TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE
ADMIRAL LEIGHTON W. SMITH, U.S. NAVY
COMMANDER IN CHIEF ALLIED FORCES SOUTHERN EUROPE

NATO AIR STRIKE AGAINST BOSNIAN SERBS
HQ. ALLIED FORCES SOUTHERN EUROPE
NAPLES, ITALY
1000 HOURS, 31 AUGUST 1995



ADMIRAL SMITH:Let me start by telling you that following the mortar attack on the 28th of August, there was extensive coordination first between this headquarters and General Smith's headquarters in Sarajevo and later between this headquarters and General Janvier's headquarters in Zagreb.In the early morning of the 29th General Smith and I agreed that the circumstances surrounding the mortar attack in Sarajevo warranted air operations along the lines of the North Atlantic Council decision as supported by the United Nations.

After that decision was made, Lieutenant General Ryan, the Commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe and General Rupert Smith had their staffs coordinate and refine a set of militarily significant targets which General Janvier and I had previously approved as a set of targets which we would consider for this particular circumstance.There was some modifications to that list.Late on the evening of the 29th, General Janvier conferred extensively and we agreed to the final list.After that point I issued the order to General Ryan to carry out the operation.

I'd like to make a point here that a major consideration in developing the target list was to ensure that we minimized collateral damage and that we struck only military targets. Importantly, during this operation the Rapid Reaction Force has been a very, very major factor.And I'll talk about that a bit more later. Let me tell you that our operation had one objective. It was stated clearly by Secretary General Claes at NATO and that objective is to reduce the threat to the Sarajevo safe area and to deter further attacks there or on any other safe area.Secretary General Claes went on to say that we all hope that this operation will also demonstrate to the Bosnian Serbs the futility of further military actions.

Our aim is a peaceful one.It is a peaceful solution to the tragic circumstance in Bosnia and I am confident that my colleague, General Janvier, would stand here with me and echo our hope.

General Janvier and I are in almost constant contact. Either through our liaison officers or directly and we have been throughout the entire operation. Our working relationship is sound and in fact is responsible, I believe, for the successes that we have enjoyed.

On a recent perspective let me first tell you that we are exerting every possible effort towards the rescue of the French pilots that ejected yesterday.I do not wish to discuss that particular incident any further. But I'll just say that I hope that our efforts will mirror the successes of the Scott O'Grady case of June.

Let me also tell you that Lieutenant General Mike Ryan who has been given the responsibility for executing this NATO air operation with his staff here at Aviano and Vicenza has done and is doing an absolutely magnificent job.Our NATO pilots have flown over 300 sorties against the 23 separate targets previously agreed to by General Janvier and myself.And they have struck over 90 different A points.We have some tapes of some of those lines that we will show you later.These operations have included suppression of enemy air defence or SEAD strike, combat air control, reconnaissance, combat search and rescue, close air support, tankers, airborne command and control, and of course the NATO AWACS.These flights have originated from a number of different bases in Italy and the aircraft carrier Roosevelt in the Adriatic.

Let me tell you now that without the full support of our Italian hosts, this operation could not have been conducted.And my hat is off, not only to our Italian hosts, but to my Deputy Commander In Chief, General Mambrini, who so effectively coordinates that support.

It is also my assessment that it has been very successful.I must tell you that we've had some weather problems, we've obviously missed some targets, but overall I believe that we are being very successful in the prosecutionof these air operations.Obviously, our assessment and our analysis will continue, but I think you will see from some of the film and some of the photos that we will show you, that we have certainly enjoyed some successes.Roughly 50 percent of sorties have been devoted to close air support, and to working with the RRF.Let me explain to you that the Rapid Reaction Force on the ground has artillery.In many cases, we have seen the artillery on the ground firing on triple A or man-portable missile sites firing at our aircraft.We've also had our aircraft in the air guided by the forward air controllers on the ground, who by the way, are themselves doing a splendid job. Our aircraft are being guided against artillery.When our aircraft are in the area, the coordination between the artillery and the air operations have been absolutely superb.So I'd like to comment that the combined air operation center in Vicenza, the air operation center in Sarajevo, and the tactical air operation center in Kiseljak, is working - is a good concept.

Let me now turn to the charts here and take you through a few of those.First of all, we earlier had developed a memorandum of understanding with General Janvier that effectively developed zones of action in Bosnia.We are operating this zone of action right nowwith respect to some of the fixed targets that we agreed to earlier.

Our aircraft have been operating from these bases. All of the aircraft that have forces assigned to Operation Deny Flight have been operating directly in this operation with the exception of our German contributions who have specific rules of engagement and operational parameters.They have been available for use should the parameters for their use have been met.But to date, that has not occurred.The Italian contribution to Deny Flight, all of them have obviously have been valuable.The Italian contribution are still undergoing certification and were not directly involved in Operation Deny Flight, but were clearly involved, as they have been, in Operation Sharp Guard.So we have a full contribution of the NATO air side, quality Deny Flight operations.

I want to take you now to the flow of forces.I'm only going to take you through about midnight last night for obvious reasons.Our concept of operations was to first take down the integrated area defense system.I will tell you that, based on my assessment, we have been very effective in reducing that integrated area defense systems capability.We have had no radar-guided surface-to-air missiles fired on us.We have seen no evidence of radars that are associated with the surface-to-air missiles active since we began these strikes and we have seen no early warning radar activity since we began these strikes. So I'll assess that we have been effective in suppressing the radars and those surface-to-air missiles.

There were four separate areas here - the surface-to-air missiles, the command and control, the communications, and the radars associated with integrated air defense system. The second phase, this being obviously the first, was to conduct strikes against several fixed targets that were selected because of their military significance. This would be an alpha strike, meaning number one, with a total of 10 striking aircraft and 8 suppression of enemy air defense aircraft that you will see that in the early part we had SEAD aircraft with each of the packages individually.And we have changed that concept as we've gone down.

Early in the morning we struck the ammo depots and went back and revisited some of the surface-to-air missile sites.Again, those are types of targets we hit.The area you see here, which basically means we changed our concept at about this point - when we felt that we had had the effect that we wanted on the enemy's integrated air defense system.So rather than having accompanying suppression of enemy air defense, we were able to go with what we call the area coverage.During the day and night as well, we had a great number of close air support aircraft that were available to the ground forces, UNPROFOR, should there have been the need for those, and as I've said, they have been working very effectively with the TACP or the Tactical Air Control Parties and the forward controllers in the Sarajevo area.They have effectively worked on some of the artillery, and as I mentioned earlier, the RRF is working on some of the triple A as well.We have looked into some other fixed targets, again ammo and supply depots, those are key and essential military facilities that we felt would have an impact.And then last night we had a follow-on here.At this point, we obviously began devoting a great deal of effort to the search and rescue of the two pilots that ejected yesterday afternoon during this 1500 time frame here.So, our effort now is focused on that.Again, the operations continue.It will be principally up to the Bosnian Serbs to determine when the operation should cease because you know what our objective is - I've given that to you.Therefore, if they can meet that objective we would be very happy about it.

There are a couple of photos that if they are very difficult for you to see, I will be happy to let some of our people here show these to you in greater detail later.There's an ammo loading plant here.This was a very, very substantial target.As I understand it, it exploded and there were continuous explosions - something in order of 17 minutes.We have a tape of some of the hits as they went down here.Now I'll ask you to again go back to the collateral damage part. In our deliberations on appropriate target sets, that was a key element.This particular ammo loading facility here, has a very, very large plant associated with it.We chose to take the storage areas down here because hitting the plant carried with it considerable potential for collateral damage.So we chose this. I want to, at this point, tell you that the conduct of these strikes by the pilots, despite bad weather, despite doing it at night, and despite the fact that they have been engaged by surface-to-air missiles, the man-portable kind, as well as triple A, has been superlative.

The area that we have been operating in obviously is around Sarajevo, and for you this would just give you the location of the targets that we have agreed upon and have been struck.This is another ammo depot, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of it, but I can tell you that the effect of the actions against it would be obvious to you as you come up and see them later.

I believe the next step is to show you some film and I'll turn the microphone over to General Mike Short and to Group Captain Trevor Murry so they discuss that with you and then I'll take your questions.

GENERAL SHORT:Good morning.What we'ld like to do very quickly is run through a tape showing you 11 segments of strikes that were flown in the Sarajevo area and some of the action in general.Ten of those strikes are laser-guided bombs dropped from aircraft from three different countries.Spanish F-18s; GR-7 Harriers from the Royal Air Force; and the United States Navy F-18s; the United States Marine Corps F-18s; United States Air Force F-16s, F-15Es and AC-130s.One of those 11 clips is indeed an AC- 130 firing at (inaudible).The clips pretty much speak for themselves, we'll narrate where we think it might be helpful to you, in all cases the targets are obvious with one exception.You will see a United States Air Force F-15E dropping on what appears to be a football field, in fact it is a buried command and communications bunker.And when the ordnance hits the target you will indeed see the results of the ordnance coming out through the exhaust ports from the target itself.So without further ado we'd like to run the tape and we'll answer any questions that you might have. The first two clips will be United States Air Force F-16s. In all cases the aircraft were dropping two laser-guided bombs, ranging from 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds.

ADMIRAL SMITH:You will see the weapons that you just saw coming in from the right-hand side here.

GENERAL SHORT (AIRSOUTH Chief of Staff):This sir, is the Spanish F-18s. (inaudible) closely the U.S. Air Force F-15Es. Again, the football field target. (inaudible) is actually the exhaust coming out from the target area from one of the strikes.Actually it's one core of F-18s in this target. The next target is U.S. Air Force AC-130 Destructor Gunships.

GROUP CAPTAIN MURRY (AFSOUTH, Chief Operations Branch):This is going to be gunships firing on a number of artillery pieces.You'llsee the explosions from the target areas. This is an ammunition loading (inaudible) of the F-16. This will be (inaudible) you can see another concentration from the storage area (inaudible) The U.K. (inaudible) Harrier aircraft (inaudible) of the ammunition storage depot. The last two clips are U.S. Navy aircraft.They are attacking radar (inaudible) sites. Once again, U.S. Navy aircraft. That completes the tape, and once again, we have copies for you.

ADMIRAL SMITH:Hopefully, what you drew is one - some of these targets are fairly difficult to locate but two - the precision with which the attack was carried out and the range of targets that we hit.That's all that we have from aprepared prospective.I'll be happy to take your questions now.

WASHINGTON POST:Is there a way to (inaudible) to what percentage of their missile capability and their anti-aircraft capability you have taken out; is it now impossible for them to shoot down targets?

ADMIRAL SMITH:No.I will not speculate to that degree.What we have done is clearly reduce the effectiveness of the integrated aircraft system.But we haven't even worked the western sector of Bosnia, so that entire part of the integrate air defense system was not even part of the target list.

LOS ANGELES TIMES:The early raids were concentrated, as you said, against anti-aircraft and SAM sites, yet it was on a late afternoon raid that the Mirage went down.Is there a contradiction here?Did you, at some point, think that you had something taken out that, in fact, was not?

ADMIRAL SMITH:No.We believe that the Mirage was engaged with a shoulder-fired missile which is a man-portable system.It is a heat-seeking missile, not associated with any radar.When the Mirage was shot down, we did not see or hear any of the radars that we associated with radar-guided missiles, nor, at least my information is, that the pilots in the area who observed the shoot-down, did not see anything like the SA-6 missile.It was not the man-portable systems you and I can pick up and carry around this room, walk out front and shoot down airplanes. That's another missile of the integrated air-defense system per say.

LOS ANGELES TIMES:How do you acess the threat of these shoulder- held SAMS?

ADMIRAL SMITH:Well, obviously they're pretty lethal. We lost an airplane yesterday and you may recall that we had a British Harrier shot in Gorazde in April of 94.We've had at least two other aircraft that were damaged with shoulder-fired missiles.There was a Spanish CASA 212, I believe about 18 months ago or so, that was hit with one of these as well.So, these shoulder-fired missiles are clearly a problem to deal which we have to deal with.If nothing else, I think I should point out the fact that our pilots are certainly not operating in a benign environment.

REUTER:You said the operation is continuing. Do you mean air strikes are continuing or are you concentrating on those French pilots now?

ADMIRAL SMITH:Both.

(INAUDIBLE):Can you give an update on the rescue operations of the French Mirage? How are you coming, sir, on that operation?

ADMIRAL SMITH:Anytime we have one of our pilots eject, we will devote whatever resources are necessary to try to locate the pilot and to try to recover the pilots.In this case, that is what we are doing.And I would prefer not to go into any operational details but we are devoting a considerable effort to that effect.

GERMAN RADIO:Do you have any indication of how (inaudible)

ADMIRAL SMITH:The information we have on the Spanish ECCO team, is very sketchy. It is not corroborated and so for me to comment on it would probably not be wise. I just simply don't have any factual data to give you on that.

REUTER:Are you, as a military man, happy that the gloves havefinally been taken off, or as a colleague of mine put it, that NATO and the U.N. have put aside the tweezers and taken up the sledge hammer?

ADMIRAL SMITH:In every instance that we've used NATO air, I have been the person to say that my objective was not (inaudible) and perhaps we would not ever want to use it again.We would hope that the threat up here would be sufficient to deter the actions which have been laid down before the factions. Obviously, if this didn't occur, our hope is that General Janvier and I will work together to resolve this list. Our hope is that this will be a response that will convince the Bosnian Serbs of the futility of further military action as our Secretary General has said.

WASH. POST:Do you have any stats of how much artillery has been knocked out?

ADMIRAL SMITH:I don't have that figure now.I suspect that when we do the analysis, that we go down and total up all the shooting that has been done, both with the Rapid Reaction Force and the air, that we'll probably come out with some figure.Whether or not (inaudible) a great deal of confidence in the accuracy of that figure, I just can't tell you right now. But, I can assure you that there will be some analysis done to try to sort that out.In general, I will tell you that pictures tell you a lot.First of all, let me explain a little bit about (inaudible) and bomb damage assessment.All too frequently, the effectiveness of a strike is, in some people's eyes, whetherthe building has been flattened the radar has been flattened, or lies in 17,000 pieces and spread out over two acres of land.What I'm interested in is some capability condition.I want to be able to take away the concept capability that that particular facility or piece of equipment would provide to the factions who happen to be on the receiving end of our air operations.So wherewe may see pictures later of buildings that still stand or radars that functionally look like they're still on line, if I'm convinced that what's inside the building was destroyed, or its capability inside that building, whatever it may have been, has been destroyed or that the radar is dysfunctional, then I'm happy with the success.We need to, I think, understand that total destruction is not necessarily the equivalent of success or failure.If that makes sense to you.

AFP:I would like to know if your targets were all around Sarajevo or if there was some other targets?

ADMIRAL SMITH:The integrated air defense systems that we struck, there were some of them up here, in this area in Tuzla, there was another one down further south here.Most are, but in answer to your question, no.There were other targets that we considered to have a direct relationship on the ability of the Bosnian Serbs to conduct military operations in and around Sarajevo.Ammunition dumps are a good example of that.So, some of them were, there was a direct linkage that you could make, but they were not directly in the Sarajevo area.And I think that's a key question, because what we have done is expanded our scope a bit to ensure that we can, in fact, effect the capability of that organization to do what they have been doing.We hope that they will cease, that the intent will cease before we have to take this thing any further.

STARS & STRIPES:Can you give us any details or any kind of idea at all what your next step might be?

ADMIRAL SMITH:No.I really don't mean to be blunt about this but we're in the middle of an operation.It is not over yet. My purpose is to give you a status report on where we are and to tell you that operations continue.I would just as soon have the other guys try to guess what I'm going to do rather than me telling them.And whatever we do will be very closely coordinated with the United Nations and will be in chorus with the decision and the records that we have each received from the United Nations, NATO and the North Atlantic Council.

REUTER:I'ld like to follow-up on a previous question. How often do you sit down or communicate with General Janvier and others and say (inaudible) one of the last things you said before, this is going to go on until they realizethe futility of their actions. Is this open-ended?

ADMIRAL SMITH:We are in almost constant communications as I mentioned earlier. The purpose of which is to refine future plans and to share our ideas on where we are now.I must tell you that we are doing our own internal, if you will, assessment with our various staffs and that General Janvier and I talked several times yesterday.I talked to one of our liaison officers in Zagreb this morning (inaudible) where we can speak in a secure way as not all together a convenient thing to do.So I will go through my liaison officer who is a British Air Commodore, very effective, been over there for about six months.And he speaks for me and then when General Janvier and I have to make a decision or if we just want to consult as we did last night, late, then we will get together.But we both assess the on-going operations from our lenses as it progresses and we have talked several times yesterday, and I am quite certain we'll talk several times today.

UNKNOWN SOURCE:Have you and General Janvier drawn a line or have you decided what is needed to complete this operation, is it a statement from General Mladic? Is it your assessment that these 23 targets are now gone and that you see Bosnian Serb artillery moving away?Is it your assessment or is it something that they have to do?

ADMIRAL SMITH:I don't want to dodge that question but I'm going to tell you that there is a combination of virtually everything you just listed.And, in common judgement of General Janvier and me, in our common judgement, we have achieved the objective that I just laid out for you, then our decision will likely be to cease.But that will be something we will do, again, a great deal of collaborating on as we did before this whole operation started.I must reiterate one more time, this is not a process that was started on the 28th of August, this process started a month ago, actually, much longer than that, but we have been working very, very close, extensively to coordinate our actions, presupposing the scenario, presupposing what our actions would be, and we have worked our way through an awful lot of that. We would obviously be very interested in General Ryan's input, in General Smith's input, as well as what we see on the horizon. Then we'll discuss it and we'll make a decision.

AFP: Do you have any indication that the Serbs are accepting your conditions now or, on the contrary, they are refusing to accept them?

ADMIRAL SMITH:The conduit for that is General Janvier in Zagreb.So, I would prefer it, if he is willing to discuss that, you can discuss it with him.I do not have direct contact with the Bosnian Serbs, nor would I expect to.But I would ask you to address that question to the United Nations.

AP:Could you just go over the types of weapons used and the number ofbombs were dropped?

ADMIRAL SMITH:I don't know how many bombs were dropped.I can tell you that there were 90 targets or 90 aim points that have beenhit.During the initial stages, we relied fairly heavily on the precision-guided munitions - 1,000 pound bombs, 2,000 pound bombs.We have also used unguided weapons - probably of the 1,000 pound, 2,000 pound category.We've used maverick missiles, we've obviously fired the HARM missile, the anti-radiation missile.Those are general types, I can't give you specifics of that.As we wrap up this operation, and we start up the total analysis, that will be available to you. Right now, I just don't have it.There have been over 300 sorties flown.Again, a lot of those have been in support role, a lot of those in the strike role, a lot in the close air support role.So, there have been some aircraft that have left with ordnance and have not dropped it.But, (inaudible)

INAUDIBLE SOURCE:Inaudible question.

ADMIRAL SMITH:Let me start out by telling you that I've never agreed with anybody that said there was a weakness in NATO.NATO has always been prepared to do this as you all know.All of our actions have been engaged and based on a coordination process with the United Nations.I think the United Nations fundamentally knew that this capability was resident in NATO and we were prepared to use it when, in our common judgement, we think the scenario required it.If anybody doubts the fact that we have one, the capability, and two, the resolve to use that capability, I would only ask that we remind ourselves of some of these films that you have just seen and that should answer the question.

UNKNOWN SOURCE:Canyou foresee moving from the southeast sector to the northwest sector, the other sector?

ADMIRAL SMITH:We are talking about future operations and I would rather not talk about that.I don't want to put you off, but then again I do want to put you off.That falls under the category of future operations and I just am not going to be drawn into a discussion on what we may do in the future.

REUTER:Sir, why did this operation start at 2 in the morning?

ADMIRAL SMITH:When I gave General Ryan the order to execute, part of that was when he decided that the time was right in terms of the planning that had to go into it, in terms of the weather, in terms of the (inaudible) there were a lot of other factors that determined when you strike targets. One of the things that we considered quite clearly, was General Smith's ability to minimize the risks to those forces under his command.General Smith and I talked about that even as we made the decision to go forward with this air operation.So, consequently part of the calculus was the ability of the United Nations to provide for the security of their forces, part of the calculus was to refine the target list, part of the calculus was to get the approval process, General Janvier and my approval on that list.And, part of that whole process was working with the RRF to make sure that we had the most effective combination of ground and air, given the circumstances that we were facing.So, the 2 o'clock in the morning was, in part, just the amount of time it took to put all that in place.Even though we had done an awful lot of the planning prior.I mean it just goes to show you that you don't just say let's go start working.These are very serious operations and we took our time, if you will, in making sure that we did it right.Starting at night is always, in my mind, a good idea because we have the capability to operate very effectively at night.And I think some of the results of the early strikes show that.Some of these targets are camouflaged and in wooded areas or alongside the mountain or up on mountain trail.I think you saw evidence of that in some of these videos.So they were very, very difficult to see.So we really challenged our pilots. And again, the weather wasn't perfect but it was good enough to get started.And so we did that and 2 o'clock in the morning time frame was generally, or in fact, was General Ryan's decision.Because once General Janvier and I decided that it was time to execute air operations, we turned the air operations over to General Ryan and he is responsible for execution.So he picked time.

UNKNOWN SOURCE:When will you brief us again?

ADMIRAL SMITH:I've got a hammer over here and he doesn't let me say very much without him approving it.I'm perfectly willing, hopefully you all know, to address the press when I think we have something meaningful to pass.We appreciate the fact that you're reporting this and I look forward to our next opportunity to talk, I just don't know when that will be.Thank you all for your interest.Let me just finish by telling you, if you haven't figured it out by now: the pride that I have in all of the NATO pilots and the planners and the staffs that have been involved on the NATO side and on the U.N. side.We have a wonderful, wonderful team and I believe that that team has been brought together.And while we wish this had not had to happen and we hope that it can be terminated very quickly, the training and experience of the alliance for the last 40 plus years has paid off.Thank you very much.



Operazioni dal 1993 al 1997:
Provide Promise (Bosnia - 1994)
Operation Deny Flight (Bosnia - 1994)
Operation Restore Hope (Somalia - 1994)
Exercise Dynamic Guard (Turkey - 1994)
Operation Joint/Decisive Endeavor (Bosnia - 1997)