Wes Clark of having started World War III...so I take his grandstanding with a grain of salt!
Gen Jackson criticized by Kosovo report
http://www.agitprop.org.au/stopnato/19991018nato3.htmReferring to Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the commander of Kfor, the report says: "ComKfor's intent was not always transmitted with sufficient detail and co-ordinating instructions. Even when detail was requested from Kfor it was not always forthcoming. This led to improvisation at brigade level and a consequently asymmetric effect within Kfor as different brigades made their own interpretations."
Confusions also occurred through unclear divisions of responsibility between each Nato country's own national headquarters and alliance headquarters in Brussels. "The division of responsibilities between national and Nato operational chains of command took some time to become clear," says the report.
Brig Freer was in charge of the Parachute Regiment and Gurkha soldiers who were the first, apart from special forces, to enter Kosovo, on June 12. The report, prepared for the Ministry of Defence's comprehensive "lessons learnt" exercise on the Kosovo war, and copied to Gen Jackson, is unusually strong criticism of the command structures in the operation. Because there was little or no Serb opposition to the arrival of the Nato peacekeepers, the failings identified were not fatal.
....
The report supports recent testimony to the United States Congress by Gen Wesley Clark, Nato's overall commander during the Kosovo campaign. In July, Gen Clark told congressmen that the Alliance was "hamstrung by competing political and military interests that may have prolonged the conflict".
Even last week, RAF chiefs admitted that they still had no idea exactly how much damage had been done. "We don't know how many tanks were destroyed and we will have no way of knowing," said Air Vice Marshal Jock Stirrup, the assistant chief of the air staff.
World: Europe
German to assume K-For command
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/444350.stmGerman General Klaus Reinhardt is to replace Britain's General Sir Mike Jackson as commander of Nato's Kosovo peacekeeping force, K-For.
The appointment comes amid continuing controversy over the outgoing K-For commander's failure to prevent Russian forces from taking Pristina airport before the arrival of Nato troops in June.
a clash between him and Gen Clark after he was accused of disobeying an order to prevent Russian troops from taking the airport.
He refused to block the airport runway, saying he did not want to start World War III, and sought the intervention of Britain's top military commander to help get the order reversed.
Angered by the apparent insubordination, the chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee is now to hold hearings into the incident, believing it calls into question Nato's chain of command.
Macko Jacko Supported the War in Iraq
The can-do general for war and peace
(Filed: 26/05/2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk /news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F05%2F26%2Fnjack26.xml
....
General Sir Mike Jackson's forehead is scarred, his cheeks are pitted, his nose sunburnt and the pouches under his eyes could carry his entire mess kit. His face could be a road map through the last 40 years of British military adventures: the Cold War, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq.
Today, the new whisky-drinking, cheroot-smoking Chief of the General Staff is surrounded by men in suits and women in short skirts from the MoD press office. Gold braid drips from his mountainous shoulders as he stretches out on a leather sofa in the old War Office.
The peace rallies and the lack of United Nations support never alarmed him (you can't imagine much worrying this general). "No soldier who has seen active service wants to rush into a war, but sometimes it is the lesser of two evils," he reflects. "I'm quite satisfied in myself that it was right."
Nor is he concerned that no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found. "I understand that not everyone saw the necessity of bringing Saddam Hussein to account, but it was the right thing to do and I'm proud that this nation swung behind the troops when their lives were on the line."
He was less impressed, just before the war began, when Donald Rumsfeld seemed to be suggesting that the British troops were tagging along for the ride. "I saw the comment about the British forces not being necessary. I don't think he had an idea how many British troops were committed, but the first days of the war straightened him out," says the general. "Our performance was outstanding in the south."
Gen Jackson is not renowned for his love of Americans. When commanding the Nato troops in Kosovo, he refused an order from Nato's supreme commander, Gen Wesley Clark. The American wanted him to assault Pristina airport, which had just been taken by some Russians. Gen Jackson evidently told him: "I'm not going to start World War Three for you."
He smiles at the story. "I might have said something like that," he admits.
==
His role in 'Bloody Sunday' controversial
Bloody Sunday Inquiry `Consider Recall for General Sir Mike'
By Kieran McDaid, PA News
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=6705183"
Britain's most senior soldier may be recalled to give further evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, it has emerged.
The three Saville Inquiry judges are considering whether to ask General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, to return to the witness box in London to discuss a controversial document alleged to be in his hand writing.
General Jackson, who was an adjutant in the Parachute Regiment on January 30, 1972, said he had no recollection of taking part in the compilation of a list of what soldiers fired at, when he gave his evidence to the inquiry two months' ago.
A contemporaneous handwritten note of the engagements, alleged to be in Gen Jackson's hand writing, was submitted to the inquiry last week by the Ministry of Defence.
Colonel Ted Loden, the major in command of the army unit which fired more than 100 shots on Bloody Sunday, had claimed he made a list of engagements, which was later typed up, after interviewing soldiers in his armoured vehicle.
General Jackson's Bloody Sunday involvement
http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/blo...His role in 'Bloody Sunday' controversial
Bloody Sunday Inquiry `Consider Recall for General Sir Mike'By Kieran McDaid, PA News
http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp...Britain's most senior soldier may be recalled to give further evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, it has emerged.
The three Saville Inquiry judges are considering whether to ask General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, to return to the witness box in London to discuss a controversial document alleged to be in his hand writing.
General Jackson, who was an adjutant in the Parachute Regiment on January 30, 1972, said he had no recollection of taking part in the compilation of a list of what soldiers fired at, when he gave his evidence to the inquiry two months' ago.
A contemporaneous handwritten note of the engagements, alleged to be in Gen Jackson's hand writing, was submitted to the inquiry last week by the Ministry of Defence.
Colonel Ted Loden, the major in command of the army unit which fired more than 100 shots on Bloody Sunday, had claimed he made a list of engagements, which was later typed up, after interviewing soldiers in his armoured vehicle.
-----------------------------------
More on the WWIII incident between Gen. Jackson and Wes Clark...
The first from that article by Elizabeth Drew (a real journalist who writes for The New York Book Review:
"Much has been made of a single sentence in a long argument that Clark had with General Sir Michael Jackson, the British officer in command on the scene at Pristina airport, who said, "I'm not going to start World War III for you." Clark devoted an entire chapter to the airport incident in his first book, and his account has been confirmed by others. He explains that at first he had the support of the Clinton White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana. But when the British refused to support him, largely in response to Jackson's objections, Washington backed down. Clark himself reported Jackson's now-famous hyperbolic line to Shelton as an example of what he saw as an emotional overreaction.
Read the whole article here (It's good!):
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795 And here's another take on it:
Sending in Russian paratroopers was absolutely unnecessary and extremely provocative. The area was still very volatile and crawling with Serbian paramilitary units. It would have been very easy for the Russians to be mistaken for Serbs by NATO units, especially at night. The airport had no strategic value - Russian officials were making a purely political statement. By the same token, if the airport had no strategic value, why was Clark so concerned? Especially since the Russians were our quasi-allies in this complicated political conflict.
...back in 1999 Russian military officials admitted they were ill-equipped to fight even a limited engagement anywhere in the world. One general wrote in a contemporary Russian military journal that they would have been hard-pressed to field an army of 10,000 troops at the time. Almost assuredly they would have backed off if NATO had called their bluff. Did Clark understand this weakness better than anyone else, and did NATO miss a genuine opportunity to assert its dominance over the Russians? Isn't that the raison d'etre for NATO?
Think back to Berlin in 1945. General George S. Patton urged Eisenhower to let him drive the Russian army back east across the Russian border. He understood better than the naive Eisenhower and Churchill that Russia had become the biggest threat to the west and was not about to return conquered territory back to the allies or the original governments. He also understood that Russia's army, while victorious over the depleted German army, was in no shape to resist the allies. In a very real sense we missed an opportunity to avoid the cold war entirely. Republicans, conservatives, and hawks generally agree with this hindsight assessment. It highlights the irony of political partisanship that the same people condemn General Clark for essentially the same behavior. Clark very much resembles Patton: aggressive, hard-nosed, a brilliant commander, and despised by his peers and superiors - one would think Republicans would appreciate him for that.
It makes sense that Clark, being the highest ranking military commander in all of Europe and an expert on central Europe, knew better than any person on the planet what the capabilities and tendencies of the Russian army were - that was his job. Clark knew exactly what he was doing and what the risks were. He knew the Russian high command would never risk a humiliating and historical defeat at the hands of the Americans - which even the Russians admit would have been the outcome. Their military machine was on the verge of total collapse in 1999. One strong piece of evidence for that is how the Pristina issue was finally resolved. The 200 paratroopers could not be resupplied and the Americans eventually sent in food and water - essentially a humanitarian mission. That's how pitiful the Russians were. So all in all, I think the doomsday scenario can be discounted, and contemporaneous military observers agree that Gen. Jackson's "WWIII" comments were pure hyperbole.
http://epivox.com/wesleyclark-knoxville/local_editorials.cfmClark's problem was that he was a great general but not always a perfect soldier--at least when it came to saluting and saying, "Yes, sir." In fact, when he got orders he didn't like, he said so and pushed to change them.
>snip
More presciently, Clark was right about the Russians. When fewer than 200 lightly armed Russian peacekeepers barnstormed from Bosnia to the Pristina airport in Kosovo to upstage the arrival of NATO peacekeepers, Clark was rightly outraged. Russians did not win the war, and he did not want them to win the peace.
Clark asked NATO helicopters and ground troops to seize the airport before the Russians could arrive. But a British general, absurdly saying he feared World War III (in truth the Russians had no cards to play), appealed to London and Washington to delay the order.
The result was a humiliation for NATO, a tonic for the Russian military and an important lesson for the then-obscure head of the Russian national security council, Vladimir Putin. As later Russian press reports showed, Putin knew far more about the Pristina operation than did the Russian defense or foreign ministers. It was no coincidence that a few weeks afterward, Russian bombers buzzed NATO member Iceland for the first time in a decade. A few weeks after that, with Putin as prime minister, Russian troops invaded Chechnya. Putin learned the value of boldness in the face of Western hesitation. Clark learned that he had no backup in Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51403-2000May1¬Found=true
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
