General Short and Lt Gen John W. Hendrix, the US Army V Corps commander. The purpose of the conference was to discuss employment options with the US Army Apache helicopters. We hoped to discuss the ROEs with General Short while we were there.
Colonel Thompson, Lt Col Coke Koechle, our two squadron weapons officers, and I flew as passengers in a C-21 from Gioia del Colle to Tirana on 1 May. We did not know that General Jumper had sent General Short an E- mail outlining our grievances with the ROEs and approval process. We soon discovered just how unhappy General Short was when he called Coke and me aside at the end of the Apache conference. Coke had worked for General Short at Headquarters USAFE, knew him well, and was not completely unhinged by the dressing-down that followed. General Short detailed for us—with incandescent clarity—that when our commander, a four-star flag officer (Vice Adm James O. Ellis Jr., AFSOUTH and NATO joint force commander) had determined the ROEs, he expected his field graders to understand and follow them, or seek clarification in appropriate channels. He did not need those same officers taking their gripes to another four star when they failed to understand or disagreed with the ROEs. “If you have a problem,” General Short said, “then come to Vicenza and see me.”
After it was over—and I realized that I hadn’t been fired—we all had gained a new appreciation for the source of General Short’s ire. He had foreign governments second-guessing his conduct of the campaign; he surely didn’t need the same thing from his own squadron commanders and line pilots. Nonetheless, we still hoped something good would result from venting our concerns and our pain.
Something did. Just days later, the CAOC adjusted the ROEs and replaced the 10-mile-deep no-attack border restriction with three zones: from the border to two miles, two to five miles, and five to 10 miles from the border. Attacks on targets inside 10 miles were now possible, and the probability of CAOC approval increased as the distance from the border to the targets increased.
Our AFACs took this change to heart and besieged the CAOC with requests to attack their favorite and previously protected targets. This deluge of AFAC requests generated a negative, unintended consequence. The CAOC began to feel the need to issue a clearance for all attacks—even for those targets where the existing ROEs did not require CAOC approval. Late in the campaign, for example, ABCCC sent Colonel Thompson and me to identify an active Serb artillery site that the US Army’s counterbattery radar had located about five miles west of Prizren. It was exactly at the coordinates given, six big tubes parked around a concrete pad facing south. They were not in a restricted area and were well clear of all civilian buildings. We confirmed the target with ABCCC (call sign Moonbeam) and directed that it move our fighters forward. Moonbeam said to stand by for CAOC approval. It was clear that the controller was reading from a checklist he had been directed to use. The radio conversations went something like this:
“Chili 11, Moonbeam, say distance to nearest civilian buildings.”
“Moonbeam, Chili 11, this target is not in a restricted area. I do not need CAOC approval to attack it.”
“Chili 11, the CAOC will not let you attack the target unless we get clearance.”
“Moonbeam, attacking this target will not cause collateral damage. Say reason for needing target approval.”
“Chili 11, we know the CAOC will insist on the information. We know we’ll get the approval faster if we have it ready.”
“Moonbeam, go ahead.”
“Chili 11, say distance and direction to nearest civilian buildings.”
“Moonbeam, the nearest civilian building is 400 meters to the west.”
“Chili 11, describe the building.”
“Moonbeam, the building is a farm building about 20-meters square.”
“Chili 11, Moonbeam, say type and location of the nearest civilian vehicle.”
(I paused to find one somewhere.)
“Moonbeam, the nearest civilian vehicle is a single car parked in the outskirts of Prizren, at least two kilometers from the target.”
“Moonbeam copies, stand by.”
We productively used the next several minutes (and gas) to locate some mortar pits farther to the south.
“Chili 11, Moonbeam.”
“Moonbeam, Chili 11, go ahead.”
“Chili 11, the CAOC wants to know if you can attack that target without causing collateral damage to the farm building 400 meters away.”
“I can’t believe this!” I transmitted privately to Colonel Thompson on the FM radio.
“Moonbeam, Chili 11, inform the CAOC that I can attack this target without causing collateral damage to a building 400 meters away.”
“Moonbeam copies, stand by.”
We finally got our attack clearance and proceeded to destroy all six of the big artillery pieces, using all the ordnance that was carried by another A-10 flight, a GR-7 flight, and us.
We began to accuse the CAOC folks of trying to FAC from their desks in Vicenza. This time, however, we took a different approach. We submitted a paper to the CAOC on ways to simplify the ROEs and reduce risk to the pilots, while maintaining the zero-collateral-damage safeguards. Col Stu Johnson, the CAOC chief of operations, sympathized with our request but reasoned that the alliance had about all it could take of changing ROEs. He said we’d have to do the best we could under the circumstances and promised to try to accelerate the approval process.
That he did. In the last week or so of the campaign, as the KLA stepped up its pressure on the Serbs, the delay in receiving our target-attack approval was significantly reduced. As noted earlier, this close control by the CAOC violated a basic tenet of air and space power, which calls for centralized control and decentralized execution. Just as centralized planning and control is critical to the proper application of airpower, our
I want to emphasize that our discussion of ROEs, their application in OAF, and the influence that they had on our combat effectiveness is not intended to air gripes or to disparage the fine professionals who worked in the extremely difficult circumstances at the CAOC. When we complain about problems with “the CAOC,” we do not fix blame but merely identify the CAOC as our immediate contact in the command and control conduit. General Short, Colonel Johnson, and all the battlestaff directors who sat in “the chair” during the nonstop combat operations probably saved our unit from immeasurable pain on numerous occasions—and we never knew it. We did know that we had their support throughout OAF, and we gratefully and sincerely applauded their leadership after the NATO victory.
Nevertheless, we hope that we will never again fight a war with similar ROEs. We had no knowledge of the agendas of, or the interaction and dynamics between nations, heads of state, and our leaders (SECDEF, SACEUR, AFSOUTH, CFACC, and the CAOC). Therefore, we are unable to comment on what the ROEs could or should have been. We did understand that any targeting mistakes that took the lives of innocents could easily have unraveled the international support for the campaign. However, it is our conviction that the war was unnecessarily lengthened and that innocent Kosovar lives were lost because we did not have streamlined ROEs which supported decentralized execution. Our recommendations for the future:
• Push responsibility and authority to the lowest possible level—trust those who are well trained to do their jobs.
• Develop unambiguous target-identification procedures that allow for decentralized decision making at the AFAC level.
• Consider calling a “time out” for a day or two to gather the experts and decide on a best way to go forward when the ROEs adversely affect combat operations.
• Ensure that all war fighters fully understand the ROEs.
