War in the Balkans: Nato Briefing Transcript: The authentic voice of war: confused and weighing life and death in split seconds

NATO OFFERED its fullest explanation yet of its bombing of civilians yesterday and it was veteran US pilot Brigadier General Dan Leaf who supplanted the alliance's daily spokesman, Jamie Shea, to deliver Nato's assessment of the April 14 tragedy. The following is edited extracts from his briefing.

The Aircraft

Bear 21: Two F-16s tasked with airborne forward air control (FAC)

Bear 31 and Bear 41 Two flights of two F-16s on FAC..

Saab 51: Two Jaguars with attack role.

Chisel 31 - Two F-16s.

ABCCC - Airborne EC 130 command and control aircraft.

The Targets:

"The first is an area north west of Djakovica where houses were being burned and the first attacks occurred. The second area was east south east of Djakovica where we attacked a large convoy. I will lay the full chronology of these events for you as we know them and hopefully eliminate some of the confusion about this very dynamic battlefield situation."

The First Target:

"At approximately 1030zulu, bear 21, one of our airborne forward air controllers came on station in Kosovo. this is the pilot whose voice tape you heard at a briefing several days ago. Bear 21 worked north west of Djakovica witnessed a series of villages and houses burning. he watched this series of fires progress to the south-east. this progression was very clear - very graphic - and very horrifying to bear 21 as he witnesses the house being burned.

He watched a vehicle leave one house that was burning and then proved to the next house further down the road. That house then erupted into flames,. individuals ran from the burning house, got into the vehicle, and drove to yet another house. At this point, as he stated on the tape many of you have all heard, he concluded that the occupants of this vehicle were perpetrating the house burning,. it was only then that he elected to attack the vehicle. he struck the vehicle with a single GBU-12 500 lbs laser guided bomb.

The vehicle Bear 21 witnessed burning houses was joined by additional vehicles heading in a south easterly direction. bear 21 attacked this same vehicle which was the lead vehicle of a group of three. From the attitudes he was as operating at, this appeared to be a military style vehicle and matched those travelling with it as a small convoy. I was to reiterate; it was the association of this vehicle with the house burnings that made him determine to conduct an attack".

General Leaf then showed a video tape of the attack. Following the bombing, bear 21 left for inflight refuelling and passed on the target coordinates to Bear 41 while an unmanned reconnaissance drone surveyed the area for damage assessment.

"Bear 41 flight visually assessed the target area. Bear 42, the wing man, saw what appeared to be large vehicles in he courtyard of a C-shaped house and made the determination that they were likely to be military vehicles. he designates them as his target and attacks them with a single GBU-12."

A second bombing run is shown to reporters and General Leaf explained the nato thinking: "We have reports of Serbs finding gasoline inside of homes which they use to refuel their vehicles and burn Kosovar Albanian property. Additionally we have seen the Serbs place military vehicles including tanks up against and even in residential structures to deter Nato air attack."

The Second Target:

"As these attacks are coming to an end, another FAC controller, Bear- 31, discovers a very large, more than 100 vehicles, convoy on a major road running east-southeast out of Djakovica. He began communicating with the ABCCC aircraft about the target, there was extensive discussion of the convoy, with the FAC controller striving to determine the nature of the convoy. Several factors played in his eventual decision to attack. First, approximately 20 vehicles at the front (east south-east) end of the convoy were uniform in shape and colour as seen from the air.

"They were maintaining a set spacing and pace, characteristic of military movement ... He was told by ABCCC that, "We have just received word that this is a VJ convoy"... At that point, 12.16, bear-31 commenced attacking the lead elements of the convoy, his bomb impacted at 12.19."

General Leaf shows the video of the bomb run on the convoy. "He missed his target vehicle but a trailing vehicle ran off the road. As Bear-31 co-ordinated for more fighter support to attack this convoy, his wingman, Bear-32, attacked and destroyed one of the vehicles." This bomb run was also shown to reporters.

"As we watch these videos on the large display in the comfort of this room, it appears possible the vehicles are tractor-type vehicles. As I reviewed the tapes with the pilots, they agreed. However, they were emphatic from their attack altitude to the naked eye they appeared to be military vehicles and and the characteristics of military movement. You should also note that the vehicle speed is quite high.

Furthermore there have been reports of Serb forces utilising civilian vehicles for military and paramilitary operations. By this time, Bear has assisted two Jaguar aircraft, Saab flight, in locating the target area and cleared them to attack; both Jaguars reported unsuccessful deliveries."

At this point Bear-31 and Bear-32 left to refuel and co-ordinates were passed to Bear-41 which, together with his wingman Bear-42, made yet another attack on the convoy with one hit and one miss, said General Leaf. Chisel- 31 also expends a laser guided bomb on the convoy.

The Conclusion:

"I can confirm the type, number and location of all bombs dropped in this incident. I can't explain the bodies seen on Serb TV ... I wasn't there ... It's unlike in a peacetime environment where we have full access to the accident scene. I agree with you on the confusion ... I've seen the bodies ... Unfortunately, due to this conflict we can only speculate on their association with our attacks.

"In fact there may have been unforseen casualties. however, the nature of our exhaustive process to positively identify targets and their association to military or repressive acts remains a key factor that led our pilots to conclude the targets were in fact contributing to Serb military and paramilitary attacks.

"We have made several adjustments to our operations based on this event and I believe they will further reduce the potential for such events in the fog and friction of battle."