Kosovo: Clinton Lied, People Died

________________________________________ Posted: December 1, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 Laurence A. Elder The White House – finally – began pushing back against irresponsible charges that Bush "lied" to the American people in making the case for war.

The garrulous Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., made many "Bush lied" accusations: "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January [2003] to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud." And Kennedy later intoned on the Senate floor, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said, "... [T]he administration intentionally misled the country into war." Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, speaking to the president in a TV ad, said, "You were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. You were wrong about the link between Iraq and al-Qaida. You lied to us, and because of your lies, my son died." Question: If Bush "lied," did former President Clinton "lie" about Kosovo?

Clinton, in a March 24, 1999, Oval Office broadcast, explained his military action in Kosovo: We act to prevent a wider war, to defuse a powder keg at the heart of Europe, that has exploded twice before in this century with catastrophic results ... By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests and advancing the cause of peace ... Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to America's national interests ... Do our interests in Kosovo justify the dangers to our armed forces? ...

I am convinced that the dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not acting – dangerous to defenseless people and to our national interests ... I have a responsibility as president to deal with problems such as this before they do permanent harm to our national interests. America has a responsibility to stand with our allies when they are trying to save innocent lives and preserve peace, freedom and stability in Europe. That is what we are doing in Kosovo.

The former president called Kosovo a humanitarian crisis. The New York Times, on April 19, 1999, wrote: In San Francisco on Thursday, President Clinton said that the Serbs had displaced 'over a million Kosovars' and had killed and raped 'thousands upon thousands of them.' From interviews that journalists and relief workers have conducted with scores of refugees from Kosovo, there is no reason to doubt him. But at this point it is also impossible to prove that he is correct.

Actor-activist Mike Farrell, who opposes the Iraq War, nevertheless supported military action in Kosovo, stating:

I am in favor of an intervention ... I was in Rwanda shortly after the slaughter there. I was infuriated then – and am now – that the international community did not step in ... I know that the escalation of violence and violations of human rights in Kosovo have been going on for some time ... I reluctantly find myself supporting the notion that something needed to be done and that it is appropriate for us to act, and if this is the only way, so be it.

But what about Clinton's assertion of the displacement of "over a million Kosovars"? According to USA Today on July 1, 1999:

Many of the figures used by the Clinton administration and NATO to describe the wartime plight of Albanians in Kosovo now appear greatly exaggerated as allied forces take control of the province ... Instead of 100,000 ethnic Albanian men feared murdered by rampaging Serbs, officials now estimate that about 10,000 were killed. But is the 10,000 number accurate? The Orange County Register, in a Nov. 22, 1999, editorial, said:

Months after the bombing has ceased, United Nations and European Union investigations have bolstered what critics had argued: NATO's estimates of Serbian genocide against the Kosovars were greatly overblown. Many observers now think the inflated numbers simply were part of the U.S.-led propaganda effort to build support for the war.

The latest evidence suggests that fewer than 3,000 Kosovars were murdered – horrifying, yes, but not many more than the number of Serbs who were killed by NATO bombing attacks on Yugoslavia, roughly estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers and civilians. Does this mean that Clinton "lied, people died"? The intelligence turned out to be wrong, very wrong. Something like this always warrants a serious examination of intelligence failures. But intelligence failures, bad intelligence or failing to properly analyze the intelligence is a far cry from accusing a commander in chief of deliberately and intentionally misleading the American people.

Can we, perhaps, now drop the "Bush lied" nonsense, and pursue the business of winning the war against Islamo-fascism? Perhaps?

Here's an old post dealing with this very subject:

According to liberals, lying about war is worse than lying about sex. And while I would generally agree with that, let me give you my perspective: Clinton's lie(s) were much worse. Clinton didn't just lie about sex, he also lied about war to cover for sex. He bombed 4 sovereign nations in the span of 8-months to cover for his domestic afair. War is war...and it's hell, and whether you're killing people from 15,000 feet or 50 feet...people still die. And the last time I checked, bombing a sovereign nation is still an ACT OF WAR. Whoever said make love and not war, never met Bill Clinton; he could literally do both at the same time...including getting a hummer while discussing troop movement (in Bosnia) with a congressman.

Clinton just happened to bomb Afghanistan and the Sudan the day before Monica was to begin her Grand Jury testimony. So outrageous was this operation, that Clinton didn't even consult his Joint Cheifs of Staff before beginning. So worried was Janet Reno, that she actually questioned the legallity of the act. It is now a known fact that this bombing further outraged Bin Laden, as Clinton was supposedly trying to kill him. Unfortunatley, as many pointed out, the intelligence was not only "shaky" as to his whereabouts, the operation was incomplete as we didn't follow-up on further intelligence reports that did indicate were Bin Laden might be. Maybe that's because Clinton's "one-week war on terror" was only a destraction from his "affairs" back at home. As a result, one could argue (if you're a liberal) that Clinton's little gambit only increased Bin Laden's hatred for this country...resulting in 9/11.

And speaking of failed intellligence reports, it was a report that Clinton relied on that claimed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant (in Sudan) was a VX Nerve producing facility. It wasn't...and we got socked with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, as well as destorying a medical facility that was responsible for over 50% of that country's medicines. The deaths in this bombing weren't just limited to those killed in the plant. As some reports indicated, Al-Shifa produced drugs to fight Turberculosis and Malaria...and THOUSANDS may have possibly died since they didn't have access to these medicines (one report said 10,000). Contrary to claims...this was more than just an "aspirin factory." I didn't see the liberals out lamenting the thousands of deaths that occurred because proper medicines were unavailable to the populous of this country. Then again, why should I? The objective US media NEVER reported this story.

You want more lies? How about the 100,000 mass-graves and "genocide" in Kosovo that have never been discovered? Or how about Cinton's claim that we should "never forget Racak" as he used the Racak Massacre as a pretext for war in Serbia? The Racak Massacre was still being questioned by many in the UN and international community, as some say it was a fraud perpetrated by KLA soldiers who lied about the "execution style" murders of innocent women and children. A Finnish foresnic team in conjunction with the UN once stated that Racak was a straight-up fire fight after 4 Serb cops were killed a couple days before. The bullet wounds were inconsistent with "execution style" injuries. Yet our great objective "elite" media ignored those findings, as they gave Clinton a pass on these "failed" intelligence reports.

Speaking of intelligence failures, maybe we can also find out what failures led to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. I don't recall the great outrage to find out what "intelligence failure" led to this disaster, which killed at least 3 nationals. How about Train #393 to Belgrade, in which 27 civilians were killed after the deliberate targeting of the bridge there train was on; or even Serb TV, were at least 20 civilians were killed after being deliberately targeted by US/NATO bombs. Hell, that entire war was one big Geneva Convention violation as civilian infrastructure and utilities were "intententionally" targeted for destruction...to wear down their resolve and resistance. It's ironic to listen to someone like Wesley Clark accuse US soldiers of Geneva violations in Iraq when he, himself, has been listed as a war criminal for Geneva violations in Kosovo. And even after 78-days of aerial bombardments from 15,000 feet, Slobo still remained in power for nearly a year.

A simple review of Clinton's claims (and the democrats) in 1998 explicitly imply the exact same threat that Bush spoke of for the reasons for this war in Iraq. And regardless if Clinton waged a "full scale war," the Democrats still didn't question the validity of those statements or the intelligence that led to those conclusions. No. In fact, many of them made the same claims themselves. Yet, today, it is the Democrats who all of a sudden want investigations...and even impeachment. Bring it on. And let's throw in Clinton's 4 bombings of Iraq, that were also acts of war based on those same intelligence reports. How many Innocent Iraqi died because of those strikes? I just don't recall the media taking body counts during Clinton's wars.

Which brings up another statement liberals make: They say if Clinton had done what Bush had done in Iraq, the Republicans would've been all over him. Here's a little fact for ya'...Clinton did do what Bush did...and a lot more (see above). Yet, I don't recall the Republicans or the media reacting anywhere near the way libs have over this war. They have not only impugned the character of this President, they have emboldened the enemy in Iraq. They are giving both aid and comfort to our enemies and allies alike who can now question the validity of our president's motives...even though it is their evidence and motives that are really in question. The mediacrats desires to cripple this president have not only damaged this country, they are damaging the lives of those fighting to protect us...and our lives, alike.

On a final note about lies: There is a big difference between flat-out lying to the American people and what, at the most, is subjective reading of intelligence information that "may" have been inconclusive. The fact is, this is nothing new...as Clinton (see above) and just about every administration has done it. This doesn't even come close to what LBJ did in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin. There is also a difference between lying and selectively choosing information to support your policy...based on a plethora of intelligence information that is pro and con. The difference is, this information was supported overwhelmingly by more than just Bush, including many of the same Democrats who have been attacking Bush.

Just because politicians of opposing Parties have a different perspective on information or foreign policy doesn't make one Party wrong...or liars. This is what politics are about. And there is a difference in lying about a personal matter and disagreeing over policy matters. Whether you like it or not, Bush's so-called lie, was based on the best information he had, and that he believed threatened the USA. His "so-called" lie was not about personal gratification or a means to satisfy himself. On the contrary, he believed he was doing something to protect the citizens of this country. What Clinton did was just the opposite. His "admitted" lie, was nothing more than a lie to protect himself. It was pure selfishness and had nothing to do with the good of the country. In fact, it was so outrageous, that it did irreparable harm to the country as he did all he could to protect himself...including smearing others in the process. Clinton's lie was nothing more than a selfish act to protect his own personal interest; Bush's so-called lie was about protecting this country's interests.

The people who claim that Bush's lie led to more deaths than Clinton's lies are also wrong. Between the reported 4,000 civilian deaths in Kosovo/Serbia (not including combatants), the deaths in Bosnia, the estimated hundreds to the thousands of deaths in the Somalian fire-fight, the collateral damage resulting from Al-Shifa, Afghanistan, the Chinese Embassy; the deaths resulting from the 4 separate bombings of Iraq (which we don't even have figures for)...and even the operation in Haiti, Clinton's death count may be just as high. Ironically, those weren't even official conflicts...which by the way, if we are going to impeach anybody, it should be Clinton. This President not only didn't have a declaration from Congress...he didn't have the support of the UN for Kosovo. All of which Bush had.

This is why......

NY Times double standard
on wholesale deceit
________________________________________
Posted: December 1, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jack Cashill
________________________________________
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof launched the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame saga in a bitingly ironic May 2003 op-ed piece. Using Wilson's trumperies about his mission to Niger as evidence, Kristof insinuated that the Bush administration engaged in "a campaign of wholesale deceit" on the issue of WMDs to provoke the country into war.

As shall be seen, however, Kristof and his colleagues at the Times maintain a highly flexible standard on the subject of war-provoking deceit, one that depends entirely on who is doing the deceiving, real or alleged.
In the way of background, Kristof has made something of a reputation for himself as a crusader – if I can still use this word without offending – against genocide, at least genocide against non-Iraqis. For instance, he has written any number of columns chastising the Bush administration for its failure to intervene in Sudan's Darfur region, where the Arabic Muslims are killing their black fellow citizens. He laments that America had never intervened to prevent "genocide" – his word – "until Kosovo."

Most Americans had not heard of Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia wracked by Islamic rebellion, until President Clinton's State of the Union speech on Jan. 19, 1999, and many may have missed the reference even then. The president did not broach the subject until two-thirds of the way into a long-winded speech and dedicated a total of 43 words to the subject. In the State of the Union speech preceding the Iraq War, by contrast, George W. Bush dedicated 1,400 words to the impending confrontation.
The war between Yugoslavia and the United States and its NATO allies began just two months after that speech on March 24, 1999, and lasted until June 10 of that year. Over the course of those 10 weeks, "NATO aircraft" – most of them American – flew more than 38,000 combat missions. Unlike President Bush, Clinton committed American forces without ever seeking congressional or U.N. approval.
Although NATO had deemed the situation an "international humanitarian emergency," the American public was understandably confused as to why we had gone to war so hastily against a country without WMDs or a terrorist arm or ambitions to either. Some Americans were downright hostile.

"Now, it is time for all of us to stop Clinton and his disgusting, hypocritical fellow Democrats who support him in this war," wrote one of them. "It is amazing to watch all these 'liberal' Congress members line up behind the president." So wrote filmmaker Michael Moore in April 1999, a few years before embracing the war's architect, Gen. Wesley Clark, as his preferred candidate in the 2004 Democratic primary.

To gain domestic support for this emergency action, the Clinton administration began a drumbeat about mass graves, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. David Scheffer, a State Department ambassador at large, was the first to claim publicly a six-figure death count, specifically "upwards of about 100,000 [Islamic] men that we cannot account for" in Kosovo. A month later, after the war had begun, the State Department upped the total to 500,000 Kosovo Albanians missing and feared dead.
On CBS "Face the Nation," Secretary of Defense William Cohen repeated the 100,000 figure and claimed that the war "was a fight for justice over genocide." The president compared the work of the Serbs in Kosovo to the German "genocide" of the Jews during the Holocaust and assured America that "tens of thousands of people" had been murdered.

The New York Times helped Clinton amplify his message. No fewer than 375 articles would contain the combination "Kosovo" and "genocide," most of those making a direct equation. As late as five weeks after the war's end, the Times' John Kifner was reporting that "at least 10,000 people were slaughtered by Serbian forces during their three-month campaign to drive the Albanians from Kosovo." Kifner went on to tell of "war crimes investigators, NATO peacekeeping troops, and aid agencies struggling to keep up with fresh reports each day of newly discovered bodies and graves."

The now-disgraced Times' reporter Judith Miller also contributed numerous articles in the Times' coverage of Kosovo. In the Kosovo campaign, as in Iraq, Miller's reporting shows no apparent political bias nor any obvious attempt to editorialize with the information at hand. Like most reporters, she relies on her sources and tends to qualify the limits of her information.

Although the president and his administration likely believed what they were saying, as did the Times' reporters – and thus not "lying" – Michael Moore got much closer to the truth in his assessment of what was actually taking place in Kosovo than did the president:
We know Clinton is lying to us. We know there is no "Holocaust" taking place. What IS happening is that two groups of people are carrying on their centuries-old mission to annihilate each other. The Kosovo Liberation Army announced their intentions to rid Kosovo of all Serbs (the Albanians are the majority in Kosovo, the Serbs, a minority). That's all a nutcase like Milosevic needed to justify his campaign to rid Kosovo of all Albanians.
In the war's wake, international teams of investigators and pathologists proved Moore correct. There were no mass graves. There was no genocide. The ethnic Albanian dead numbered in the hundreds, not in the hundreds of thousands.

Spanish forensic surgeon Emilio Perez Pujol, would tell the British Sunday Times that the talk of genocide was "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not find one – not one – mass grave." The International Criminal Tribunal ended up charging Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic not with genocide, but with "crimes against humanity" in the death of the 600 identifiable ethnic Albanians killed in the savage in-fighting, a comparable body count to a year's worth of Los Angeles gang wars.

"W.M.D. – I got it totally wrong," a contrite Judith Miller would write in her notes. "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them – we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong."
Miller was not "totally wrong." What we now know of Saddam's WMD program – and we err by presuming to know too much – suggests the limitations of intelligence gathering in a tightly controlled, totalitarian country.

If Miller is contrite about her failures in Iraq, no one at the Times has ever apologized for their collective failure in Kosovo. Nor have the rest of the media ginned up a "Clinton lied" campaign to explain the preposterous gap between what was promised and what was delivered.
Indeed, as observed earlier, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Nicholas Kristof continues to talk about "genocide" in Kosovo as though it really happened.

They are finding Mass graves this year of Serbs murdered in Kosovo instead of Albanians. A mass grave of 22 by the way....

Near Klina Excavated 22 Total Of Bodies
Trans: ZS
Klina, Pristina, Belgrade, 2. May 05 (Beta) – Excavation of remains of kidnapped Serbs near the village of Volujak (Klina municipality) is about to finish.
“So far 22 bodies have been excavated, of which 9 of them are identified, and names will be announced after their family members take custody of the remains” – said Colonel Gvozden Gagic, President of Serbia and Montenegro Committee for Missing person.
“We estimate that the remains we discovered belongs to people who were kidnapped by KLA in July 1998, in area of Orahovac, because in that year were reported 35 missing Serbs”, added Colonel Gagic.

UNMIK SEEKS NEW MASS GRAVES IN ORAHOVAC AREA
UNMIK forensics will make additional searches within 5-6 days, of the place where the remains of 22 Serbs were excavated. Other forensic teams will search an area of deserted mine and around village Volujak, in attempt to find other locations where kidnapped Serbs from this area were buried after execution.
“There are indications of existence of other mass graves around Klina, were kidnapped civilians were buried after execution, but it is not confirmed by investigation yet”, added Gagic.

Kosovars Expect Progress On Missing Persons
By Muhamet Hajrullahu

Klina, 02 May 05 (IWPR) - Discovery of bodies of Serbs killed in Kosova war may, paradoxically, ease talks on missing persons between Belgrade and Prishtina.
Serbian families laid wreaths and lit candles on April 23 in front of a cave in the Klina region of western Kosova, where the remains of 22 people were found.
DNA testing has identified seven of the victims, discovered on April 19, as Serbs who went missing in 1998 in Rahovec, 50 kilometers west of the capital, Prishtina.
The discovery, near the village of Volljakë (in Serbian, Volujak), marks the first time a mass grave containing Serbs has been found in Kosova, and both the authorities here and local human rights activists believe it will aid talks between Belgrade and Prishtina on missing persons.
Two of the bodies found in the cave were of Olgica Bozanic's brothers, from the village of Opterusa in Rahovec, who until now were considered missing.
She said that until now the family had hoped its missing relatives might still be alive.
"Since their disappearance, we received various information that they were alive and being forced to work in labour camps," said Bozanic.
Seeing the bodies in the cave had been painful, she added, "but finally we know the truth and no one can fool us any longer with stories that our missing people are alive".

The Office of Missing Persons and Forensics, from the UN mission in Kosova, UNMIK, estimates that just under 3,000 people are still counted as missing in Kosova.
The great majority – around 2,400 - are ethnic Albanians while the rest are Serbs, Roma and others.
Daut Dauti, spokesperson for the Kosova government, told IWPR on April 26 that the Volljakë/Volujak mass grave discovery shows that Albanians are willing to return the bodies of missing Serbs and were serious partners in negotiations on missing persons in general.
"Negotiations with Serbs on missing persons issues have often been difficult because Albanians have been accused of not revealing and returning the bodies of missing Serbs," explained Dauti.
After a year of stalemate, when almost no progress was made, the working group on missing persons, chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, met in Belgrade on March 16.
The two sides signed a framework document and accepted ICRC's list of 2,960 still missing as the agreed reference figure. The officials also agreed to meet again on June 9 in Prishtina.
According to Dauti, the discovery of the mass grave will strengthen Kosovar attempts to get the Serbian authorities to make more efforts to locate missing Albanians.
"The government supports the initiative to investigate and discover mass graves such as this one," said Dauti, adding that "this discovery will clearly help the Kosovar delegation in talks on missing persons with officials from Belgrade".
However, representatives of human rights groups, such as Jeta Bejtullahu, of the Humanitarian Law Centre, HLC, in Prishtina say the grave's discovery will do more than expedite the activities of working groups on the missing.
The generally accurate and unbiased reporting of the event in the Kosova media, she said, "shows Kosova Albanian society is ready to accept that Serbs, although on a much smaller scale, were also victims in the Kosova war".
She added, "This is a step forward from the complete denial that existed in the (immediate) post-war years."
Bejtullahu stressed that much work remained to be done on the issue from the point of view of human rights activists.
"There are still reservations (among Albanians) in accepting that the responsibility for crimes against minorities falls on the shoulders of the majority in Kosova," she concluded.

Olgica Bozanic, who is now a refugee in Belgrade, told IWPR that she last saw her brothers on July 18 1998, when a battle took place between Serbian forces and the Kosova Liberation Army, KLA, for control of the Rahovec area.

"During the night between 17 and 18 July 1998, the Albanians attacked the Serbs living in Opterusa, which was mostly Albanian," she said.

The local Serb men had "defended themselves until the morning but then they surrendered to local Albanians and to people ... in black uniforms". She never saw her brothers again.

Dauti is convinced the Kosova public is becoming more aware that crimes were committed against Serbs in the war.

"Albanian society and institutions have to accept that the Serbs of Kosova were also victims in the war and the mass grave in Klina proves it," he said.
Bejtullahu says it is time now for Belgrade and Prishtina to de-politicize the issue of missing persons.

The entire business should be transformed "from a political perspective to a humanitarian one", she said, as this would "help shed light on what happened to the rest of the missing persons - an issue that so far has been held hostage to political calculations".

Note: This article was written in May of 2005 by an Albanain by the way. Milosevic was certainly guilty for murdering POW's, the paramilitaries were guilty of crimes but so was the KLA.

This article has very little to do with being Pro-Serb. It's called let's quiet the crap on Bush by acknowledging that Clinton did the same thing and no one said a word. We now have a direct attack against the U.S. and instead of critizing Bush we support him in wiping the vermin away from the door......our door! We do that in the Rat's nest instead of allowing him to come to the house.

Next, the same administration that lied before is coming up for election after Bush. It's a reminder of what they did before but worse. Third, it is still going on with our tax money being freely given to UN and organized crime personal accounts. This is a proven fact...........got the documentation and testimony....

Jim,

This is what you are talking about...came out today....We've known this since 1999.

Terrorist Cells Find Foothold in Balkans
Arrests Point to Attacks Within Europe

By Rade Maroevic and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A16

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- The raid netted explosives, rifles, other arms and a videotape pledging vengeance for the "brothers" killed fighting Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. Police found the cache in an apartment occupied by an underground group that was aiming to blow up the British Embassy in Sarajevo, Western intelligence officials said.

The Oct. 19 bust in Sarajevo confirmed a suspicion among several intelligence agents that Bosnia and other parts of the Balkans are becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks in Europe.

In particular, Islamic radicals are looking to create cells of so-called white al Qaeda, non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police forces to watch for potential terrorists. "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe," said a Western intelligence agent in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, adjacent to Bosnia. "It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists."

Parts of the Balkans, stuck in lawless limbo after years of war in the 1990s, are ripe recruitment territory for Middle East radicals, intelligence officials say. Bosnia is still divided among Muslim, Croat and Serb population areas, even if nominally united under the 10-year-old Dayton peace agreement that ended ethnic warfare.

Muslim enclaves in Serbia are restive, and Muslim-majority Kosovo remains an estranged province campaigning for independence six years after NATO bombing forced out Serb-dominated Yugoslav troops.

The Balkans have long been a freeway for smugglers of cigarettes, drugs, weapons and prostitutes. "All the conditions are present. Embittered Muslims, arms, corruption -- everything underground operators need to get established," said the Western intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The raid on the Sarajevo group, which was said to have had contacts with cells in Denmark and Britain, was not the only event that raised concern. During the summer, Italian and Croatian police arrested five people who allegedly plotted to bomb the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican City in April.

In addition, Serbian police accidentally came across a key suspect in the March 2004 bombings of Madrid commuter trains while he was traveling through the country by train. He arrived in the Balkans in July, and Serbian police investigators conjecture that he was seeking haven either in Bosnia or Kosovo and perhaps safe passage to the Middle East. They quickly extradited the man, Abdelmajid Bouchar, a Moroccan citizen, to Spain.

U.S. and allied intelligence officers have long worked together in Sarajevo to keep an eye on Islamic radicals in Bosnia. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the CIA and other foreign agencies set up a joint, fortified headquarters to keep tabs on terrorism suspects in Bosnia, a Western intelligence source in Sarajevo said.

The spy teams operate separately from the chief international overseers of Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, according to the official.

During the three-sided war in Bosnia, hundreds of fighters from Arab and other Middle Eastern countries flocked to Bosnia to fight on behalf of the Muslim faction against Croats and Serbs. Many of the foreign mujaheddin , or holy warriors, were expelled after the war, according to the Bosnian government, but others remained and received passports.

Today, parts of Bosnia framed by the cities of Zenica, Tuzla, Sarajevo and Travnik are home to these immigrants and compose the core regions for Islamic militancy, Bosnian police and Western intelligence officials say.

Until recently, the immigrants tried to keep a low profile. Western intelligence officials here and in Belgrade surmised that they wanted to exploit Bosnia as a logistics and transit point and not invite a crackdown from local police or European Union peacekeepers.

The Sarajevo arrests changed that perception. A Bosnian Interior Ministry official, Robert Cvrtak, released the names of four detainees from the raid: Cesur Abdulkadir, who is of Turkish heritage; Mirsad Bektasevic, a Swedish citizen of Bosnian origin; and Bajro Ikanovic and Almir Bajric, both Bosnian citizens. Among their activities, Bosnian police said, were hiding explosives inside lemons and tennis balls and trying to set up training camps in the hills near Sarajevo.

Last Thursday night, Bosnian police arrested a fifth suspect in the town of Hadzici, near Sarajevo. The police found about 20 pounds of explosives hidden in woods near his home. The man, whose name has not been made public, is suspected of being in charge of providing explosives to the rest of group.

Police officials here say Bektasevic, 19, also ran a Web site on behalf of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian who heads the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq. He had pictures of the White House in his computer, they added.

Bektasevic operated under the code name Maximus and kept in touch with a group of at least three men in Britain. British police arrested them in early November, according to press reports.

A week after the original Sarajevo arrests, police in Copenhagen detained four men ages 16 to 20 and said they had planned suicide bombings somewhere in Europe. "We had a very short period to investigate, but our information indicated that their action was imminent," said a police spokesman, Joern Bro. The Danes believed that the Copenhagen suspects had been in contact by phone and e-mail with Bektasevic.

In August, police in Croatia arrested five Bosnians whom Italian military intelligence had fingered for involvement in a plot to bomb the papal funeral. The group originated in Gornja Maoca, a town in northeastern Bosnia, and had planned to smuggle rocket launchers, explosives and detonators into Italy. The plot fell apart, Western intelligence officials said, when a suspect was arrested in Rome in April. The Croatian police, acting on a tip from the Italians, found the others in Croatia.

The capture of Bouchar, suspected in the Madrid train bombings, in Serbia in July surprised police there. They had thought he was just another Middle Easterner traveling illegally through the country until an Interpol fingerprint check revealed his identity.

Authorities say Bouchar had narrowly escaped death or capture shortly after the Madrid attacks, when police there sealed off an apartment where suspects were hiding. Seven men died in the residence by detonating explosives. Bouchar, however, was taking out garbage at the time and fled, Serbian and Spanish officials say.

He traveled to Brussels, where he expected to obtain forged documents, authorities said. However, his contacts there were either under arrest or fleeing police. He moved on and spent time in Austrian and Hungarian jails, but was freed. No one in either country checked his fingerprints.

When picked up heading toward Belgrade, he was wearing a new business suit. Western intelligence officials in Belgrade note that Serbia, although predominantly non-Muslim, has pockets of Muslims in the Sanjak region near Montenegro as well as Kosovo and other areas along the province's border.

Williams reported from Belgrade.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002098.html

That's a great article. Putting aside the merits of the war for a moment, the media's role and coverage of this event was a complete whitewash. They practically became the Clinton Administration's Press Secretary in their efforts to prepare the country for this war...and support it 'till the very end. There were times when I thought Christiane Amanwhore (and CNN) were paid advisors for the Clinton administration.

Unlike the embedded reporters in Iraq, I just don't recall the media scouring the countryside to show the American people what 78-days of aerial bombardment can do to a country. As John Kerry and the MSM complained about US troops daring to shut-down Sadr's newspaper--"silencing the legitimate voices in Iraq"--nothing was every said about the intentional targeting of SerbTV, which killed over 20 civilians...silencing those voices forever. Ironic when you consider our own journalist's concern for their safety, or those at Al-Jazeera.

As the media made Abu Ghraib a front page story for over a year...claiming Geneva Convention violations, they completely ignored what was the intentional targeting of "civilian" infrastructure in Serbia, including commuter trains and electrical grids...all GC violations. For everything the media complains about in Iraq, they could've found it in spades in Serbia/Kosovo if they wanted to.

Heck, there so-called sudden concern for America's image because of the war in Iraq didn't seem to concern them when we were bombing Kosovo...even though stories were being written all over the international press about US hegemony. Unlike the international polls that are taken and published on American and Bush's popularity, the media ignored story after story coming out of Europe and the Mid-East on Bill CLinton and his attempts to Wag-the-Dog and cover for his domestic affairs.

So dispicable is our MSM, that they wouldn't even fully cover and explain one of the most important events in this conflict...the potential confrontation between US and Russian forces over control of Pristina Airport (and also one at sea). I can only imagine the outrage from the left if Bush had come close to instigating a World War. From the civilian casualties to what was one of the largest humanitarian crises...the mass-exodus of humanity from Kosovo that threatened to destabilize neighboring states, the media had nothing critical to say about this administration's policies and intelligence failures.

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