Mitch Landrieu: “Douglas MacArthur, one of this country's greatest military minds, stated ``it is fatal to enter any war without the will…”

“Douglas MacArthur, one of this country's greatest military minds, stated ``it is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.'' I believe that we are faced with that question today. Does this country have the will to win the war in Kosovo, or will the Atlantic Alliance become another fatality of Serbian aggression? We must pose this question to the Senate now because of a mistake. As NATO policy in Kosovo evolved, we made the mistake of taking a critical capability off the table. From the very start, the President and NATO leadership stated that this would be an air campaign, and an air campaign only. They went to great lengths to make this point to the press and to the public. Unfortunately, other ears were also listening. Slobodan Milosevic heard loud and clear that this would be a limited NATO effort. By doing so, we gave Milosevic every reason to doubt that NATO had the will to win. Furthermore, we gave Mr. Milosevic a vital piece of intelligence on how we would fight this war. In doing so, we have inadvertently given him an advantage more valuable than divisions of soldiers, or batteries of antiaircraft guns. This information has allowed Milosevic to disperse his forces and dig in. He knows he has only to wait out the air campaign to win this war. It is axiomatic that you cannot win a war by air power alone. We tried in Vietnam. We tried in Iraq, but when meeting an enemy determined to resist, airpower can only succeed with the use of ground troops.”