ALSO Yugoslavs say NATO planes attack Kosovo village Capitol Hill pushes for cost of Kosovo  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo RELATED VIDEOS CNN's Gene Randall reports on U.S. reservists joining NATO campaign (April 15) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Listen to Inhofe and Cohen give views on Kosovo strategy (April 15) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

April 15, 1999
Web posted at: 3:50 p.m. EDT (1950 GMT)

In this story: McCain: 'Fight to win' Inhofe: 'A war we should not be in' Conflict could last months NATO acknowledges civilian hit RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Clinton administration said Thursday that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia would not end quickly and U.S. casualties were likely. However, U.S. officials reiterated in congressional testimony that the use of ground troops for combat is not under consideration.

Secretary of State William Cohen also expressed regret for NATO's accidental attack Wednesday on a convoy carrying civilians in Kosovo. He defended allied pilots involved in the incident and accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of making "grotesque" propaganda out of the deaths of civilians.

"We ought not ever to allow anyone to elevate what Milosevic has done, (after) the kind of brutal oppression and atrocity he's carried out ... to go on television and say this is an atrocity being carried out by NATO," Cohen said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

Cohen was accompanied by Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Earlier in the day, both men also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

They urged lawmakers to give NATO's air campaign more time to stop the Yugoslav government's fight against ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province.

McCain: 'Fight to win'

While Congress generally supports the military campaign's goals, several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee criticized the strategy of NATO and the Clinton administration, urging a more aggressive approach.

"I know there is moral outage in regard to Mr. Milosevic, and that is certainly justified," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas). "But what about our response?"

Roberts says NATO's strategy is flawed

NATO's current policy of "casualty avoidance" does little to help ethnic Albanians who are being raped and driven from their homes, Roberts said. "We will fight evil, but in the doing of it, we will sacrifice the Kosovars."

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) questioned why NATO decided to intensify the air campaign in recent days instead of going for victory from the start.

"You fight war to win, or you don't fight it at all," he said, urging Cohen and Shelton not to rule out the use of ground troops.

"How does it make sense to remove an option, to tell your enemy before you go into a conflict, that you will not exercise whatever options are necessary in order to achieve victory?" McCain said.

Inhofe: 'A war we should not be in'

Inhofe says U.S. forces should be withdrawn from the NATO campaign

But another Republican, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, called the NATO campaign "a war that we should not be in."

He charged that President Clinton "even though he has denied it ... has known all along that we're going to have to send ground troops in. Quite frankly, I think he's supporting that, but he won't say that."

Inhofe said that "the best way we can support our troops is to keep them out of Kosovo, out of a protracted war that, in my opinion, we are not going to end up winning."

Conflict could last months

Cohen said in his House testimony that Washington was against the use of ground forces in Kosovo and that "there has been no planning for ground forces ... in a hostile environment."

Both Cohen and Shelton, when asked at the Senate hearing if the campaign could continue for "many, many, many weeks or even months," said yes.

"This is not going to be quick or easy or neat," Cohen said.

He said the campaign was making progress, but he also warned in his testimony of the "probability" of U.S. casualties.

Shelton said NATO has been very fortunate in losing only one plane, an F-117A stealth fighter downed March 27. The pilot was rescued. Three U.S. soldiers also were captured near the Macedonian-Yugoslav border and remain in Serb custody.

"I think the prospect for casualties remains very real and high," Shelton said, echoing Cohen's warning that there's a probability of U.S. deaths. "There is no such thing as a risk-free military operation."

NATO acknowledges civilian hit

NATO said in a statement earlier Thursday that one of its bombs seemed to have mistakenly hit a civilian vehicle in Kosovo, but it could not confirm the death toll.

Serb authorities said at least 64 people were killed when convoys of ethnic Albanian civilians were attacked by NATO planes Wednesday on a road near the south Kosovo town of Djakovica.

Cohen expressed regret for the loss of civilian life, confirming that a convoy attack took place in the area during an intensive two-hour air operation.

He said there was artillery and missile fire in the area and that the pilots had to make split-second decisions.

"We go to extraordinary lengths to reduce the risks to innocent civilians," he said.

NATO said the allied pilots involved in the attack thought they were targeting a military convoy.

On a tape recording played for journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels, one of the unidentified pilots gave his account of the incident, but said nothing about being under attack.

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