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The going was rather rough because of the many revisions, but I seem to have found the revision in which "On April 19, the State Department said that up to 500,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing and feared dead" disappeared from the article. This didn't happen because of the Times retraction (in which case that particular deletion would have been justified -- in the absence of the other sources that you found). Instead it appears to have been done by a bot called 'AnomieBOT', which does "repetitive automated or semi-automated edits".

As best as I can tell, the automated part had to do with the original paragraph containing in-text citations of sources rather than simple footnotes. The problem is, though, that this wasn't merely a changing of format. A lot of information was deleted and new information added or shifted around (e.g., at first I thought the Monica Lewinsky distraction charge was added, but then saw that it had just been moved).

Nearly an entire paragraph of detailed evidence of exaggeration of losses by the Clinton administration was removed (including the 500,000 claim). All that was retained -- shifted to the next paragraph -- was the mere general accusation ("U.S. President Clinton and his administration were accused of inflating the number of Kosovo Albanians killed by state forces."). That really lets the Clinton administration off the hook. Charges aren't nearly so damaging as evidence they're true. :-)

'AnomieBOT', which does "repetitive automated or semi-automated edits".

Thanks for doing this. I am learning more about how Wikipedia works. Since the flagrant global warming edits were exposed a few years ago I have been even more wary of Wikipedia even though I still value it as a source of information (again, the WayBackMachine is always your friend).

This is a bit above my pay grade, but someone has to set the parameters within which this bot works. It seems just a little too convenient that such damaging information was selected for removal. In fact, I suspect that it was a human decision deliberately implemented by a bot to cover tracks.