WAR IN EUROPE Poor intelligence caused embassy attack CIA blamed for bomb blunder
by Stephen Grey in Brussels, Matthew Campbell in Washington and Hugh McManners
YESTERDAY Nato admitted it had bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade after mistaking it for a Yugoslav government office. At least three people were killed in the attack, which threw diplomatic efforts to end the war into turmoil.
Alliance officials said they had believed the building was Yugoslavia's federal directorate of supply and procurement, which organises weapons imports and exports. It was hit by three 1,000lb precision-guided freefall weapons, thought to have been dropped by a B2 stealth bomber.
Last night Nato diplomats were looking to General Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander who now has sole authority for selecting targets, to take responsibility. Allied intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were also facing severe criticism. "It is absolutely incredible not even to know where the embassy of such an important world power is situated," one diplomat said.
General Walter Jertz, Nato's military spokesman, denied that Nato planners had used outdated maps and said they had no reason to know the locations of all the embassies in Belgrade. "Particularly as we were not going to attack the Chinese embassy, we were not trying to find out where it was," he said.
Javier Solana, Nato's secretary-general, announced a formal investigation, promising that the results would be made public. The apparently disastrous failure of Nato's intelligence prompted speculation that false information had come from a hostile agent, and compounded anger over the bombing.
Demonstrators hurled chunks of concrete and bottles at the British and American embassies in Beijing after an officially sanctioned outpouring of fury by students got out of control. A mob stormed the American consulate in Chengdu, in the southwest, and set it on fire.
President Bill Clinton offered condolences to China for "a tragic mistake". But Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian envoy trying to broker a peace deal, described Nato's action as "barbarism".
The embassy, purpose-built for the Chinese in 1993, was hit during the heaviest bombardment of Belgrade in more than six weeks of bombing. Witnesses said two missiles struck the roof and one penetrated its side. Two journalists and a reporter's wife died. A fourth victim was reported missing. Chinese diplomats, some with bloodstained clothes, watched in tears as rescuers brought out 21 injured.
Jamie Shea, Nato's spokesman, described the embassy bombing as "a terrible accident", saying the alliance regretted the loss of life and injuries but would not be deflected from its campaign to destroy President Slobodan Milosevic's military machine.
"I would like to remind the people of Yugoslavia that we carefully select targets that are directly related to President Milosevic's political and leadership apparatus, the military and paramilitary forces that he has deployed in Kosovo and his ability to support his campaign of repression," Shea said. Among the hits yesterday was the Dovanovci complex, a presidential residence with a bunker described by British officials as "the centre of Milosevic's high command". Another was the Hotel Jugoslavija, which Nato said had been used as a command centre by the paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan, for Kosovo operations by his so-called Tigers.
Nato conceded that cluster bombs dropped from an F-16 fighter jet had extensively damaged a hospital complex and a marketplace in Nis, Yugoslavia's third-largest city. The Yugoslav government said 15 people had been killed. Bombers returned to Nis yesterday, damaging a bridge in the city centre. One report said windows had been smashed in the nearby Greek consulate. Yugoslav anti-aircraft gunners shot down a Nato drone 100 miles south of Belgrade . The embassy attack, however, was expected to have far-reaching repercussions. China denounced it as a war crime, demanded an immediate end to the bombing and called an emergency session of the United Nations security council, which expressed its "shock and concern". Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, said the incident emphasised the need for an urgent political solution to the Balkans crisis.
Terence Taylor, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "This will encourage Russia and China to demand greater UN control of future events in Kosovo and will increase pressure for a pause in the bombing."
Russia had joined the G7 leading industrial powers last week in agreeing a set of principles for peace in Kosovo, including the presence of an international armed force. Yesterday, however, President Boris Yeltsin condemned the "vandalism" of the embassy bombing, calling it an "open outrage". Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, cancelled a trip to Britain in protest. Securing China's acquiescence to the principles of a peace settlement had been the West's next priority before it put a resolution on Kosovo to the security council. It had hoped to complete Milosevic's international isolation.
Tony Blair was writing to Zhu Rongji, the Chinese premier, to express his regret.
Fresh evidence of Kosovo atrocities emerged with the murder of Fehmi Agani, a negotiator at the Rambouillet peace talks. Belgrade claimed that Agani, an associate of the moderate Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, was killed by the Kosovo Liberation Army. His family said he disappeared after a beating by police.
Additional reporting: Lara Santoro, Belgrade; Michael Sheridan, Hong Kong Next page: Blundering into China