NEWSMAKER SAMUEL BERGER

June 9, 1999
		National Security Adviser Samuel Berger elaborates on the newly-signed military agreement over Kosovo, which outlines procedures for the end of NATO airstrikes and the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo.

Strikes in Yugoslavia coverage June 9, 1999: Yugoslavia and NATO come to terms on a Serb withdrawal. June 8, 1999: The British Ambassador to the U.N. discusses the G8 peace deal. June 8, 1999: Russia's role in the peace process. June 7, 1999: The refugee crisis. June 3, 1999: Defense Secretary Cohen discusses the peace deal. June 3, 1999: Foreign policy experts react to the peace deal. May 27, 1999: National Security Adviser Berger on the Milosevic indictment. Complete NewsHour coverage of Europe   NATO U.S. State Department The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Serbian Ministry of Information	JIM LEHRER: And to a newsmaker interview with President Clinton's National Security Adviser, Samuel Berger. He joins us from the old executive office building here in Washington. Mr. Berger, welcome. SAMUEL BERGER: Good evening, Jim.
	A peace agreement at last.
	JIM LEHRER: The agreement has been signed. So when do the Serb troops actually begin their withdrawal? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, the -- the agreement enters into force upon signature and provides that the troops must be withdrawn over an 11-day period. And there are subdivisions within that in terms of various sectors. So the obligation to withdraw or in a sense the clock is already ticking. We would hope that we would begin to see withdrawals very soon. JIM LEHRER: Have you seen any yet? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, it's -- it's too early to see that now. We've seen some movement but I don't want to draw any conclusions. We will watch this very carefully. NATO will observe it very carefully. General Clark will watch the situation, make a recommendation to Secretary-General Solana of NATO when he believes that there is the verifiable beginning of a withdrawal. JIM LEHRER: Now, you say NATO will watch. How will they go about watching this withdrawal? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, we can watch through the -- from the air and -- primarily at this point and we can obviously also watch in terms of what is crossing the borders. There are a number of human and technical means available to us to determine whether they are withdrawing and the scale of the withdrawal. JIM LEHRER: So as a practical matter, then, there's no question that it can be verified, correct? SAMUEL BERGER: There's no question of that. JIM LEHRER: You said it has to be done in 11 days -- for instance, what is the first phase? How many days and how many troops? SAMUEL BERGER: The first phase -- it actually is be sector, not by number. JIM LEHRER: Okay. SAMUEL BERGER: It applies ultimately to all Serb forces. Serb army, the so-called MUP, which is their interior police, local police, paramilitaries -- all Serb military forces must be withdrawn within this 11-day period. There are various zone, they're in sequence. That's what this agreement in part provides. The first troops should begin to pull out tomorrow in the first day. JIM LEHRER: And the sequence has to do with zones. In other words, these particular troops from this particular zone are supposed to go out say on Thursday and then another group from another zone on Friday and so on for 11 days. SAMUEL BERGER: That's right. One, three, seven, et cetera. There are different staggered times. And those are also designed to enable the NATO-led force, so-called KFOR, to enter Kosovo in the next several days as the Serb forces begin to leave.
	The process of Serb withdrawal.
	JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, what is the total number of Serb forces that are to leave Kosovo? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, there have been, you know, roughly 40,000 Serb forces in Kosovo. I think that number has been substantially -- significantly reduced in recent weeks by virtue of the air campaign. I don't have a precise number at this point. I think the NATO folks have a pretty good count of the number of forces. JIM LEHRER: But it's somewhere in that neighborhood? SAMUEL BERGER: Between 30,000 and 40,000, yes. JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, when this withdrawal is over, is that a literal complete... there will be no Serb forces left in Kosovo? SAMUEL BERGER: That's correct. Now, the agreement that President Ahtisaari of Finland and Mr. Chernomyrdin of Russia reached with Mr. Milosevic last week, the basic agreement, provides that a small number of Serb forces-- we're talking hundreds here, not thousands, hundreds -- can come back after they've withdrawn under the direction of the commander of KFOR to perform certain functions. To help us locate mine fields, to provide a liaison with the Serb army, to have some symbolic function at Serb religious sites and at, again, some symbolic presence at some border crossings. JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, the KFOR forces, the international peacekeeping forces, when-- do they go in on a sequenced way as well? SAMUEL BERGER: Yes. The forces are already being amassed. There are about 12,000 to 15,000 forces already in the immediate vicinity. And under... obviously these will be judgments that will be made by the commander of KFOR, General Jackson, a British general, but they will start flowing in in the next several days. JIM LEHRER: The total number... is there a total number at this point as to what is anticipated? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, the range is 40,000 to 50,000. They'll authorize 50,000, of which 7,000, about 15 percent, would be American forces. JIM LEHRER: Now, what was the final nitty-gritty agreement on who actually is going to be in control, in command, of this international peacekeeping force? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, there's absolutely no question about that. There is a NATO-led force. It will be commanded by General Jackson, who will report up the chain of command to the North Atlantic Council to SACEUR in the North Atlantic Council. This NATO-led force, very much like Bosnia, which although also NATO-led with a single force, a unified command in control, also has many-- or had when it was larger, many non-NATO countries. And a number of countries, the United Arab Emirates in Jordan and others have indicated they would like to participate in this force. So we need to obviously enable them to come in under NATO command, but it will not only be NATO countries.
	A NATO-led peacekeeping force.
	JIM LEHRER: So when we heard just now in the news summary the Yugoslav general say that those international peacekeeping forces are going in there under the auspices of the United Nations, what's he talking about? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, he's talking for his domestic audience, I think. But basically there will be a U.N. Security Council resolution. Yesterday, Secretary Albright and her colleagues, including the foreign minister of Russia, hammered out the text of such a resolution. So it's ready to go. And it will be voted upon as soon as there is presumably -- as soon as there is a pause, that is a withdrawal, pause and then a Security Council resolution. So there will be, just as in Bosnia again, there was a Security Council resolution that provided the overall auspices for the force. The command in control is NATO and one of the things about today's agreement is an agreement between NATO and the Serb military and signed by General Jackson, NATO. JIM LEHRER: OK, now, the bombing. What is the process for making the decision as to when it ends? SAMUEL BERGER: The process... we have said from the very beginning that we would end the bombing when Mr. Milosevic accepted all of our conditions and began a withdrawal, a verifiable beginning of a full-scale withdrawal. He has now accepted all of our conditions, both in the Ahtisaari/Chernomyrdin document and in today's document. So the next step is to see... is implementation. Once we see a... the beginning of a verifiable beginning of a withdrawal, the Secretary-general can order that the bombing be suspended. But, you know, we have to be very, very vigilant here. If there's an abrogation of the withdrawal timetable or any other provision, the cease-fire provisions. Then, of course the bombing would be subject to being resumed. JIM LEHRER: Well, what kind of targets would be bombed while Serb forces are withdrawing? What kind of military targets are left under these kinds of circumstances? When there's been an agreement for peace, who and what do you bomb? SAMUEL BERGER: We're certainly not going to do anything that impedes implementation of the agreement. JIM LEHRER: You wouldn't bomb Serb forces on their way out? SAMUEL BERGER: Of course not. But we have said from the beginning that Mr. Milosevic could end the bombing by agreeing to NATO's conditions and then beginning a withdrawal. And when he begins a withdrawal and we see that happening and it's on the ground, people moving north, then we can suspend the bombing and it will, you know, stay suspended so long as he complies with the agreement. JIM LEHRER: Are we talking a matter of hours here, Mr. Berger or days do you think? SAMUEL BERGER: I think the facts will determine the timetable, Jim. I that he has an obligation now to withdraw within 11 days on a sequenced schedule. So I think he ought to....he needs to get about doing it. But I don't want to... there's no fixed timetable. I mean, he doesn't get a suspension of the bombing based upon the clock. He gets a suspension of bombing based upon movement of his forces in the direction of withdrawal.
	Working out the details.
	JIM LEHRER: What's your analysis of what was going on these last five days, why it took so long to reach this agreement? Was anybody up to no good? What was that all about? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I think there were two things. I think number one, there is a fairly complex technical logistical set of issues that have to be worked out here so that the flow routes are clear, particularly, as you noted, if we're going to be continuing the bombing for a period, we need to know exactly where the troops are that are moving. And over what sequence. And that has to be obviously compatible with the sequence of KFOR coming in a few days later. So, number one, there really were some technical issues. I think the final issue really was the Serb desire to start the process with a Security Council resolution. We could not accept that because we have always said that we would not agree to a pause until there was withdrawal. And the Russians have said they would not agree to a Security Council resolution until there was a pause. So finally in the last analysis, we've agreed to the language. As I indicated, there will hopefully be the withdrawal. When that happens, when we see that, when it's verifiable, then we can suspend and very promptly vote on a resolution and I believe it will pass. JIM LEHRER: Did Milosevic get anything he wouldn't have gotten after five days of negotiations? SAMUEL BERGER: No. JIM LEHRER: Nothing changed? SAMUEL BERGER: No, nothing changed. I think, as I say, the part of this was the logistics, the technical logistics and part of it was this issue that I raised about the sequencing of each of these events when there are different interests here to be brought to bear. JIM LEHRER: Then the big question, Mr. Berger. When do those 840 some thousand refugees start going back into Kosovo? SAMUEL BERGER: Well, it will be a wonderful day when that begins to happen. We actually would like to see them, and we are doing some leafleting and other work in the camps, to hold them there for a little while so that we can get the KFOR troops into Kosovo, establish some clear lines of... of transit. There's been a lot of mines that have been left by the Serbs. So we have de-mining to do. It's going to be a very delicate and somewhat dangerous operation for the KFOR soldiers. So I think that I believe most of the refugees from my conversations want very much to go home, but I would hope we would be able to do it in an orderly way. JIM LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Berger, it seems like a small question but in the minds of the refugees it seemed to be a big question. Whose going to be minding or patrolling the borders when they go back in? Is that going to be KFOR soldiers at those borders or Serb soldiers? SAMUEL BERGER: No, only Serb soldiers at the border will be a handful, really a symbolic presence. Excuse me. But there will be international community will be at the borders that will determine how... will permit them to come back and give them assurance that they're coming back into a situation that is safe and secure. JIM LEHRER: So finally, Mr. Berger, I said finally again, I'll say it one more time. This thing is working? SAMUEL BERGER: I think we're making progress. I think the president all along, the last four or five days, has said these are positive steps but we have to remain very cautious. Step by step. But we certainly took, I think, an important step today. JIM LEHRER: And the real finally, thank you, Mr. Berger. SAMUEL BERGER: Thank you.

REGIONS TOPICS RECENT PROGRAMS ABOUT US FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS:

Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.