WASHINGTON -- Call it the mystery of the missing missiles.
After two nights of raiding Yugoslavia's air defenses with bombers and cruise missiles, NATO military commanders are facing an ominous question. Yugoslavia has fired one, only one, of its most fearsome anti-aircraft weapons: the lethal SAM systems inherited from the Soviet Union. And NATO's generals don't know whether they should worry or breathe a sigh of relief.Was it because the generals overrated the vaunted Yugoslav defenses or underrated them? One thing was clear Thursday: For a second day, NATO warplanes and cruise missiles bombarded Yugoslav defenses in nighttime raids. And for a second day, Belgrade barely put up a fight. (The one missile fired, a mobile SA-6, missed.)
From Washington to Brussels, Belgium, commanders were puzzling over why Yugoslavia's menacing missiles were largely silent. "We don't know why," said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, who confirmed that NATO forces had shot down at least three MiG fighters that, surprisingly, were sent up instead of missiles to challenge the attack on Wednesday. On Thursday, the MiGs were grounded altogether.
Some air force generals boasted that Yugoslavia's vaunted Soviet-era defenses were overrated and that the aerial assault had blinded radars that guide the streaking missiles to their targets. But other analysts said President Slobodan Milosevic was waiting, hoping to lull NATO air forces into complacency and, ultimately, a trap.
"It doesn't surprise me that he may be trying to protect his SAMs," said Robert Osterthaler, a retired Air Force general and former Pentagon official who dealt with Bosnia. "His objective may be to bring down one or two aircraft. That would create some real problems for us to have Western pilots paraded through the streets of Belgrade."
Indeed, many military and diplomatic analysts said Milosevic may be trying to buy time by hiding his mobile missiles in forests, hoping a prolonged air campaign splits the NATO coalition or that Moscow intervenes with a diplomatic overture to rescue its longtime Slavic ally.
"He's waiting to see what the Russians do," said Gen. George Joulwan, a former supreme allied commander. "He's trying to wait it out."