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'Emergency' funding to be requested for strikes, relief effort

Additional U.S. warplanes have been requested by NATO
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April 13, 1999
Web posted at: 8:56 p.m. EDT (0056 GMT)

In this story: More U.S. warplanes Ground troops? The cost? Albanian-American volunteers RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As NATO escalates its air war to "the next level," President Clinton said Tuesday the allies already have destroyed half of Yugoslavia's advanced MiG-29 fighter jets.

The president also said he will ask Congress for "emergency" spending to keep the pressure on while also assisting the international humanitarian effort for Kosovo refugees driven from the Serb province.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Clinton noted it was Holocaust Remembrance Day. "Let us resolve not to let this ethnic cleansing and killing by (Yugoslav) go unanswered," he said.

"Our campaign is diminishing and grinding down Mr. Milosevic's military capabilities," Clinton said. "We have weakened Serbia's air defenses and command and control. We have reduced his ability to move, sustain and supply the war machine in Kosovo."

Some of that damage was displayed at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday. Officials also ran gun camera video of NATO bombs headed into military barracks, fuel trucks and a communications relay site.

More U.S. warplanes

The president made his comments Tuesday just after meeting with congressional leaders, urging them to have patience with the NATO air campaign, now at the end of its third week.

So far, Clinton said, NATO strikes against Milosevic "have damaged his refineries and diminished his capacity to produce ammunition. We are striking now at his tanks and at his artillery and have destroyed half of his advanced MiG-29 aircraft."

Pristina army barracks hit by an F-16CG laser-guided bomb

"Now we are taking our allied campaign to the next level, with more aircraft in the region, with a British carrier joining our USS Roosevelt and a French carrier in the area," the president said.

The Pentagon, meantime, was expected to approve NATO's request for more than 300 additional U.S. warplanes to use against Yugoslavia.

The reinforcement warplanes would be in addition to the 500 U.S. aircraft already part of the 700-plane NATO force.

In such an event, Defense Secretary William Cohen might ask Clinton to give him authority to call up members of the National Guard and Reserve.

"There will likely to be a Reserve call-up," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said during Tuesday's briefing. "The details aren't ready to be announced at this stage."

Bacon said the call-ups would include pilots, because "many of the tankers are flown by reservists."

"Also, some of the Army assets going into Macedonia and Albania likely would come from the reserves," Bacon said. "There are specialties such as civil affairs that only exist in the reserves."

Civil affairs specialists act as liaisons between the military and civilians.

"In Bosnia, for instance, they play a crucial role in setting up these joint commissions that bring Army people and local people together to talk about governance issues, providing humanitarian aid," Bacon said.

Ground troops?

After his public remarks, Clinton ignored a question shouted from reporters about ground troops. But in his private meeting with the congressional group he did not rule it out.

"I heard him say nothing essentially is off the table," Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) said afterward.

Many of the House and Senate members said they urged the president to step up preparations for a ground assault through planning or prepositioning troops.

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) said Tuesday the United States should begin to "mobilize infantry and armored divisions for a possible ground war in Kosovo."

In a speech before the Center for Strategic and International Studies, McCain, a key member of the Armed Services Committee and a likely candidate for president in the year 2000, said:

"I find it so utterly inexplicable that the president, having identified a serious threat to our national interests and values, refuses to employ the means necessary to defeat it."

But Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said he doubted Congress would take up a resolution authorizing Clinton to use any means necessary to win in Yugoslavia.

The cost?

Without naming an amount, Clinton said he would ask Congress soon for an emergency supplemental appropriation to pay for the war costs and refugee relief efforts.

Bacon said Tuesday the supplemental cost would be in the $3 billion to $4 billion range and would cover additional fuel, munitions and hazardous duty pay for the troops.

Some congressional estimates say the number could rise to $8 billion.

Because the funding would be on an "emergency" basis, it would not require cutbacks, or offsets, in government spending.

Albanian-American volunteers

Also Tuesday, a group of Albanian-Americans who had hoped to join the Kosovo Liberation Army were denied permission to fly to Albania, a spokesman for the Albanian-American Civil League said Tuesday.

The spokeswoman said NATO officials have twice denied the group's request to fly to Tirana, Albania.

But NATO officials told CNN they had no knowledge of the group's request and that NATO has no jurisdiction over flights out of the United States.

The U.S. State Department said "it is not encouraging Albanian-Americans to join the KLA and fight the Serbs."

"We would urge Kosovar Albanians (in the United States), and indeed all Americans, to direct their efforts towards humanitarian relief," spokesman James Foley said.

The volunteer recruits said they still want to go to the Balkans.

Correspondents Wolf Blitzer, John King and David Ensor contributed to this report.

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