U.S. Begins Probing Serbian Leader’s Role in War Crimes

Gradually and quietly, the U.S. intelligence community has begun to probe the explosive question of whether Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was connected to war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Over the past few months, the Clinton administration has ordered the CIA and other intelligence agencies to increase their cooperation with the Balkan war crimes tribunal in The Hague--where chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone is working his way up the chain of command from those who perpetrated atrocities in Bosnia to their bosses.

Intelligence organizations such as the National Security Agency, which monitors telephone communications overseas, have been ordered to pore over records to see if they have any material concerning Milosevic that should be turned over to the war crimes tribunal. U.S. officials say they have not found any conclusive evidence so far, but they make it clear that the internal investigation is continuing.

“The key to Milosevic is, at what point in time will the prosecution collect enough evidence to proceed in the tribunal?” said one U.S. official familiar with the recent, intensified examination of intelligence records.

As U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops pour into the Balkans to enforce the peace accord hammered out in Dayton, Ohio, with Milosevic’s help, the possibility that the Serbian president may eventually be linked to war crimes looms as a ticking time bomb that could jeopardize America’s diplomatic gains in the region. Milosevic’s cooperation has been crucial in ensuring Bosnian Serb concessions, such as the release in December of two captured French pilots.

Administration officials admit they are worried about the potentially devastating impact of any effort to bring war crimes charges against Milosevic. Nevertheless, they ordered the intelligence community to turn over whatever evidence is available after Goldstone complained in November that the United States was not cooperating enough with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as the tribunal is formally known.

Goldstone, a respected South African judge, has pursued the investigations vigorously since his appointment by the U.N. Security Council in 1994. In effect, the administration concluded that no matter how much an investigation of Milosevic might harm the Dayton accord, it would be worse in the long run if the United States was accused of ignoring any role he may have had in atrocities by Bosnian Serbs.

The United States now has 22 staff members--from the FBI, Justice Department, Defense Department and other agencies--working with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and many more staffers within the U.S. intelligence community in Washington looking for evidence of who was ultimately responsible for war crimes in Bosnia.

U.S. officials say both President Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher sent word to the intelligence community late last year that “no one is exempt” from the investigation.

Building a solid legal case against Milosevic would not be easy, U.S. officials caution. Sources say it could take months or years; Milosevic has been extraordinarily cautious in what he says on the telephone or writes to Serbian or Bosnian Serb leaders, according to sources familiar with U.S. intelligence.

Until November, the war crimes tribunal’s efforts to get help from the U.S. intelligence community had been stymied by bureaucratic roadblocks, lack of staff help and lack of access to senior officials. American cooperation was essential, because the United States has the most extensive eavesdropping and satellite photo capabilities available.

But the State Department, for example, had assigned only one staffer in its Intelligence and Research Bureau to process information from all U.S. intelligence agencies assisting the war crimes tribunal, creating a bottle-neck. Goldstone and his staff were supposed to work with and through these lower-level officials.

Moreover, American intelligence sources complain that throughout much of 1995, there was little high-level interest within the Clinton administration in an aggressive investigation of Milosevic at a time when the Serbian leader was becoming crucial to the fate of U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations.

“If the White House wants to make someone out to be the bad guy, like Saddam Hussein, they can do it,” one source said. “In 1995, when they decided Milosevic was being useful, they didn’t make him out to be like Saddam Hussein.”

But things changed in November after Goldstone visited Washington to protest that the administration was not providing enough help. The prosecutor was “convinced that he was not getting everything we had,” that the U.S. was withholding critical intelligence, one source said.

The result was that the prosecutor was, for the first time, given direct access to CIA Director John M. Deutch and other top-level officials. Moreover, staff and other U.S. intelligence resources to support the tribunal were beefed up.

A spokesman in The Hague said Goldstone is now “satisfied with the support he is receiving” from Washington.

While U.S. intelligence officials are reluctant to discuss Milosevic specifically, they carefully admit that they have stepped up their investigation of the role the Serbian government’s top leadership played in Bosnian Serb atrocities.

“U.S. intelligence has been looking at Serb command-and-control issues from the outset of the war. It’s been a priority,” one intelligence official said.

Another U.S. official said Milosevic is “absolutely not exempt whatsoever” from investigation for war crimes. “We made it clear to Goldstone that we agree with his view he should take this [investigation] wherever it goes.”

The war crimes tribunal has already produced high-level indictments of Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic.

The tribunal has issued 12 indictments under international law against 52 people. The indictments covered seven Bosnian Croats and three former Serbian generals in the Yugoslav army; the rest were against Bosnian Serbs. No one now serving in the Serbian government has been charged.

Administration officials say there will be more indictments over the next few months, at higher levels. The chain of command could lead from Bosnian Serb leaders to the Serbian government.

Other American officials note that once NATO troops are able to escort the tribunal’s investigators into locations where atrocities are believed to have occurred, “the investigators will have the opportunity to find physical evidence, perhaps documentary evidence, and possibly develop better links up the chain of command.”

Two tribunal investigators, accompanied Sunday by U.S. envoy John Shattuck, made their first on-site visits to alleged mass graves in Bosnia. However, they were escorted by Bosnian Serb police.

U.S. intelligence officials believe that while all the warring factions in Bosnia are guilty of some war crimes, most have been committed by the Bosnian Serb side, which has been heavily dependent on support from Serbia.

At the very least, U.S. officials believe, Milosevic had the power to stop massacres by cutting off aid. But providing arms and support is not enough to warrant an indictment. Instead, under international law, there must be proof linking Milosevic to specific crimes.

“The trick is getting the evidence. That moves it from speculation to a case that could stand up in court,” one U.S. official said.

U.S. intelligence sources say that there were interagency discussions in 1993 and 1994 about whether to include Milosevic’s name on a secret list of possible war criminals but that it was ultimately left off for lack of sufficient evidence.

By the spring of 1995, when it began to seem as if Milosevic might become part of the solution in the Balkans, his absence from the list made it easier for U.S. negotiators to deal with him, said one of the intelligence sources. He played a key role in the Dayton peace accord.

If Milosevic stepped down or his political position at home was weakened, any successor might prove to be less cooperative with the United States and less willing to help bring about peace in the Balkans.

But administration officials say that no conclusion from the investigation is likely soon.

“I have great patience,” one administration source said. “If you go after someone that high, you want to be sure you can win. It would be devastating to move against him and then lose.”