Institute for Public Accuracy 
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org 
___________________________________________________________

11 A.M. Eastern Time -- Wednesday, March 31, 1999

ANALYSTS SCRUTINIZE NATO BOMBING

ROBERT HAYDEN, http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/19990328edhayden8.asp 
Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the 
University of Pittsburgh, Hayden has been deeply involved in attempts to 
mediate the crisis in Kosovo, bringing together political leaders from all 
sides and regularly visiting the region. One of the Albanian party leaders 
he worked with was reported by NATO to have been executed by Serbian forces. 
Hayden said today: "This mission, supposedly designed to prevent a massive 
humanitarian catastrophe, has instead produced it. We have now shown that 
NATO is 'credible' for doing something incredibly irresponsible. Apparently 
'winning it' means destroying the Balkans to save NATO for its upcoming 50th 
birthday.... Having provoked the catastrophe with bombing, NATO's 'remedy' 
is more bombing. The army headquarters in central Belgrade that NATO is 
considering targeting is surrounded by apartment buildings. Civilian 
casualties here could not be considered 'collateral damage,' particularly 
since the 'command and control' functions are no longer being carried out 
from those headquarters."

JACQUELINE CABASSO, wslf@earthlink.net, http://www.napf.org/abolition2000 
Executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, Cabasso said: 
"The situation in Kosovo is ominous with respect to prospects for nuclear 
disarmament. The U.S.-led NATO bombing is opposed by Russia, China, India 
and Indonesia; three are nuclear powers, making up almost half the world's 
population. There are reports that India is considering a possible alliance 
with China and Russia in response. Russia has terminated its Y2K compliance 
program with the U.S., and Ukraine is reportedly contemplating reversal of 
its non-nuclear status. This first NATO military action since its recent 
expansion up to Russia's border comes on the eve of NATO's 50th anniversary 
summit in Washington. Centrally provocative to Russia is that NATO acts 
under the U.S. 'nuclear umbrella' including threatened first use of nuclear 
weapons. There's also the recent Senate vote to go forward with national 
missile defense, which threatens to abrogate the ABM treaty. All of these 
developments have made the Russians resistant to ratifying the START II arms 
reduction treaty. In addition, the U.S. has committed $60 billion to 
rebuild its nuclear weapons research, development and production 
infrastructure, and the Secretary of Energy has announced that production of 
tritium -- radioactive hydrogen used to boost the destructive power of 
atomic bombs -- will be resumed. We seem to be heading straight backwards 
into the Cold War."

JULIANNE SMITH, jsmith@basicint.org, http://www.basicint.org 
An expert on NATO, Smith is a senior analyst at the European Security desk 
at BASIC (British American Security Information Council). Smith said: 
"Bombing is not a preventive tool, it is a consequence of not having any 
preventive tools. It's clear that the NATO bombings are not saving lives, 
instead they are contributing to the escalation of the conflict."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: 
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; Loren Sears, (541) 484-9167