Dana Priest

Dana Priest, the Post's military affairs reporter, recently wrote a series of articles focused on NATO's air war against Yugoslavia. Priest is was online to discuss the series.

A Post reporter for 13 years, Priest started out as an assistant foreign editor and then became a Metropolitan staff reporter. After joining the National staff nine years ago, Priest covered federal regulatory issues and went to Baghdad to write about American hostages being held in Iraq.

Priest has covered the Pentagon for the past four years. Her reporting has taken her to Bosnia to write about U.S. troops stationed there and on overseas trips with defense secretaries William Perry and William Cohen. She has also written extensively about the Army's efforts to integrate women into the workforce.

Read the transcript:

Washingtonpost.com: Welcome to our live discussion with Post reporter Dana Priest. We have quite a few questions in queue already, so let's start with one from Minneapolis, MN:

Hi Dana. In similar fashion to the Persian Gulf War, a re-evaluation of the results of the strategic air strikes against Serbia leaves much to be desired. What was initially touted as a stunning success is now shown to be less effective than originally reported. Will this change US military doctrine and lead the US to engage any future enemy with ground troops in addition to air strikes as opposed to sticking exclusively with air power? Or do you think that our top brass and politicians still suffer from Vietnam Syndrome and are afraid to commit soldiers in an active engagement?

Dana Priest: I don't think the lessons from Kosovo will necessarily lead to doctrinal changes or changes in tactics and air weapons system that would be more effective against smaller, mobile targets. But they could. The services are grappling internally with this now. There are many institutional reasons why the Air Force and Army haven't adequately adapted to the changes in the world since the end of the Cold War. This could be a chance for true re-evaluation. Well have to wait and see. As to the second part, I sense that there will continue to be a reluctance to send troops into conflicts that are not "vital interest" engagements. Perhaps even more so, since it was a combination of air power and diplomacy and preparation for ground troops that may have finally gotten Milosevic to fold. Seems an interesting question is this: will the Army continue to be relevant to this type of incremental, air-only operation. And if so, how?

Baltimore, MD: Ms. Priest:

You've done a nice job of eliciting detailed accounts from your sources in your recent series on Kosovo. Could you describe what agendas you believe your sources are advancing in sharing with a member of the press their impressions of the (apparently quite awkward) decisionmaking during the recent conflict? For example, do you sense any dissatisfaction or desire to settle scores? Or are your sources more concerned with their own reputations? Or is that two ways of saying the same thing?

Thanks very much to you and the Post for giving us the opportunity to ask questions.

Dana Priest: Well, probably all of the above. People always have their own motives for opening up to reporters. The most common are that they want to tell "their side" of a story, or to shape the public's understanding of events, or plant their place in history. I know this and factor it into the final product. For this series, for example, I interviewed (and often reinterviewed) about 50 people, often challenging their initial assertions with information I learned later. In the end, a reporter has to make a lot of judgement calls about which information to finally use to tell the story.

Boston: If target selection was such a methodical process as alledged in this article, then how do you explain the almost daily bombing of civilians and the Chinese embassy?

WWIII could have easily been started b/c of M. Albright's rush to war states"men"ship involving Russia and/or China. Our country had everything to lose and little to gain from this war.

2)Why jeopardize our country so? If it is a moral issue then let's all go to Angola and stop that civil war!

Dana Priest: That's an easy one. Mistakes happen. The article actually tried to make the point that there were problems in producing targets in a timely fashion and, secondly, that NATO commanderst took extra care in picking aim points and weapons that would do the least collateral damage.
The second part of your question is an interesting one and many people are comparing Kosovo to East Timor in this regard. I tend to think that the "moral issue" of saving the Kosovars was much less a factor than the belief that Kosovo, because of its geographic location to Europe and potential for destablizing NATO countries, came close to a "vital interest" as the U.S. defines it.

Los Angeles, California: The strength of our military seems to be slowly dwindling each year. Do you believe that this is a continuing trend and will our current and future forces be ready for an all out air and ground assault?

Dana Priest: The size of the U.S. military is certainly dwindling but if the war against Yugoslavia showed proved nothing else, it proved that the U.S. military is light years ahead of anyone else is all crucial areas--air assets, intelligence, lift, refueling, logistics. Perhaps not so much in the peacekeeping area, where Britain, for example, has had years of dealing with Northern Ireland and is more experienced in boots-on-the-ground peacekeeping.

Columbus, OH: I thought that targeting civilian infrastructure to break a population's will was a war crime. Am I mistaken? Thank you.

Dana Priest: Human rights groups have taken that position. The Geneva Convention prohibits the targeting of civilians. Military commanders are supposed to be able to show a disproportionate military advantage to hitting individual dual-use targets.

Goodyear, AZ: Can you explain the huge discrepancy between what Americans were led to believe about the humanitarian situation in Kosovo during the war and what we told afterwards -i.e., no 100s of thousands of refugees hiding in the mountains, a much lower death toll than formerly stated, etc.?

Dana Priest: Yugoslav forces kicked most reporters out of Kosovo for the first few weeks of the war and those who remained were unable, for safety reasons, to travel around much. Much of the initial reporting, therefore, relied on second and third hand sources--humanitarian groups left there, Kosovars who we could contact, reports the U.S. government passed on. The same thing has happened in East Timor. Hopefully, now that reporters have gotten back in this week, we'll get a more accurate account.
But in Kosovo, there were tens of thousands in the hills, more than a million refugees and some 10,000 estimated killed. So it's a matter of degree rather an scale, I think.

Columbus, OH: It has often been said that we blew it diplomatically at Rambouillet. Do you know if there is anyone or any department of govenment working to get the definitive story of Rambouillet?

Have you spoken to the person who wrote "annex B" at Rambouillet?

Dana Priest: There are academics working on this. It is a crucial question since it is still bewildering to think that 20,000 Yugoslav troops could be driving into Kosovo and NATO leaders were still willing to give Milosevic a chance, once again, to wiggle out of his prior pledges.

Fairfax, Virginia: The real issues that we should be concerned about is the whole NATO decision making process. You glossed over the difficulties that General Clark faced in trying to keep a coalition of 19 countries together while prosecuting a war. Instead you focused on the internal battles between generals and egos. That's all very sexy and reads well. How is NATO going to deal with this in the future and will the next general be fired when he uses his best military judgement fighting that war?

Dana Priest: The second part of the series was all about NATO decision-making. The fact is, after the second week, there was no war by committee. The 19 had given their proxy to NATO's secretary general and he, turned, looked to the heads of state in the U.S., Britain and France for direction. Outside that, the main problem was trying to make sure no country abandon the effort altogether. None did. Perhaps this experience will give NATO a better sense of what fighting a war requires. Then again, every war is different.

washingtonpost.com: We're about half-way through our live discussion with Dana Priest. Please continue to submit questions.

Herndon, VA: We can thank God and the British general on the ground in Kosovo (but not Congress or the Clinton administration) that our madcap misadventure in the Balkans has not triggered World War III (yet). What possessed a senior U.S general serving as SACEUR to advocate military intervention (let alone ground invasion) in the first place? Did General Clark "go native" in the NATO bureaucracy? What's in this for America?

Dana Priest: My impression is that, for many reasons, Gen. Clark did not want to lose this war. When things went south, he tried to plan for all possibilities. Since no one really wanted to face the worst case scenario (sending ground troops) beforehand, he had to do this while the war was in progress and in secrecy since even the prospect of a ground invasion was inconceivable to many European allies and many parts of the US government. It is interesting to note, however, that Clinton and others in the US government came around to the need to prepare for an invasion.

Arlington, VA: Does the Post series this week prove why General Clark was removed from his command early or prove them wrong in doing it? Odd to see such infighting revealed so soon after events.

Dana Priest: You'll have to be the judge. Obviously he nudged people quite a bit from the get-go. He wanted a bigger campaign after the second day and he wanted to prepare for ground troops early on. His activism, which was only somewhat understood during the war, bothered some of his superiors a lot and some people will see his constant pushing as inappropriate. On the other hand, many people might see it as the main reason the air campaign grew more aggressive and that the administration finally decided to plan for ground troops.

Nis, Yugoslavia: Please tell me which is only one country where the NATO established the democracy, and good life for some nation, especially by bombing.
Where is that people? You have the job which prepares (for public opinion), and after that, explain all necessity of all interventions. How do you feel when you, after all, see that you have been manipulated?
What do you think about the moral double standards of your colleagues (for example concerning the bombing Yugoslavia)
Nikolic

Dana Priest: This was NATO's first war so there's no record to relie on. Certainly the air campaign in Bosnia, and the subsequent peacekeeping mission there, has only stabilized the atmosphere there. It has not solved Bosnia's problems or cemented in place a democratic system. I doubt that is a role for the military. As for manipulation--I'm always on the look out for that.

Columbus, OH: It seems there was a fair amount of talk of taking it to the civilians so that they would want the war to stop. Do you know if any of our officials are concerned about an idictment by the Hague? I know that lawyers were there with their books, but they are not always right, and they are not always listened to.

Dana Priest: I would not expect any indictments by the Hague. My reporting found that the lawyers only rejected one proposed target and that their work was largely an effort to find a connection, however small, to a specific target. In other words, they were the legal cover for bombing factories that had, really, little military use but were valued assets to Milosevic' cronies.

Racine, WS: "It is interesting to note, however, that Clinton and others in the US government came around to the need to prepare for an invasion." Are you saying that Clinton was willing to send ground forces at the end, even though he promised it would not come to that?

Dana Priest: The first part of my series quotes a senior administration official saying that Clinton had decided he would use ground troops if that is what it took to win. By the NATO summit, he had concluded that, for many reasons, NATO simply could not afford to loss this war.

Washington, DC: Should the US-NATO bomb Russia in order to protect civilians in Dagestan and Chechnya, as we did in Yugoslavia?

Dana Priest: The fact that Kosovo was a part of a sovereign country, probably did keep the U.S. from acting even more aggressively in the beginning. The Clinton administration knew it could not get a resolution through the UN Security Council. Your "should" question is better directed to policy-makers or editorialists.

Chicago, IL: Why not build on your current work with a similar series tracking how the Ahtasaari-Chernomyrdin mission arose, what Milosevic told them on June 2-3, and what Ahtasaari-Chernomyrdin told Blair and Clinton about why Milosevic surrendered?

Dana Priest: That's a good idea. I think it's more appropriate for our diplomatic correspondents who have written on this topic already. We've have seven people at The Post who cover national security matters and we're divided up into specialities. I cover military issues.

washington dc : Im still confused by the figures floating around about weapons destroyed on the ground in the kosovo air campaign . nato now claims 93 tanks, but I heard reports they could only find 12 wrecks - please explain this discrepancy...

Dana Priest: Part of the explanation is that NATO only found 26 tank hulks and NATO bomb damage assessment teams assume that the others were taken away somehow by the Yugoslav forces. They used other "proof" to conclude that the number was 96. This included cockpit video, pilot reports, wing man reports, tank tracks, etc. Still, NATO destroyed only about one-third of the equipment on the ground in Kosovo, which really isn't that much for a 78 day campaign by the world's excellently-armed superpower.

Columbus, OH: Have your contacts expressed concerns that, after the showing of our overpowering military technology in the Kosovo war, countries worried about our entry into their affairs will prepare to fight an unconvential war through terrorist tactics using biologicals, etc.? Do they feel that we may less safe because this may come about and will be very hard to defend against?

Dana Priest: I don't think Kosovo has made a difference in this case; these concerns were there long before Kosovo. Nor is it a revelation that the that U.S. has an overpowering military capability. What might be more instructive, is just how incapable that same military was of stopping the urban warfare on the ground in Kosovo. Afterall, thousands died and a million were forced to leave the province.

Pinehurst, NC: Have you heard, or do you see, the success of the air campaign in Desert Storm influencing decisions that were made concerning Kosovo? General Horner seems to have been able to manage the coalition air pretty well in Desert Storm. Similarities-Differences concerning Kosovo?

Dana Priest: Very different. The coalition wasn't at all the same. NATO countries didn't perceive a direct threat to their interests in the way (the free flow of oil versus the humanitarian concern of people in a part of the world that most American could not identify). Everyone was agreed on a big-bang for the first several nights of Desert Storm, the opposite was true for Allied Force.

Dana Priest: Time to go. Thanks for all your questions. Catch you next time. Dana

washingtonpost.com: Unfortunately we weren't able to answer all of your questions, but we hope you'll join us again for our upcoming monthly discussion with Dana Priest. Thanks to Dana for answering our questions.

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