KOSOVO UPDATE

	April 27, 1999
	Correspondent Tom Bearden provides a summary of today's NATO campaign in the Balkans along with an update on President Clinton's authorization to call-up U.S Reserve and National Guard personnel to active duty.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton authorized the Pentagon today to call up more than 30,000 US Reserve and National Guard personnel. They will be used in the air campaign over Kosovo. And three GI's captured by Yugoslav troops were pronounced fit by a Red Cross doctor, as NATO's bombing of Serbia and the flight of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo continued. Tom Bearden narrates our update report. TOM BEARDEN: Air Force Reservists and National Guardsmen will be the first to be called, specifically those who fly and maintain aerial refueling tanker aircraft. Those have been in short supply in the conflict zone; 30 tankers will depart soon and about 100 will eventually be deployed out of 300 additional aircraft the US plans to add to the NATO fleet. About 2,100 reservists will be deployed immediately; 33,000 may eventually be activated. Last night NATO struck the building that houses Serbian state TV facilities and ruling party headquarters in downtown Belgrade for the second time. A television tower on the roof was destroyed and the network was briefly knocked off the air. In Brussels, NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark conducted today's regular NATO briefing. Clark said bad weather significantly hampered operations. GEN. WESLEY CLARK: On about two-thirds of the days, we've had more than half of the strike sorties canceled. So when I show you the results, I'd ask you to keep this in mind in that the air campaign, I think, has been very effective, it's been very destructive to the resources and infrastructure and forces and support of President Milosevic and his leadership. But it's been only a fraction of what is to come. TOM BEARDEN: Clark showed cockpit video of a number of strikes on bridges, vehicles and communications facilities and emphasized the precision of the weapons prompting this question. REPORTER: Are you using million dollar munitions to hit $10,000 targets? And does this make military sense? And if you're using precision weapons purely to spare collateral casualties, have you any sense of what sort of cost this is to the NATO alliance to avoid civilian casualties? GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Let me tell you that we're using what we believe to be the appropriate weapons for the appropriate targets. And we're not measuring the outcome of the war in dollars and cents terms, nor or we evaluating the munitions effectiveness or efficiency cost on any specific target. And so we're not able to give you those kinds of figures in terms of avoidance of collateral damage. I will tell you, it is considerably more expensive to avoid collateral damage. But, as I said, this is not a war that we're running on a checkbook budget. We're running this war to be effective. This is a campaign that's working. NATO's solidarity is growing stronger daily. More resources are becoming available. The noose around Yugoslavia, as it continues its inhumane policies in Kosovo, is tightening. We're winning, Milosevic is losing, and he knows it. He should face up to this and he should face up to it now. TOM BEARDEN: In Albania, one of the newly arrived Apache attack helicopters crashed while on a night training mission. Both crewmen escaped without serious injury. LT. COL. GARRIE DORNAN, US Army: The way we train is we train at night under blackout conditions. We train in a demanding environment because in the long run, this method of training will save lives and accomplish the mission. And that's really it. And the bottom line is, again, you cannot take the risk out of this business. We're flying in mountainous terrain, unfamiliar terrain. TOM BEARDEN: The army said the loss would not prevent combat operations when ordered. The refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia are overflowing again, and aid agencies are now worried about the potential for an outbreak of disease. More than 10,000 ethnic Albanians have crossed into Macedonia since late last week. RON REDMOND, UNHCR Spokesman: Our camps have been increasingly crowded, and we are now jammed to the breaking point. If we get a similar number of refugees today, as we've been seeing over the last few days, that is averaging somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000, I fear we're probably going to see refugees basically sleeping in the open tonight, maybe in a sleeping bag with some plastic sheeting over them. TOM BEARDEN: In Belgrade, the three captured soldiers were visited by an International Red Cross team. A Red Cross official said the men gave them messages that be relayed to their families and that a doctor found them in satisfactory condition. It was the first time the soldiers were allowed to meet privately with the Red Cross as required by the Geneva Convention. In Moscow, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott met with Russia's special Balkan Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin today and said the two countries with work together to resolve the Kosovo crisis. STROBE TALBOTT, US Envoy for Kosovo: We had very good conversations here with Mr. Chernomyrdin. The conversation was enabled and also very much in the spirit of the telephone conversation that President Clinton had with President Yeltsin on Sunday. I would say that our talks here today were constructive, serious, and frank. There is no question that the United States and Russia are working together on this problem. The problem is extremely difficult. This important and urgent work continues, and it will continue in the days to come. TOM BEARDEN: In Belgrade, Yugoslav Deputy Premier Vuk Draskovic seemed to pull back from his Monday statement that troops from NATO countries could play a role in Kosovo. He said only United Nations troops would be welcome. VUK DRASKOVIC, Deputy Premier, Yugoslavia: We are ready to accept UN mission, UN forces in Kosovo under the flag of United Nations. TOM BEARDEN: When asked by reporters if he talked with President Milosevic about whether such a force should be armed, he said they had not discussed it. NATO has insisted that any post-bombing peacekeeping force be armed and led by NATO as a precondition to halting the bombing.