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Cohen in Europe for NATO summit
April 7, 1999
WASHINGTON (CNN)-- Defense Secretary William Cohen arrived Wednesday in Brussels for meetings with NATO Secretary-General and Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander, and defense officials from other countries, according to the Pentagon. Cohen plans to visit U.S. and allied forces Thursday in Aviano, Italy, which have bombed Yugoslavia during the past 14 days. As he returns to the United States, Cohen may tour Ramstein Air Base in Germany, which is coordinating much of the assistance for hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanian refugees who have fled into Macedonia and Albania.
Having detoured from a planned tour of the Persian Gulf, a U.S. aircraft carrier with 50 warplanes has reached the Adriatic Sea, a Pentagon official said at the Tuesday news conference. "The (USS Theodore) Roosevelt is in place and ready to do air operations as we speak," said Maj. Gen. Charles Wald, an air force representative on the Joint Staff. The ship's arrival brings the number of NATO aircraft in the region up to 600, Wald said.
Pentagon officials assessed damage caused by recent NATO attacks around Pristina and Belgrade. Discussing an apartment complex reportedly damaged Monday night in a missile attack, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said, "It appears a bomb fell short of its target." The U.S. military is investigating the cause of the mishap in a small Serbian town that killed a number of civilians. A cloud could have misdirected a laser-guided tracking device on a 500-pound (230-kilogram) bomb, Bacon said.
NATO is continuing to 'diminish and degrade" Yugoslavian military capabilities by cutting off supply lines for ammunition, fuel and food to troops, Pentagon officials said. "I think we've struck them at the core," said the Joint Staff's Rear Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, who outlined NATO attacks on Yugoslavian army and special police forces. NATO will continue to target bridge and road, command and control, air defense and oil facility targets, he said. RELATED STORIES: Clinton makes appeal for Kosovar relief donations RELATED SITES: Extensive list of Kosovo-related sites
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