U.S. Bans Air Force Retirements In Kosovo Crisis

Reuters Photo Full Coverage NATO - Serbia War By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon announced a rare ban on retirements of thousands of key U.S. Air Force personnel Wednesday to ensure that combat pilots and others remain available for growing NATO bombing strikes on Serbia.

The move, covering 120,000 of the Air Force's 360,000 troops, came as Defense Secretary William Cohen warned that NATO must not bow to calls to stop two months of air raids aimed at ending ``ethnic cleansing'' of Kosovo by Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic.

Defense officials told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that more than 717 U.S. warplanes and 342 from allied countries were now pounding Yugoslavia in good weather and had destroyed 15 Serbian tanks in Kosovo alone Tuesday and Wednesday.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said the temporary ``stop loss'' retirement ban, the first since the 1991 Gulf War, would apply to pilots, navigators, air traffic controllers and others, and would remain in effect as long as reservists were being called up for the conflict.

The Air Force is already suffering a general shortage of pilots, with many being lured away by higher pay from civilian airlines.

``We do not take this action lightly,'' acting Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters said in a statement. He noted that the U.S. military was an all-volunteer force and that troops were normally free to go after serving an agreed time.

About 6,000 Air Force personnel have already requested retirement between now and the end of the year, and those requests will be frozen, although the 6,000 troops will be given until mid-June to apply for a waiver of the stop order.

Cohen told graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Maryland, earlier Wednesday that the bombing of Serbia was a struggle for ``civilized society'' and must continue until Belgrade bowed to allied demands.

There have been calls from Russia, China and critics in the U.S. Congress to halt the bombing. But Cohen reiterated demands that Milosevic first stop ``ethnic cleansing'' of Kosovo, withdraw Serb troops and allow ethnic Albanians to return under military protection built around NATO soldiers.

Cohen said NATO would forsake ``our history and our heritage'' if it yielded to pressure to end the bombing.

``This is no ordinary conflict. It is not a fight over territory, or money, or markets. It is a struggle for the future and shape of civilized society,'' he said.

``NATO will not weaken at this time or yield to Milosevic's tactics -- or to the pleadings or entreaties of others -- without forsaking our history and our heritage,'' Cohen added.

President Clinton and other alliance leaders have said repeatedly that the bombing campaign is working and will eventually defeat Milosevic.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff Dennis Reimer said he personally had concerns before the air strikes began that air attacks alone might not force Milosevic to relent without the use of ground forces.

But Reimer, who will retire next month, said he and other members of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff had adequate opportunity to raise all of the issues involved in an air war ahead of time in advising Clinton.

On Amelia Island, Florida, Clinton discussed the progress of NATO's air war in a phone call Wednesday to Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, with the vacationing Clinton in northeastern Florida, said the two leaders talked for a half hour, mostly about the crisis in Kosovo, and agreed the air campaign was having an effect on Milosevic.

In Washington, Greece soft-pedaled its proposal that NATO suspend the bombing. The United States said it had Greek support for its view that the bombing should go on until Belgrade yielded.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou said at a news conference with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that a bombing pause, strongly opposed by the United States and Britain, might be needed to encourage diplomacy and obtain a U.N. Security Council resolution on Kosovo.

But he put the idea less forcefully than in Beijing Monday, when he said NATO should stop the bombing to give the United Nations a chance to negotiate a peace agreement.

-- Rickjohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), May 26, 1999

Answers

This is really going to do wonders for morale. Although I realize that service people agree to allow the government to extend their enlistments during national emergencies, this is getting to sound a lot like involuntary servitude. Too bad this isn't 1969. Slick Willy would be out in the streets calling for the President's impeachment.

-- Mr. Adequate (mr@adequate.com), May 27, 1999.