The Pentagon's Plan

By Mark Thompson/Washington

How can we hit Slobodan Milosevic harder? Last week that was the key tactical question for NATO and U.S. war planners. The only measure that matters in air war is how many bombs are delivered on target, and last week's score paled alongside the explosive power that rained down on Saddam Hussein's forces during the Gulf War. NATO's 400 warplanes are launching roughly 100 strikes against Yugoslav targets every day. But foul weather has kept about half those warplanes from releasing their weapons. The resulting 50 effective daily strikes fall dramatically short of the 1,000 launched each day during the first week of the gulf conflict by 2,700 warplanes. This week NATO proposes to try to close the gap. The tally still won't come close to the gulf numbers, but Pentagon sources say the air assault will be far more substantial--and lethal--than anything so far.

For starters, clench-jawed officials promised an increased bomb load this week. "No targets are off limits that are involved in the repression," says National Security Council spokesman David Leavy. Improved weather could by itself double the daily sortie count, and additional planes now en route to the Balkans will drive it even higher. Tacitly acknowledging their predicament, the allies--especially the U.S., which is flying more than 80% of the attack missions--are hurling more firepower at Yugoslavia. B-1 Lancers are letting go with 500-pounders and the Combined Effects Munition, a particularly macabre bomb filled with 202 tank-busting, flesh-shredding bomblets that can turn acres of land into plowed fields. B-2s, flying 31-hour round trips from Missouri, are dropping more discriminating satellite-guided bombs across wide areas of Serbian-held territory.

Months of B-1 computer programming were compressed into less than 100 hours last week, as Air Force officers and contractors crammed the bombers' onboard computers with the latest intelligence on the radar and surface-to-air missiles they are facing over Yugoslavia. After a B-1 with the new software passed a critical flight test last Tuesday night in Florida, two B-1s were ordered into action two days later. The same night the B-1s debuted, so did the Predator, an Air Force drone able to relay targeting and bomb-damage data to commanders.

Thirteen additional F-117A Stealth fighters left Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for Italy over the weekend. It's not a fun flight: the jets will have to refuel in air 18 times during the 14-hour journey. Stealth target lists include dozens of deeply buried bunkers in and around Belgrade. Though the Serbs are gloating that these Tito-era nuclear-bomb shelters are impregnable, they may be in for a surprise: the Nighthawks are specially trained for such missions. Navy F-18s from the carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt are expected to see action. And the U.S. Army may get a chance to unleash its AH-64 gunships against Serbian targets. The choppers could also help take out Serbian special-forces units operating inside Kosovo--units the Pentagon is starting to believe engineered the "snatch" of the three Army scouts last week.

Guiding the allied targeting efforts is a constellation of electronic eyes and ears. At least two $1 billion improved Keyhole KH-12 satellites sweep over the region with electro-optical cameras that beam photos to intelligence-processing centers. The problem is that the birds can't see through the clouds that covered Kosovo much of last week. But two or more $1 billion Lacrosse satellites, whose radar-imaging eyes can pierce cloud cover, are also sweeping the theater. They give the allies a peek at what's happening on the ground an average of once every 180 minutes.

The allies need all the high-tech gear they can get because they're short of spies on the ground. The CIA evacuated its Belgrade station and shuttered an outpost in Pristina shortly before the bombing began. The CIA is now trying to sneak covert operatives back into Kosovo. But U.S. intelligence officials say it's a slow process in the face of furious Serbs and rugged terrain.

In another tactical shift, NATO is now choosing targets for psychological impact as well as military utility. "We don't want them to know where we're going to hit next," an Air Force planner says. "We want to keep Belgrade off balance." Increasingly, the allies will aim at Serbian institutions like the Interior Ministry that protect Milosevic like a suit of armor. At the Pentagon and at NATO headquarters, officials still see air power as an inexorable force. "We haven't been shaken off our game by all the second-guessing," a Joint Staff officer says. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea offers an analogy: "A snowball begins in a small way, but as it goes down the mountain it picks up more and more momentum." Maybe. But right now Milosevic has the momentum, and the question is whether air power has a snowball's chance in hell of reversing it.

--With reporting by Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON