I was traveling in China with the then-senior Senator from Texas, Phil Gramm, and we met with the Prime Minister of China, not long after the Americans, under the command of GEN Wesley Clark, had bombed the Chinese Embassy in Serbia. The Chinese were understandably very concerned about that.
We said: It was a mistake. It was an error. And the Chinese Ambassador, with whom we were talking at the time, said: You have the best intelligence in the world. You must have known that was the Chinese Embassy. That was not a hidden fact. That was not a secret. You have the most accurate military in the world. You did that deliberately.
Then he pointed out to us that was not just the Chinese Embassy; that was, in fact, the headquarters of the Chinese intelligence operation throughout Central Europe. So we bombed an embassy and we took out their intelligence capability. They said: You did that deliberately. We said: No; it was a mistake.
I remember Senator Shelby saying: The proof of the fact that it is a mistake is that nobody would have been stupid enough to do that deliberately. Then the Chinese Ambassador said: If it was a mistake, why hasn't somebody been fired? And for that, we had no particular answer.
Checking into it, we found the reason that happened is because GEN Wesley Clark, the commander of NATO, was demanding targets: I need more targets. I'm running out of targets. And under the pressure of those demands from that commanding general, the CIA came up with targets, and they came up with an old target with bad information, under the pressure from a commander who was anxious to keep bombing even though he had run out of legitimate targets. In that pressure, a tragic mistake was made, and America's relationship with China was seriously damaged in that situation.
. . . which is an instant replay of the FBI Filegate denuement: If hiring Craig Livingstone was a mistake, why was no one blamed for hiring him? Why was Livingstone's dismissal announced in the passive voice? Livingstone "was fired" - but nobody got the credit for firing him because that would imply responsibility for hiring him!!
I wonder what was going through his pea sized brain when he launched cruise missles on the Chi-Com Embassy? I also read that he wanted to launch an attack against Russian troops that were acting as advisors in Bosnia. I wonder if he considered either of those acts to be a prelude to WWIII?
Wes Clarke was relieved of command 'cause that perfume 4 star good ole wesley was attempting to start WW3. A Brit commander was the one who stopped him. Immediately, wesley was recalled by the chairman of the joint chief
...LOL...