oil. (Pensacola News, 14
August 03)
CNN 11 August 03
[Denial that the bombing affected Iraq's Electricity Grid]
Paul Bremer and his people will tell you that they are actually
supplying more electricity now than Saddam's government was before the
invasion.
Ret. General Jay Garner Statement to House Sub-committee on National
Security, FDCH, 18 July 2003
GARNER: As I left, the North and South had as good a water and better
electricity than they ever had because they were getting electricity 24
hours a day. Now, the problem was in Baghdad. Because Baghdad never had
the electrical grid capacity to generate enough electricity for the
city. So that the electricity for Baghdad had to be ported or
transported from the northern grids and the southern grids into Baghdad.
Daily Telegraph, 11 August 03
But the British official in charge of the reconstruction of Iraq has
given warning that it could take at least a year before the country's
infrastructure is repaired and running at pre-war levels.
Andy Bearpark, coalition director of operations and infrastructure,
said that four months after the fall of Baghdad many critical
installations, from telephone networks to sewage treatment plants, are
still a year away from their pre-war standards.
And with temperatures hitting upwards of 122F (50C) he said that
pre-war power supply would not be restored to its former levels for
another couple of months, leaving many Iraqis to swelter in the summer
sun.
"We will be up to pre-war generation of electricity in the next 60 or
so days," said Mr Bearpark, 50, a bluff Rochdale man who has spent his
career directing post-war reconstruction across the globe. "At the
moment the minimum supply is three hours on, three hours off."
But protesters have long grown sceptical of coalition promises,
complaining that provision rarely matches them.
Mr Bearpark has his own complaints, blaming rebuilding delays on the
damage caused by looters, such as the organised gangs that strip pylons
of electricity cables for their copper.
It is up to Gen Freddy Viggers, Britain's deputy to the overall
coalition forces commander in Iraq, US Gen Ricardo Sanchez, to ward off
such criminals. "Our main job is to look after the security threat,"
said Gen Viggers, who liaises with Mr Bearpark to provide military
protection for rebuilding projects. 'We try to protect the pylon lines
but beyond that the military can't do much in terms of civil
reconstruction."
So fragile is Iraq's infrastructure that during a recent crisis, when
one of Iraq's main power stations was offline, the country's entire
electricity supply depended on a 30-mile stretch of cable. Mr Bearpark,
who reports directly to Iraq's US administrator, Paul Bremer, said:
"Freddy was able to put guards along that little section of wire to
prevent complete meltdown."
There are other successes, including the rapid re-equipping of schools
in time for the new school year beginning in September. Other complex
exercises, such as the currency swap that will see Saddam Hussein's
face disappear from banknotes from October, are dwarfed by major
projects.
"For the moment we are pumping raw sewage into the Tigris," Mr Bearpark
said. "Getting Baghdad's two sewage stations back will take 12 months.
Then there's the telecoms. Roughly 50 per cent of the network was taken
out by bombing. To get that all back will take a year."
Los Angeles Times, 11 August 03
The riots, in the city's north, were smaller than Saturday's protests
but more violent, British soldiers said.
"They're shooting at us," said one soldier manning a checkpoint. "It's
the petrol queues. They've been without electricity for four days now."
Many Iraqis are convinced that the U.S.-led occupation forces could
provide electricity and gasoline, if only they made it a priority.
"We have no electricity, no gasoline, no water, no butane, no wood,"
said Aruba Saad, a housewife. "Why don't the Americans do something?
How do they expect us to live? We're not animals."
Near the southern city of Diwaniyah, a U.S. soldier in a convoy died of
heat stress Saturday, Central Command said. Another soldier was found
dead in his quarters of unknown causes.
Sunday's unrest came as two Arab television networks broadcast videos
of masked fighters calling for armed uprisings against occupation
forces.
The Herald, Scotland, 14 August 03
[Iraq Electricity Blackout is Good for Business: The Spoils of War]
Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, is understood to
have asked the Ministry of Defence to take a more active role in
support of British companies seeking reconstruction work.
She intervened after an approach from Siemens UK, which was putting
together a bid to help repair Iraq's shattered electricity
infrastructure, but faced stiff competition from America's General
Electric.
It was perhaps the first sign of a real impetus on the part of the UK
government to seriously promote UK business interests in the war-torn
country.
That, coupled with the announcement of Mr Wilson being appointed as
Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq, and the announcement that British
Airways is resuming flights to Iraq after 13 years, may improve
prospects for UK firms.
They have viewed bidding for contracts in Iraq as a case of history
repeating itself, following military interventions in Kosovo and
Afghanistan.
Colin Adams, director of the British Consultants' Bureau, which
co-ordinated restruction projects in Kosovo, has said British firms
would be "extremely well -placed" for the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
---
THE IMPACTS OF THE ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT IN AFGHANISTAN (2001)
The Guardian, 8 October 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: The bombing begins:
50 cruise missiles fired: 2am news
The US and Britain launched a massive air onslaught on Afghanistan last
night, including 50 cruise missiles and wave after wave of heavy
bombers, in the opening blow of what President George Bush vowed would
be a "sustained, comprehensive and relentless" campaign against Osama
bin Laden and his supporters.
Cruise missile strikes aimed at crippling anti-aircraft defences were
followed by raids by high-altitude and stealth bombers. The sorties
were flown from the Gulf and the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia,
while B-2 long-range stealth bombers flew from the American Midwest and
refuelled in mid-air.
The bombing campaign, nearly a month after the terrorist massacres in
New York and Washington, was aimed at devastating the forces of
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the threadbare infrastructure of Bin
Laden's al-Qaida organisation.
The first indication from Afghanistan that the campaign had begun came
when several loud explosions were reported in Kabul and electricity
supplies were cut.
[Media lies: Denial that they bombed electricity grids]: New Republic,
29 October 2003
The insistence on not attacking bridges and electricity grids, the
sluggish and exquisitely calibrated air campaign, the parade of
American diplomats courting the former Afghan king--all testify to the
imperative of keeping the country's infrastructure intact.
---
THE IMPACTS OF THE BLACKOUT IN YUGOSLAVIA (1999)
http://cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/02/kosovo.02/
2 May 1999
Serbia plunges into darkness after NATO raid
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO air raids struck a series of major
Yugoslav power plants Sunday, knocking out power across Serbia,
including Belgrade, senior Yugoslav officials told CNN Sunday.
NATO bombs damaged a power plant in Kostolac, 25 miles (40 km)
southeast of Belgrade along the Danube River, which supplies
electricity to all subsidiary power plants across Serbia.
An official government source said NATO planes also hit a plant in the
southern city of Nis and another in Obrenovac, about 18 miles (30 km)
west of Belgrade.
State-owned Serbian television, a repeated target of NATO airstrikes,
went off the air around 9:45 p.m. (3:45 p.m. ET), as did all other
television and radio stations.
Yugoslav Minister of Health Leposava Milicevic, speaking with CNN by
phone, said the situation was causing serious problems throughout
Serbia.
Without electricity, water could not be supplied to critical locations
like hospitals, she said.
CNN's Brent Sadler, reporting from the Yugoslav capital, said:
"Belgrade is now in darkness for as far as the eye can see."
While there was heavy anti-aircraft fire in Belgrade, Sadler did not
report any explosions in or around the city center of Yugoslavia's
capital.
NATO renews attacks despite prisoner release
NATO and Pentagon declined to say whether the power plants were
targeted for an attack, and deferred further questions until a Monday
morning briefing.
But earlier Sunday, U.S. and alliance officials said that, despite the
release of three U.S. soldiers in Yugoslav captivity, air attacks
against the country will continue unabated.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must fully accept NATO conditions
for a resolution to the civil conflict in Kosovo between separatist
ethnic Albanians and Serbian forces before the alliance halts the
airstrikes, the officials said.
Two U.S. warplanes crash in airstrikes
NATO on Sunday reported that it had lost two U.S. aircraft in its
Kosovo air campaign overnight Saturday.
An F-16 crashed about 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of the Serbian town
of Kozluk early Sunday, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said. The plane was
returning from a combat mission in Yugoslavia.
"The pilot ejected at around 2:20 a.m. (1200 GMT) this morning, and he
was rescued by NATO forces two hours later," Shea said. "He is safely
back at his operating base, where he is receiving medical attention and
being debriefed on the incident."
Serbian air defense officials said they shot down the F-16, but NATO
military spokesman Col. Konrad Freytag said the jet crashed after
experiencing engine failure. He said the cause of the engine failure
was unknown.
The second plane lost was a Harrier jump jet, which crashed into the
Adriatic Sea while returning to the amphibious assault carrier USS
Kearsarge from a t raining mission. Its pilot was also rescued, Shea
said.
Previously, NATO lost an F-117 stealth fighter, which went down in
Serbia on March 27; and an Apache helicopter, which crashed while
training in Albania last month. Four pilotless "drones" also have been
lost.
NATO admits civilian bus strike
NATO also said early Sunday that one of its attacks hit a civilian bus
crossing a bridge near Luzane, north of Kosovo's capital, Pristina.
NATO says the bridge was "used extensively by the Serb armed forces."
At least 34 people died in the attack, according to Serb news reports
and witnesses.
"The pilot released the weapon, and only after he released the weapon
did the bus come on the bridge," Shea said. "We will continue to do
everything we can to try and avoid those kinds of incidents. We can't
eliminate them altogether."
The bus was sliced in half by the attack and caught fire. Half of it
remained on the bridge, while the other half plunged 13 meters (40
feet) over the edge. The bridge remained standing.
Reporters brought to the scene said they saw bodies and body parts
strewn around the scene.
In Macedonia, an estimated 5,000 refugees streamed across the border
within the past day, officials told CNN.
Macedonia refugee plight worsens
Some refugees have only blankets for living quarters At least 80,000
are squeezed into refugee camps with hopelessly inadequate facilities,
they said. For some of the new arrivals, a piece of plastic is all they
can expect for living quarters, as relief officials are unable to house
nearly half the newcomers.
Macedonian Prime Minister Zupce Georievski, touring a border camp
Sunday, expressed concern that his country had "not received one
dollar" from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Four hundred of the refugees are expected to leave Tuesday to fly to
the United States, which has agreed to temporarily house 20,000
Kosovars during the conflict. They will be processed for several weeks
at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
In Albania, new refugees from Kosovo say Serb police are detaining
women and children, possibly using them to serve as human shields.
One refugee from the border town of Prizen said, "It's totally panicky
in the city. They're taking people as hostages."
Reports of intense KLA, Serb combat
In Southwest Kosovo, there were reports of heavy fighting between
separatist ethnic Albanians and Serbian military forces.
Rebels with the Kosovo Liberation Army have engaged in a major
offensive to open a corridor and unite with other KLA forces farther in
the interior of the province, Turkish journalist Mithat Bereket told
CNN.
The Serbian military answered with heavy artillery and tanks, he said.
Bereket said there were indications that the Serbian army was suffering
from low morale and a high rate of desertions.
He said there were reports that Serbian soldiers were making 15- to
50-year-old Kosovar Albanians set up mines, dig trenches against tanks
and give blood to prepare for a ground offensive.
Correspondents Brent Sadler, Tom Mintier and Jane Arraf contributed to
this report.
---
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/23/kosovo.01/
23 May 1999
NATO strikes at Yugoslav power plants
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO bombs put Yugoslavia's largest
coal-burning power plant out of business Sunday, the state-run Tanjug
news agency said.
Tanjug said two rockets hit the Nikola Tesla plant near Obrenovac, 30
kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Belgrade, just before dawn. The
attack caused "additional problems" in supplying the Yugoslav capital
with electricity after attacks early Saturday struck the nearby
Kolubara power plant.
Other NATO targets included armored vehicles and tanks; artillery
positions; parked aircraft; a command post; ammunition and petroleum
storage sites; and communications facilities.
"It was quite an intensive night of air operations," NATO spokesman
Jamie Shea said in Brussels, Belgium.
Overnight, NATO planes flew 652 sorties over Yugoslavia, 301 of them
striking targets. Alliance members vowed to continue the strikes until
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to their conditions for a
safe return of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who have fled
their homes in Serbia's Kosovo province.
"The NATO campaign is doing real damage to his military machine," said
British Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd. "And NATO is prepared to go
on and on with its air campaign while building up its forces necessary
to take the refugees home in safety."
Lloyd added that NATO was equally committed to the diplomatic search
for peace, "but it must be a peace that gives the people of Kosovo a
secure future."
Ground troop debate continues
The British also continued their push for a willingness to send a
ground force into Kosovo before Milosevic has fully complied with
NATO's demands, which include a complete pullout of Yugoslav and Serb
forces from the region.
Returning from a trip to Washington, British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook told the British Broadcasting Corp. that NATO must be ready to
"deploy troops in a permissive or a non-permissive environment" --
meaning with or without Milosevic's consent.
Cook also praised signals from Washington that the United States was no
longer categorically rejecting early deployment of ground troops.
In an opinion piece published in Sunday's New York Times, U.S.
President Bill Clinton reiterated NATO's oft-stated view that the air
campaign was working, but said he did "not rule out other military
options."
The U.S. has now joined other NATO allies in calling for a larger
peacekeeping force than originally planned. The alliance is massing
some 28,000 troops along the Macedonian border for the mission, but the
U.S. and others said as many a s 50,000 troops should be ready for
action.
NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be
expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in
their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.
"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on
Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the
Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply
preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough
and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the
refugees to go back into their homes."
NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be
expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in
their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.
"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on
Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the
Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply
preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough
and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the
refugees to go back into their homes."
Correspondent John Raedler contributed to this report.
---
http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Kosovo/Shea2.html
NATO plunges Serbia into darkness in overnight strikes
Jamie Shea Backgrounder in Brussels on 3 May 1999
JAMIE SHEA: Good morning! I am here to give you the quick operational
update in the usual fashion. Let me just point out that the Council is
meeting today at 11 o'clock and that I will be back with SHAPE in the
usual fashion at 3 o'clock for the daily operational briefing on camera.
There is one expression of SACEUR's that I'm sure you've heard on many
previous occasions, he has said: "There are tanks and there are tanks!"
What he means by that is that a tank which is stuck in its tracks
because it has no fuel is far less of a tank and far less of a threat
than one that has fuel and can move and as you know -- and I think
President Milosevic has realised this this morning more than ever
before -- there are also command-and-control systems and
command-and-control systems and if a command-and-control system has no
electricity to turn it on, it is of course wire, metal and plastic and
not a functioning military system and that is what we did in our
operations last night, we went out to deprive the command-and-control
system of its electricity, of its power and to reduce it to wire,
plastic and metal.
Alliance aircraft yesterday evening struck the five main electric yards
that distribute power to the Serb armed forces, the military machine of
President Milosevic, the power which supplies his airfields, his
headquarters, his communication systems, his command-and-control
network and no power means no runway lights, no computers, no secure
communications.
More specifically, NATO aircraft last night struck the transformer
yards of Opranovac (phon), a key electrical distribution station in
western Serbia. We also attacked the transformer yard at Nis in
southern Serbia and this has degraded significantly the command,
control and communications capabilities of the 3rd Yugoslav Army
headquartered in Nis; and we hit the transformer yards also in three
other locations -- Bajinabasta (phon), Dermo and Novi Sad -- as well.
I want you to know -- and I want to stress this -- that NATO forces
took the utmost care to ensure that important civilian facilities like
hospitals had redundant power capabilities and that they had therefore
the back-up transformers to keep their systems running through these
power outages and I believe that you have seen from reports this
morning from Belgrade that that was indeed the case, that those
essential civilian services like hospitals were running.
We regret the inconvenience that power outages have caused to the Serb
people but we have no choice but to continue attacking every element of
the Yugoslav armed forces until such time as President Milosevic
accepts the demands of the international community, those five
unconditional points which we reiterate every day and I just want to
remind you of what those five points are: that Milosevic must stop the
killing, that he must get his troops out of Kosovo, that he must accept
an international military presence with NATO as its core to establish
security inside Kosovo, that he must allow without any restriction or
qualification the return of all refugees and that he must work to build
a permanent political solution based on the Rambouillet peace plan and
we are not asking for anything more but we will not settle for anything
less.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
QUESTION (ABC NEWS): What's on the Council's agenda for today?
JAMIE SHEA: The Council today will be updating its assessments of the
current situation in Kosovo based on a report by Klaus Naumann, the
Chairman of the Military Committee, particularly reviewing -- as I am
doing with you at the moment the developments on the military scene
over the last 24 hours and in that respect let me stress that, as you
know, the last 72 hours have seen the most intensive period thus far of
NATO air operations bringing us beyond the 14,000 sortie mark since the
operation began on 24th March and with on average over 600 sorties per
night in recent nights so I think that will be the first thing on the
agenda.
Secondly, there will be a review of the current humanitarian situation
which continues to cause us enormous concern -- I will be speaking
about that later at 3 o'clock -- and then obviously NATO ambassadors
will discuss various planning activities following on from the
Washington summit.
QUESTION (CNN): Reaction to the Chirnomyrdin visit to Washington?
JAMIE SHEA: Well obviously we are very pleased that Russia clearly
wants to engage with the NATO countries in the search for a diplomatic
solution to the crisis in Kosovo. It is very encouraging that not only
does Mr. Chirnomyrdin want to be in Washington today to meet President
Clinton but also apparently wants to go on to Paris, to London and
other NATO capitals in the next few days. We have always made it clear
that we want Russia to be our partner in seeking a diplomatic solution
but everybody knows that that diplomatic solution can only be based on
the five principles, principles which are not simply NATO principles,
they have been endorsed by virtually the entire international
community. It is only on that basis that we can create a lasting real
peace for Kosovo, anything less risks purely postponing the crisis to a
later stage. We have seen with President Milosevic last October that
half a cake is as good as no cake because he then slides back and we
find ourselves in an even worse situation that we were in before so we
hope obviously with Russia to build a common position but it has to be
based on the five principles and we will continue to engage Russia in
that respect -- let us obviously see what happens in Washington -- but
I think the fact that we are talking to the Russians so intensively,
that the Russians are engaging so intensively is an encouraging sign
even if we may still have differences in our positions but at least we
are working to narrow those positions but it has to be once again on
the basis of the five core requirements of the international community.
DIMITRI: As a follow-up, is it only bilateral relations with NATO
countries or are there some signs of relations between NATO
headquarters here and the Russians?
JAMIE SHEA: No. This is being done, Dimitri, on a bilateral basis but
obviously the NATO Allies are all heavily engaged in those talks. It's
not simply France or the UK or the United States, you've seen that the
Canadian Foreign Minister, Mr. Axworthy (phon), has been in Moscow; we
know that the Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr. Dereik (phon), is there
today to see Foreign Minister Ivanov; last week, Mr. Papandreou, the
Greek Foreign Minister, was also in Moscow; Mr. Chirnomyrdin was in
Rome last week meeting the Italian government before his trip to
Belgrade so what I want to show you is that it's not simply the larger
NATO countries that are involved in this, all NATO countries almost
without exception are speaking to the Russians trying to engage the
Russians, to seek their support on the five core principles that we
know are the only way to solve this crisis.
JULIE: There were some reports that the ordnance used was a powder that
was dropped on these power plants. I wonder if you could tell us a
little bit about that?
JAMIE SHEA: I am not a military specialist, Julie, and the SHAPE
briefing this afternoon I think will be a bit more detailed on that,
particularly coming from the experts but what we have done is to
demonstrate our ability to shut off the power system whenever we want
and to do it in a way which short-circuits electrical systems without
destroying the basic infrastructure which drives those systems and I
think that shows that first of all, our key objective is not to deprive
the Serb people of their electrical grid but to be able to disrupt and
degrade at will the power that drives the military machine so that it
is shut off for significant periods of time and so that the Yugoslav
Army has to go to enormous trouble to try to restore that power and
that disruption is going to cause a sufficient degree of uncertainty in
their command-and-control systems to give NATO a significant tactical
advantage as well so that shows that we have the technology to achieve
a significant military result in an essential area -- the
command-and-control system -- without having to destroy that basic
infrastructure which of course is what drives the civilian electricity
grid and I think that that will show President Milosevic in a very
significant way just how much we can now shut down the power system as
and when we have to do it.
JOHN: Jamie, doesn't the study of bombardment campaigns like this in
the past show that when targets like power systems and other things
that affect the civilian population are hit, that this actually
increases the support of the civilian population for the regime in
place? It seems to be that there has been a Rubicon crossed here.
JAMIE SHEA: John, obviously we want to spare the inconvenience to the
Serb people but clearly we have to go after the fundamental military
objectives.
One thing that I have noticed -- and I don't know if you have noticed
this too -- but over the last couple of days we haven't seen on our
television screens the outpouring of nationalism that characterised the
early stages of this air campaign, the rock concerts in Belgrade, the
human shields although I wouldn't used that term but they were
described as human shields on the bridges in Belgrade, the expressions
of support seem to have disappeared and I don't believe it is because
people have stopped filming, I think it is because they haven't taken
place. I said the other day that when Vuk Draskovic was still in the
government and tried to organise his so-called "anti-NATO happenings",
they collapsed because virtually nobody showed up and I've seen several
reports -- and these are in the open press, in the presses of different
countries -- over the last few days of people in Belgrade that say that
the mood has changed, that if you like, the euphoria of nationalism is
subsiding, that people are starting to weigh the consequences of the
type of confrontation that Milosevic has embarked them on and they
don't like it and they like it less and less. Even if this is not the
type of organised resistance that we saw in 1996 and 1997, people are
now starting to question where Milosevic is taking them and I think
these signs will grow so I don't share that hypothesis that these
things are going to stir up patriotism, I think quite the contrary,
they are going to increase demands on Milosevic to stop this, to settle
on the reasonable terms of the international community and start
looking after what any leader should be looking after which is not his
own prestige but the interests of his people.
DOUG: Just a follow-up on all of that, Jamie. Surely it is a little bit
disingenuous to say that NATO regrets the inconvenience, surely you
want large areas of the population in the country to get the message?
JAMIE SHEA: We don't want the population to get the message, Doug, I
think they got the message years ago when their standards of living
started plummeting as a result of the misrule of the current
government. No, we want the regime to get the message and I think with
their command-and-control severely disrupted last night and seeing just
how quickly and massively NATO is able to do this, they will have one
more thing to worry about in addition to all of the other things they
have to worry about and maybe they will start worrying a little bit
about how they are going to accept the five key provisions of the
international community. We want to worry the government first and
foremost and I think we did that last night.
---
Copyright CNN 2003 For fair use only/ pour usage équitable seulement .
Remember Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia
Speaking of Blackouts
www.globalresearch.ca 17 August 2003
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PRI308A.html
---
Speaking of blackouts.....maybe after experiencing a mere 16 or so
hours without power, people in the Canadian province of Ontario and in
the American states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York might
think a bit about what it means when we wage war on civilians in other
countries and bomb electrical power plants.
And of course, when a power plant is bombed, the power does not come
back on in 16 hours as it did here. It is out for days, weeks , or
months, along with water treatment and pumping facilities, sewage and
sanitary systems, all food refrigeration and storage, hospitals and
medical facilities and communication and transport that depend on
electricity.
As very brief reminder, here are a few news items from [Iraq
April-August 2003] and May 1999 when we bombed power plants in
Yugoslavia. Remember, but more importantly...think.
Mart (PRIME News Group)
---
THE IMPACTS OF THE ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT IN IRAQ (2003)
The Age, Melbourne, 21 April 03
"Hundreds of people are dying who should not die, simply because there
is a lack of adequate nursing and because basic operations cannot be
performed due to the lack of medicines and electricity. Unless they get
the power and the water back on soon we are facing a disaster," (The
Age, Melbourne, 21 April 03)
Morning Star, 21 April 03
But the lack of electricity means that medicines cannot be refrigerated
and much hospital equipment lies idle. The UN children's fund Unicef
says that piles of rubbish are accumulating at the hospitals and up to
70 per cent of patients at the children's hospital now have diarrhoea.
(Morning Star, 21 april 03)
Department of Defense Press Briefing, 12 August 03
MR. BREMER: The problem of power I have addressed before; I will say it
again. The structural problem in electricity in this country is due to
malfeasance and incompetent economic management by the Ba'athists over
a period of almost 40 years. [It is not related to the bombing] When
the war started, this country had about 4,000 megawatts of generating
capability, but the demand was more than 6,000 megawatts. In other
words, before the war, there was a gap of almost 33, 34 percent, a
deficiency.[i.e. not due to economic sanctions and the 1991 Gulf War]
We are working to restore all of the generating capability in the
country. That means getting it back to 4,000 megawatts. We are running
between 3,3(00) and 3,400 megawatts a day. We will try to get to 4,000
megawatts by the end of September. We are affected by the kind of
sabotage which continues to be conducted against transmission lines and
by the lack of maintenance of these systems for a very long time and
the complete lack of capital investment in the power industry.
So getting to the point where we can provide every Iraqi with the
amount of power that he or she wants is a long-term problem, at least
another year, because you cannot create 2,000 megawatts of power
overnight.
What we are trying to do is, therefore, arrive at a solution which has
-- takes into account everybody's interest, not just the interest of a
few elite Ba'athists or people in the Republican Guard or the killers
of the Fedayeen Saddam, but trying to say to all Iraqis: We will share
all of the power we have, but you have to remember we don't have enough
power for everybody.
So three weeks ago, I instituted a policy of sharing the electricity
around the country, which means that at least you can plan on when the
blackouts will happen. Of course, this depends on not having attacks
against the power industry and not having breakdowns because of poor
maintenance.
On the whole, that system is beginning to work, and parts of the
country now are enjoying more electricity than they ever had before,
because we are able to share it.
But it will take time, and I'm sympathetic with the problem of the
people sleeping on their roofs and not having air conditioning at this
time. We simply have to work at it, and we will. We intend to restore
basic services to every Iraqi man, woman and child here, and we will do
that. (DoD Press Briefing, 12 August 03)
Pensacola News, 14 August 03
Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, told reporters it
will take "staggering" sums - about $30 billion - just to restore
Iraq's electricity and water systems. [contracts to Western energy
companies to be financed on borrowed money]. That comes on top of a
reported $4 billion a month to maintain military forces and operations
there.
"It does leave us with a substantial problem in the next year - as we
have to make these major infrastructure investments - about where we're
going to get the capital," he said. Incredibly, Bremer apparently is
hoping that a lot of the money will come from a conference of "donor
nations" [creditors not donors] scheduled for October. Given the lack
of international support for the U.S. effort so far, it seems more
likely that American taxpayers will be the top "donor."
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is angering both Republicans and
Democrats by refusing to provide even rough estimates of what Congress
will be asked to appropriate next year for Iraq.
Bremer rejected an Arab reporter's assertion that the country was in
chaos, despite the fuel riots in Basra, more attacks on U.S. forces
that left two G.I.s dead, severe shortages of electricity exacerbated
by continuing sabotage, last week's bombing of the Jordanian embassy,
and new reports of accidents or sabotage at oil pipelines that have
resulted in fires, interrupting the flow of oil. (Pensacola News, 14
August 03)
CNN 11 August 03
[Denial that the bombing affected Iraq's Electricity Grid]
Paul Bremer and his people will tell you that they are actually
supplying more electricity now than Saddam's government was before the
invasion.
Ret. General Jay Garner Statement to House Sub-committee on National
Security, FDCH, 18 July 2003
GARNER: As I left, the North and South had as good a water and better
electricity than they ever had because they were getting electricity 24
hours a day. Now, the problem was in Baghdad. Because Baghdad never had
the electrical grid capacity to generate enough electricity for the
city. So that the electricity for Baghdad had to be ported or
transported from the northern grids and the southern grids into Baghdad.
Daily Telegraph, 11 August 03
But the British official in charge of the reconstruction of Iraq has
given warning that it could take at least a year before the country's
infrastructure is repaired and running at pre-war levels.
Andy Bearpark, coalition director of operations and infrastructure,
said that four months after the fall of Baghdad many critical
installations, from telephone networks to sewage treatment plants, are
still a year away from their pre-war standards.
And with temperatures hitting upwards of 122F (50C) he said that
pre-war power supply would not be restored to its former levels for
another couple of months, leaving many Iraqis to swelter in the summer
sun.
"We will be up to pre-war generation of electricity in the next 60 or
so days," said Mr Bearpark, 50, a bluff Rochdale man who has spent his
career directing post-war reconstruction across the globe. "At the
moment the minimum supply is three hours on, three hours off."
But protesters have long grown sceptical of coalition promises,
complaining that provision rarely matches them.
Mr Bearpark has his own complaints, blaming rebuilding delays on the
damage caused by looters, such as the organised gangs that strip pylons
of electricity cables for their copper.
It is up to Gen Freddy Viggers, Britain's deputy to the overall
coalition forces commander in Iraq, US Gen Ricardo Sanchez, to ward off
such criminals. "Our main job is to look after the security threat,"
said Gen Viggers, who liaises with Mr Bearpark to provide military
protection for rebuilding projects. 'We try to protect the pylon lines
but beyond that the military can't do much in terms of civil
reconstruction."
So fragile is Iraq's infrastructure that during a recent crisis, when
one of Iraq's main power stations was offline, the country's entire
electricity supply depended on a 30-mile stretch of cable. Mr Bearpark,
who reports directly to Iraq's US administrator, Paul Bremer, said:
"Freddy was able to put guards along that little section of wire to
prevent complete meltdown."
There are other successes, including the rapid re-equipping of schools
in time for the new school year beginning in September. Other complex
exercises, such as the currency swap that will see Saddam Hussein's
face disappear from banknotes from October, are dwarfed by major
projects.
"For the moment we are pumping raw sewage into the Tigris," Mr Bearpark
said. "Getting Baghdad's two sewage stations back will take 12 months.
Then there's the telecoms. Roughly 50 per cent of the network was taken
out by bombing. To get that all back will take a year."
Los Angeles Times, 11 August 03
The riots, in the city's north, were smaller than Saturday's protests
but more violent, British soldiers said.
"They're shooting at us," said one soldier manning a checkpoint. "It's
the petrol queues. They've been without electricity for four days now."
Many Iraqis are convinced that the U.S.-led occupation forces could
provide electricity and gasoline, if only they made it a priority.
"We have no electricity, no gasoline, no water, no butane, no wood,"
said Aruba Saad, a housewife. "Why don't the Americans do something?
How do they expect us to live? We're not animals."
Near the southern city of Diwaniyah, a U.S. soldier in a convoy died of
heat stress Saturday, Central Command said. Another soldier was found
dead in his quarters of unknown causes.
Sunday's unrest came as two Arab television networks broadcast videos
of masked fighters calling for armed uprisings against occupation
forces.
The Herald, Scotland, 14 August 03
[Iraq Electricity Blackout is Good for Business: The Spoils of War]
Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, is understood to
have asked the Ministry of Defence to take a more active role in
support of British companies seeking reconstruction work.
She intervened after an approach from Siemens UK, which was putting
together a bid to help repair Iraq's shattered electricity
infrastructure, but faced stiff competition from America's General
Electric.
It was perhaps the first sign of a real impetus on the part of the UK
government to seriously promote UK business interests in the war-torn
country.
That, coupled with the announcement of Mr Wilson being appointed as
Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq, and the announcement that British
Airways is resuming flights to Iraq after 13 years, may improve
prospects for UK firms.
They have viewed bidding for contracts in Iraq as a case of history
repeating itself, following military interventions in Kosovo and
Afghanistan.
Colin Adams, director of the British Consultants' Bureau, which
co-ordinated restruction projects in Kosovo, has said British firms
would be "extremely well -placed" for the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
---
THE IMPACTS OF THE ELECTRICITY BLACKOUT IN AFGHANISTAN (2001)
The Guardian, 8 October 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: The bombing begins:
50 cruise missiles fired: 2am news
The US and Britain launched a massive air onslaught on Afghanistan last
night, including 50 cruise missiles and wave after wave of heavy
bombers, in the opening blow of what President George Bush vowed would
be a "sustained, comprehensive and relentless" campaign against Osama
bin Laden and his supporters.
Cruise missile strikes aimed at crippling anti-aircraft defences were
followed by raids by high-altitude and stealth bombers. The sorties
were flown from the Gulf and the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia,
while B-2 long-range stealth bombers flew from the American Midwest and
refuelled in mid-air.
The bombing campaign, nearly a month after the terrorist massacres in
New York and Washington, was aimed at devastating the forces of
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the threadbare infrastructure of Bin
Laden's al-Qaida organisation.
The first indication from Afghanistan that the campaign had begun came
when several loud explosions were reported in Kabul and electricity
supplies were cut.
[Media lies: Denial that they bombed electricity grids]: New Republic,
29 October 2003
The insistence on not attacking bridges and electricity grids, the
sluggish and exquisitely calibrated air campaign, the parade of
American diplomats courting the former Afghan king--all testify to the
imperative of keeping the country's infrastructure intact.
---
THE IMPACTS OF THE BLACKOUT IN YUGOSLAVIA (1999)
http://cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/02/kosovo.02/
2 May 1999
Serbia plunges into darkness after NATO raid
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO air raids struck a series of major
Yugoslav power plants Sunday, knocking out power across Serbia,
including Belgrade, senior Yugoslav officials told CNN Sunday.
NATO bombs damaged a power plant in Kostolac, 25 miles (40 km)
southeast of Belgrade along the Danube River, which supplies
electricity to all subsidiary power plants across Serbia.
An official government source said NATO planes also hit a plant in the
southern city of Nis and another in Obrenovac, about 18 miles (30 km)
west of Belgrade.
State-owned Serbian television, a repeated target of NATO airstrikes,
went off the air around 9:45 p.m. (3:45 p.m. ET), as did all other
television and radio stations.
Yugoslav Minister of Health Leposava Milicevic, speaking with CNN by
phone, said the situation was causing serious problems throughout
Serbia.
Without electricity, water could not be supplied to critical locations
like hospitals, she said.
CNN's Brent Sadler, reporting from the Yugoslav capital, said:
"Belgrade is now in darkness for as far as the eye can see."
While there was heavy anti-aircraft fire in Belgrade, Sadler did not
report any explosions in or around the city center of Yugoslavia's
capital.
NATO renews attacks despite prisoner release
NATO and Pentagon declined to say whether the power plants were
targeted for an attack, and deferred further questions until a Monday
morning briefing.
But earlier Sunday, U.S. and alliance officials said that, despite the
release of three U.S. soldiers in Yugoslav captivity, air attacks
against the country will continue unabated.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must fully accept NATO conditions
for a resolution to the civil conflict in Kosovo between separatist
ethnic Albanians and Serbian forces before the alliance halts the
airstrikes, the officials said.
Two U.S. warplanes crash in airstrikes
NATO on Sunday reported that it had lost two U.S. aircraft in its
Kosovo air campaign overnight Saturday.
An F-16 crashed about 18 kilometers (11 miles) east of the Serbian town
of Kozluk early Sunday, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said. The plane was
returning from a combat mission in Yugoslavia.
"The pilot ejected at around 2:20 a.m. (1200 GMT) this morning, and he
was rescued by NATO forces two hours later," Shea said. "He is safely
back at his operating base, where he is receiving medical attention and
being debriefed on the incident."
Serbian air defense officials said they shot down the F-16, but NATO
military spokesman Col. Konrad Freytag said the jet crashed after
experiencing engine failure. He said the cause of the engine failure
was unknown.
The second plane lost was a Harrier jump jet, which crashed into the
Adriatic Sea while returning to the amphibious assault carrier USS
Kearsarge from a t raining mission. Its pilot was also rescued, Shea
said.
Previously, NATO lost an F-117 stealth fighter, which went down in
Serbia on March 27; and an Apache helicopter, which crashed while
training in Albania last month. Four pilotless "drones" also have been
lost.
NATO admits civilian bus strike
NATO also said early Sunday that one of its attacks hit a civilian bus
crossing a bridge near Luzane, north of Kosovo's capital, Pristina.
NATO says the bridge was "used extensively by the Serb armed forces."
At least 34 people died in the attack, according to Serb news reports
and witnesses.
"The pilot released the weapon, and only after he released the weapon
did the bus come on the bridge," Shea said. "We will continue to do
everything we can to try and avoid those kinds of incidents. We can't
eliminate them altogether."
The bus was sliced in half by the attack and caught fire. Half of it
remained on the bridge, while the other half plunged 13 meters (40
feet) over the edge. The bridge remained standing.
Reporters brought to the scene said they saw bodies and body parts
strewn around the scene.
In Macedonia, an estimated 5,000 refugees streamed across the border
within the past day, officials told CNN.
Macedonia refugee plight worsens
Some refugees have only blankets for living quarters At least 80,000
are squeezed into refugee camps with hopelessly inadequate facilities,
they said. For some of the new arrivals, a piece of plastic is all they
can expect for living quarters, as relief officials are unable to house
nearly half the newcomers.
Macedonian Prime Minister Zupce Georievski, touring a border camp
Sunday, expressed concern that his country had "not received one
dollar" from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Four hundred of the refugees are expected to leave Tuesday to fly to
the United States, which has agreed to temporarily house 20,000
Kosovars during the conflict. They will be processed for several weeks
at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
In Albania, new refugees from Kosovo say Serb police are detaining
women and children, possibly using them to serve as human shields.
One refugee from the border town of Prizen said, "It's totally panicky
in the city. They're taking people as hostages."
Reports of intense KLA, Serb combat
In Southwest Kosovo, there were reports of heavy fighting between
separatist ethnic Albanians and Serbian military forces.
Rebels with the Kosovo Liberation Army have engaged in a major
offensive to open a corridor and unite with other KLA forces farther in
the interior of the province, Turkish journalist Mithat Bereket told
CNN.
The Serbian military answered with heavy artillery and tanks, he said.
Bereket said there were indications that the Serbian army was suffering
from low morale and a high rate of desertions.
He said there were reports that Serbian soldiers were making 15- to
50-year-old Kosovar Albanians set up mines, dig trenches against tanks
and give blood to prepare for a ground offensive.
Correspondents Brent Sadler, Tom Mintier and Jane Arraf contributed to
this report.
---
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/23/kosovo.01/
23 May 1999
NATO strikes at Yugoslav power plants
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO bombs put Yugoslavia's largest
coal-burning power plant out of business Sunday, the state-run Tanjug
news agency said.
Tanjug said two rockets hit the Nikola Tesla plant near Obrenovac, 30
kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Belgrade, just before dawn. The
attack caused "additional problems" in supplying the Yugoslav capital
with electricity after attacks early Saturday struck the nearby
Kolubara power plant.
Other NATO targets included armored vehicles and tanks; artillery
positions; parked aircraft; a command post; ammunition and petroleum
storage sites; and communications facilities.
"It was quite an intensive night of air operations," NATO spokesman
Jamie Shea said in Brussels, Belgium.
Overnight, NATO planes flew 652 sorties over Yugoslavia, 301 of them
striking targets. Alliance members vowed to continue the strikes until
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to their conditions for a
safe return of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who have fled
their homes in Serbia's Kosovo province.
"The NATO campaign is doing real damage to his military machine," said
British Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd. "And NATO is prepared to go
on and on with its air campaign while building up its forces necessary
to take the refugees home in safety."
Lloyd added that NATO was equally committed to the diplomatic search
for peace, "but it must be a peace that gives the people of Kosovo a
secure future."
Ground troop debate continues
The British also continued their push for a willingness to send a
ground force into Kosovo before Milosevic has fully complied with
NATO's demands, which include a complete pullout of Yugoslav and Serb
forces from the region.
Returning from a trip to Washington, British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook told the British Broadcasting Corp. that NATO must be ready to
"deploy troops in a permissive or a non-permissive environment" --
meaning with or without Milosevic's consent.
Cook also praised signals from Washington that the United States was no
longer categorically rejecting early deployment of ground troops.
In an opinion piece published in Sunday's New York Times, U.S.
President Bill Clinton reiterated NATO's oft-stated view that the air
campaign was working, but said he did "not rule out other military
options."
The U.S. has now joined other NATO allies in calling for a larger
peacekeeping force than originally planned. The alliance is massing
some 28,000 troops along the Macedonian border for the mission, but the
U.S. and others said as many a s 50,000 troops should be ready for
action.
NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be
expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in
their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.
"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on
Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the
Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply
preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough
and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the
refugees to go back into their homes."
NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be
expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in
their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.
"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on
Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the
Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply
preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough
and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the
refugees to go back into their homes."
Correspondent John Raedler contributed to this report.
---
http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Kosovo/Shea2.html
NATO plunges Serbia into darkness in overnight strikes
Jamie Shea Backgrounder in Brussels on 3 May 1999
JAMIE SHEA: Good morning! I am here to give you the quick operational
update in the usual fashion. Let me just point out that the Council is
meeting today at 11 o'clock and that I will be back with SHAPE in the
usual fashion at 3 o'clock for the daily operational briefing on camera.
There is one expression of SACEUR's that I'm sure you've heard on many
previous occasions, he has said: "There are tanks and there are tanks!"
What he means by that is that a tank which is stuck in its tracks
because it has no fuel is far less of a tank and far less of a threat
than one that has fuel and can move and as you know -- and I think
President Milosevic has realised this this morning more than ever
before -- there are also command-and-control systems and
command-and-control systems and if a command-and-control system has no
electricity to turn it on, it is of course wire, metal and plastic and
not a functioning military system and that is what we did in our
operations last night, we went out to deprive the command-and-control
system of its electricity, of its power and to reduce it to wire,
plastic and metal.
Alliance aircraft yesterday evening struck the five main electric yards
that distribute power to the Serb armed forces, the military machine of
President Milosevic, the power which supplies his airfields, his
headquarters, his communication systems, his command-and-control
network and no power means no runway lights, no computers, no secure
communications.
More specifically, NATO aircraft last night struck the transformer
yards of Opranovac (phon), a key electrical distribution station in
western Serbia. We also attacked the transformer yard at Nis in
southern Serbia and this has degraded significantly the command,
control and communications capabilities of the 3rd Yugoslav Army
headquartered in Nis; and we hit the transformer yards also in three
other locations -- Bajinabasta (phon), Dermo and Novi Sad -- as well.
I want you to know -- and I want to stress this -- that NATO forces
took the utmost care to ensure that important civilian facilities like
hospitals had redundant power capabilities and that they had therefore
the back-up transformers to keep their systems running through these
power outages and I believe that you have seen from reports this
morning from Belgrade that that was indeed the case, that those
essential civilian services like hospitals were running.
We regret the inconvenience that power outages have caused to the Serb
people but we have no choice but to continue attacking every element of
the Yugoslav armed forces until such time as President Milosevic
accepts the demands of the international community, those five
unconditional points which we reiterate every day and I just want to
remind you of what those five points are: that Milosevic must stop the
killing, that he must get his troops out of Kosovo, that he must accept
an international military presence with NATO as its core to establish
security inside Kosovo, that he must allow without any restriction or
qualification the return of all refugees and that he must work to build
a permanent political solution based on the Rambouillet peace plan and
we are not asking for anything more but we will not settle for anything
less.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
QUESTION (ABC NEWS): What's on the Council's agenda for today?
JAMIE SHEA: The Council today will be updating its assessments of the
current situation in Kosovo based on a report by Klaus Naumann, the
Chairman of the Military Committee, particularly reviewing -- as I am
doing with you at the moment the developments on the military scene
over the last 24 hours and in that respect let me stress that, as you
know, the last 72 hours have seen the most intensive period thus far of
NATO air operations bringing us beyond the 14,000 sortie mark since the
operation began on 24th March and with on average over 600 sorties per
night in recent nights so I think that will be the first thing on the
agenda.
Secondly, there will be a review of the current humanitarian situation
which continues to cause us enormous concern -- I will be speaking
about that later at 3 o'clock -- and then obviously NATO ambassadors
will discuss various planning activities following on from the
Washington summit.
QUESTION (CNN): Reaction to the Chirnomyrdin visit to Washington?
JAMIE SHEA: Well obviously we are very pleased that Russia clearly
wants to engage with the NATO countries in the search for a diplomatic
solution to the crisis in Kosovo. It is very encouraging that not only
does Mr. Chirnomyrdin want to be in Washington today to meet President
Clinton but also apparently wants to go on to Paris, to London and
other NATO capitals in the next few days. We have always made it clear
that we want Russia to be our partner in seeking a diplomatic solution
but everybody knows that that diplomatic solution can only be based on
the five principles, principles which are not simply NATO principles,
they have been endorsed by virtually the entire international
community. It is only on that basis that we can create a lasting real
peace for Kosovo, anything less risks purely postponing the crisis to a
later stage. We have seen with President Milosevic last October that
half a cake is as good as no cake because he then slides back and we
find ourselves in an even worse situation that we were in before so we
hope obviously with Russia to build a common position but it has to be
based on the five principles and we will continue to engage Russia in
that respect -- let us obviously see what happens in Washington -- but
I think the fact that we are talking to the Russians so intensively,
that the Russians are engaging so intensively is an encouraging sign
even if we may still have differences in our positions but at least we
are working to narrow those positions but it has to be once again on
the basis of the five core requirements of the international community.
DIMITRI: As a follow-up, is it only bilateral relations with NATO
countries or are there some signs of relations between NATO
headquarters here and the Russians?
JAMIE SHEA: No. This is being done, Dimitri, on a bilateral basis but
obviously the NATO Allies are all heavily engaged in those talks. It's
not simply France or the UK or the United States, you've seen that the
Canadian Foreign Minister, Mr. Axworthy (phon), has been in Moscow; we
know that the Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr. Dereik (phon), is there
today to see Foreign Minister Ivanov; last week, Mr. Papandreou, the
Greek Foreign Minister, was also in Moscow; Mr. Chirnomyrdin was in
Rome last week meeting the Italian government before his trip to
Belgrade so what I want to show you is that it's not simply the larger
NATO countries that are involved in this, all NATO countries almost
without exception are speaking to the Russians trying to engage the
Russians, to seek their support on the five core principles that we
know are the only way to solve this crisis.
JULIE: There were some reports that the ordnance used was a powder that
was dropped on these power plants. I wonder if you could tell us a
little bit about that?
JAMIE SHEA: I am not a military specialist, Julie, and the SHAPE
briefing this afternoon I think will be a bit more detailed on that,
particularly coming from the experts but what we have done is to
demonstrate our ability to shut off the power system whenever we want
and to do it in a way which short-circuits electrical systems without
destroying the basic infrastructure which drives those systems and I
think that shows that first of all, our key objective is not to deprive
the Serb people of their electrical grid but to be able to disrupt and
degrade at will the power that drives the military machine so that it
is shut off for significant periods of time and so that the Yugoslav
Army has to go to enormous trouble to try to restore that power and
that disruption is going to cause a sufficient degree of uncertainty in
their command-and-control systems to give NATO a significant tactical
advantage as well so that shows that we have the technology to achieve
a significant military result in an essential area -- the
command-and-control system -- without having to destroy that basic
infrastructure which of course is what drives the civilian electricity
grid and I think that that will show President Milosevic in a very
significant way just how much we can now shut down the power system as
and when we have to do it.
JOHN: Jamie, doesn't the study of bombardment campaigns like this in
the past show that when targets like power systems and other things
that affect the civilian population are hit, that this actually
increases the support of the civilian population for the regime in
place? It seems to be that there has been a Rubicon crossed here.
JAMIE SHEA: John, obviously we want to spare the inconvenience to the
Serb people but clearly we have to go after the fundamental military
objectives.
One thing that I have noticed -- and I don't know if you have noticed
this too -- but over the last couple of days we haven't seen on our
television screens the outpouring of nationalism that characterised the
early stages of this air campaign, the rock concerts in Belgrade, the
human shields although I wouldn't used that term but they were
described as human shields on the bridges in Belgrade, the expressions
of support seem to have disappeared and I don't believe it is because
people have stopped filming, I think it is because they haven't taken
place. I said the other day that when Vuk Draskovic was still in the
government and tried to organise his so-called "anti-NATO happenings",
they collapsed because virtually nobody showed up and I've seen several
reports -- and these are in the open press, in the presses of different
countries -- over the last few days of people in Belgrade that say that
the mood has changed, that if you like, the euphoria of nationalism is
subsiding, that people are starting to weigh the consequences of the
type of confrontation that Milosevic has embarked them on and they
don't like it and they like it less and less. Even if this is not the
type of organised resistance that we saw in 1996 and 1997, people are
now starting to question where Milosevic is taking them and I think
these signs will grow so I don't share that hypothesis that these
things are going to stir up patriotism, I think quite the contrary,
they are going to increase demands on Milosevic to stop this, to settle
on the reasonable terms of the international community and start
looking after what any leader should be looking after which is not his
own prestige but the interests of his people.
DOUG: Just a follow-up on all of that, Jamie. Surely it is a little bit
disingenuous to say that NATO regrets the inconvenience, surely you
want large areas of the population in the country to get the message?
JAMIE SHEA: We don't want the population to get the message, Doug, I
think they got the message years ago when their standards of living
started plummeting as a result of the misrule of the current
government. No, we want the regime to get the message and I think with
their command-and-control severely disrupted last night and seeing just
how quickly and massively NATO is able to do this, they will have one
more thing to worry about in addition to all of the other things they
have to worry about and maybe they will start worrying a little bit
about how they are going to accept the five key provisions of the
international community. We want to worry the government first and
foremost and I think we did that last night.
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