The American NATO pilot who bombed a refugee convoy in Kosovo explained yesterday what he said he thought he was hitting. In a tape recording of his debriefing, the pilot explained in a calm voice that he thought he was attacking a military convoy.
"We worked various targets throughout the morning with not a lot of success due to weather. However, some time around 11 o'clock I spotted near the town of Djakovica what looked to be a IDP [internally displaced persons] convoy that was stacked up on the west side of the town.
"I moved north from there to look and see what the reason for the flood of refugees was down to the town of Djakovica and what I found was a series of villages that had been set on fire, entire villages set on fire . . . Then as I moved further south I see the next village south on fire, fresher fire, still burning vigorously . . .
I moved further to the south to the second village that was on fire and am able to see another smaller village that is even a fresher fire.
"The picture that I am building now in this south-western part of Kosovo is that MUP [Ministry of Interior police] and VJ [Yugoslav Army] forces are methodically working themselves from the north to south through villages setting them ablaze and forcing all the Kosovo Albanians out of the villages . . . "I see close to the town of Djakovica what looks like civilian vehicles flowing into the town and to the choke point where I saw 60plus vehicles stacked up at least.
"I talk my wing man's eyes onto the convoy and explain to him what I am seeing there and get his eyes on there. We see three uniformly-shaped dark-green vehicles that look like troop-carrying vehicles. They come to a stop at the next house down the road.
"I'm convinced now that the VJ and MUP forces, working their way down to Djakovica and the refugees, are preparing to set the next house on fire.
"I take my system, my targeting pod and I make several passes over these vehicles to ensure that they are in fact military vehicles. I roll in on two passes to get a close look, both with my eyeballs and with my targeting pod IR [infrared] picture.
"At this point - this is about 25 minutes into building the whole picture of the destruction . .. I make a decision that these are the people responsible for burning down the villages I have seen so far. I roll in, put my system on the lead vehicle and execute a laser-guided bomb attack on that vehicle . . . "