Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: RAF admits why NATO had to bomb Yugoslavian civilians

RAF admits failings in Kosovo inquiry
By Andrew Gilligan, Defence Correspondent
SERIOUS failings in intelligence, training, weapons and other hardware lay
behind the RAF and Nato's disappointing performance in Kosovo, according to
extracts from an RAF paper seen by The Telegraph.
Intelligence reports about Serb troop and equipment locations took up to
three days to reach frontline attack squadrons, by which time the Serbs had
changed position. Many pilots found themselves "bombing old tank tracks" or
civilians as a result, the document says. American intelligence
"bureaucracy" is blamed. Secure communications were sometimes inadequate,
meaning that vital information could not be passed to RAF attack units for
fear of the Serbs hearing it.
The paper is a detailed British account of the hitherto unknown reasons
behind the West's almost complete failure to hit Serb forces in Kosovo. Nato
has already conceded privately that its planes failed to damage Serb forces,
but the RAF paper details for the first time the reasons why this was so. It
is a contribution to a massive "lessons learned" exercise launched by the
Ministry of Defence almost as soon as the Kosovo war ended.
The report says that several RAF Harrier pilots had never practised dropping
live laser-guided bombs before the crisis blew up, the paper says. They
dropped their first such weapons only in combat. Some of the weapons used
developed "unexpected and extremely difficult" characteristics in flight,
making it harder than anticipated to drop them accurately.
As The Telegraph reported during the war, there are also grave concerns that
none of the Nato air forces - apart from the United States - has all-weather
precision weapons of the type now deemed necessary to avoid undue civilian
casualties. RAF laser-guided bombs, although precise, cannot cope well with
bad weather and smoke.
The draft paper, compiled by a senior RAF air commodore closely involved in
the bombing campaign, is a contribution to a substantial Ministry of Defence
inquiry into the lessons of Kosovo, led at brigadier, commodore and air
commodore level in each of the three services. The MoD is attempting to
conclude the exercise swiftly. Commanders have been asked to submit final
papers by September.  The exercise has been given greater urgency by
evidence that the 11-week Nato bombing campaign did almost no damage to Serb
fielded forces in Kosovo. Even the widely-quoted Serb figure of just 13
tanks destroyed by Nato may be an overestimate, MoD insiders admitted. The
true figure is believed to be closer to seven.  Political factors, such as
the slow start to the air campaign, the reluctance to permit low-level
flying, and some governments' wish to approve all targets at ministerial
level, are blamed indirectly in the paper.
One senior RAF officer at the MoD said: "Nato did all right on the strategic
level [targets such as command centres, bridges and telecommunications
buildings] but exceptionally badly on the tactical level [such as tanks and
groups of soldiers]. We were fighting under very serious political
constraints about low flying and collateral damage, but much of the
infrastructure and equipment we had to work with didn't do us any favours."
Former service chiefs and the Tory opposition have joined forces to call for
a public inquiry into the lessons of the Kosovo campaign. But George
Robertson, the Defence Secretary, has insisted that the findings of the
MoD's investigation must remain secret - angering some officers who say that
the Kosovo campaign revealed weaknesses which must be addressed publicly.
One officer said: "We need to be telling people what happened and what
failed to happen. We cannot say that because we won there are not serious
lessons to be learned."
Some of the precision weapons which the RAF lacked are already on order. The
Telegraph has learned that the RAF is also highly likely to be allowed the
American JDAM missile, the most sophisticated precision-guided weapon
currently available, but previously rejected by Britain on grounds of cost.
Other problems will be more complicated to resolve. The delays which made
intelligence of Serb forces "days behind" real events are blamed on the
Americans, whose spy satellites, drones and aircraft mostly supplied the raw
material.
One RAF Officer said: "Everything had to be exhaustively processed and
analysed through this bureaucratic American intelligence machine and it took
far too long." The aerodynamic characteristics of some newer weapons will
also need to be studied closely, the paper says.
The most sensitive question will be the issue of political interference -
which Ian Duncan-Smith, Tory defence spokesman, blamed for many of the
failures of the bombing campaign in Serbia and Kosovo. He said: "This is why
we need an inquiry - because we need politicians to accept their share of
the blame for any failures."

 extracts from an RAF paper seen by The Telegraph.
And where is this "paper"????
(usually all documents disappear when people talk badly of someone else)
-Stefano