Commentary: Harvey Dalton

• Author: Harvey Dalton
• Pages: 199

As I am standing in for Admiral Michael Lohr, I want to approach this from the standpoint of the legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-the position that then Captain Lohr held during Operation Allied Force. I will explain the process he employed in providing legal advice to the Chairman and to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense with respect to targeting in Kosovo. We have heard from the former General Counsel, Ms. Judy Miller, from Judge Jamie Baker who provided the National Security Council point of view, and from Lieutenant Colonel Tony Montgomery who provided the US European Command point of view. So this is another link in the legal chain in terms of targeting and the approval of targets at the national level.

At the outset of the conflict, it was expected that Operation Allied Force was going to be quick and easy. There were about fifty to seventy-five predesignated targets approved in advance. These were very traditional targets that were chosen for immediate military impact. They involved command and control, integrated air defense system, airfields, and aircraft-thoroughly traditional military targets. But Operation Allied Force was not quick and short lived. We realized very quickly that the Serbs were not going to leave Kosovo easily. This caused two things to happen: there was a need for more targets, and there was a need to move to different type of targets other than just the traditional military targets.

The requirement for more targets led to two routes for approval. Most targets, mainly the traditional military targets, were approved in the theater by the US European Command. These targets did not come up to the Joint Staff level, or up to the General Counsel level, or to the Secretary of Defense or president. So this idea...