Doubts about the bombing campaign were quickly reflected in the British quality newspaper headlines. At the end of the first week on March 31st, John Keegan, the influential Daily Tele- graph Defence Editor, wrote under the heading "Why air strikes are not working". The Telegraph is the paper British officers read.
Within days Serb morale was boosted by the crash of a F117A Nighthawk Stealth bomber, said to have cost £30 million. But after about 7,000 sorties (one sortie is one flight by one plane), that is the only NATO aircraft loss.
The Serb air defence system seems outdated. Radars have been kept switched off to avoid attacks. Nevertheless the system, a prime target, has been damaged. The 64 MiG21 and 15 MiG29 fighters are the teeth of the Serb fighter defences. (NATO got MiG29s from former Warsaw Pact countries when the Berlin Wall fell.) The claim that half have been destroyed is probably true. Grossly outnumbered, Serb planes rarely fly.
By the end of that first week it was announced that more aircraft were coming, including tank-busting A10s. Ethnic cleansing had started almost immediately and refugees were on the move. NATO needed a better tank attack capability.
It was indicated that medium-, not low-level attacks would be carried out. Perhaps the Stealth plane loss was a cause. Low-level attacks were dangerous against the Serb anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired missiles.
The Royal Air Force has had difficulties in hitting targets obscured by smoke or bad weather. A need for a bomb "unaffected by obscurants or bad weather" such as the US Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) seems agreed.
Media criticism mounted in the second week, but public support in most NATO countries re mained firm. Phase I of the offensive, establishment of air superiority, had to be telescoped into Phase II, attacks on Serb ground troops, to try to stop the ethnic cleansing. It was not very successful.
On the 10th day two ministries involved in the ethnic cleansing, and located 200 metres from an obstetrics hospital, were targeted. The ministries were destroyed and the hospital was undamaged except for broken glass. The decision was clear: bombing would go on.
Had the hospital been hit, bombing could hardly have continued. It was now extended from military targets to installations capable of helping Serb forces, a wide concept. In all the criticism, it should be remembered that if NATO had stood back the critics would say "Something must be done".
There were signs that the KLA was getting its act together. A command structure, with seven "operational zones", brigade areas etc appeared. The Serbs were starting a spring offensive to disrupt it, in any event.
The bombing now extended to bridges, oil installations, industries, water-power supplies and communications. American bombers and cruise missiles ranged far and wide, but Milosevic remained defiant.
The refugee problem was now serious. Robbery, burning homes, destroyed documents and rape were not NATO propaganda to justify the bombing, as some Serbs claimed. As the weather cleared the RAF used cluster bombs against tanks and other vehicles. But the Serbs were dispersing their forces and moving by night.
Three American soldiers were snatched by the Serbs in unclear circumstances. The US refused to do a deal for them.
Blocks of flats in the Serbian town of Aleksinac were hit accidentally in a raid on an artillery barracks a mile away. The Yugoslav air force headquarters was hit by a missile. An army corps HQ in Nis was bombed.
By the third week criticism was still persistent, as was public support, which was also moving towards acceptance of ground intervention. NATO denied this was contemplated. Bombing went on.
Albania placed facilities at NATO's disposal. Its port of Durres will be useful, as will its airfields, but the roads and facilities are poor.