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damning comment could prove to be from an International Herald Tribune
article on 1 October. Written by Frederick Bonnart, the editorial director of the
independent but highly authoritative NATO’s Nations, the article discusses how
NATO “propaganda” was used against the West. He notes:
In democracies, it is the duty of the public services to present
the truth even in wartime, and particularly when they are in
sole control of the information. If it is deliberately designed to
engender fear and hate, then the correct term is propaganda. 252
In particular, Bonnart believes the armored vehicle totals did not properly
represent the vehicles actually destroyed, and that NATO deliberately used the
West’s reputation for truth and fairness to carry out a highly charged
information policy against the Serbs. This made NATO’s information policy
rife with propaganda, Bonnart contends, and he points out that
recommendations are being prepared to create a future NATO crisis
information organization to keep this from happening again. 253 When did we
ever think that a NATO-oriented publication’s editor would be publicly
accusing SACEUR’s organization of propaganda and disinformation?
Assessing the Results of Information Superiority
One danger of the air campaign over Yugoslavia is overestimating
NATO and US capabilities. All of the systems did not function all of the time
with perfection. For example, some of the high-tech systems were unable to
operate under poor weather conditions, as underscored in the daily Pentagon
briefings during the campaign. Certainly it was an exaggeration to say:
A vast number of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
systems allowed for the rapid collection and collating into a
single system the vital battlefield intelligence that we sent to
our shooters. Taken together, all these innovations allowed our
pilots to hit any target, any time, day or night, in any weather,
accurate to within a few feet. 254
Secretary of Defense William Cohen, in a November speech in
California, listed several extremely important qualifiers regarding capabilities.
252 Frederick Bonnart, “NATO Has a Duty to Be Truthful,” International Herald
Tribune, 1 October 1999.
253 Ibid.
254 William S. Cohen, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Hotel del Coronado,
Coronado, California, 9 September 1999, downloaded from the Internet (OSD/PA news
release), http://www.defenselink.mil:80/news/Sep1999/b09101999_bt409-99.html.
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