STRATFOR ON CHINA BOMBING

NOTE: The source for the following article is Stratfor <www.stratfor.com>
an  independent intelligence company.  The CIA claims that the mistaken
bombing of the Chinese embassy occurred because they used old maps (from
1992) which indicated that the Chinese embassy was in a different part of
Belgrade.  The problem with this is that the place where the Chinese
Embassy stands was a vacant lot before 1996.  Thus, if the CIA version
were true, it would indicate that NATO for some reason targets vacant
lots in Belgrade...


http://www.stratfor.com/crisis/kosovo/specialreports/special67.htm 
This report has links for you to view the maps yourself.

-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.stratfor.com/crisis/kosovo/commentary/c9905100200.htm?section=3
NATOs Old CIA Map Theory makes no Sense Whatsoever

The most recent NATO explanation of why the Chinese Embassy was
bombed was that the CIA provided outdated maps of Belgrade, showing the 
old location of the Embassy before it moved to its new site four years
ago. NATO is also claiming categorically that there was no pilot error
and
that the mission was carried out as planned. This is beginning to make no
sense whatever. According to old maps of Belgrade and numerous sources
inside and outside Yugoslavia, four years ago the current site of the 
Chinese Embassy was a vacant lot in a residential area. The only major 
structure nearby at the time was the Hotel Jugoslavia. Since then an
office building has been constructed nearby. 

Now the NATO statement that there was no pilot error and the admission
that 
an old map was being used are completely incompatible. If we are to
believe both these claims, then we must assume that the target was a
vacant lot. That is possible, assuming there was a bunker there. However,
NATO has leaked to the New York Times that the strike was delivered by
B-2
bombers using laser guided missiles. That means that someone had to fix a
laser
beam on the target. They would probably have noticed that the empty lot 
now had a large building on it.

This is really getting ridiculous. Pilots using laser guided munitions
are 
probably provided with detailed photographs of the building to be struck
along with instructions of the optimal point of impact if they are doing
the lasing. If another platform is doing the lasing, they are given
instructions on the angle of attack. The pilots had to have pictures of
the building, taken by satellite, reconnaissance aircraft or other 
intelligence means. In each case, be assured that longitude and latitude 
as well as other appropriate location designators are provided.

The old map theory is preposterous. It assumes first that the target was
an 
empty lot and second that NATO is flying air strikes based on maps alone.
What is truly puzzling is that these explanations are so utterly
unbelievable that they are clearly intended to be seen through. Since we
can't believe that the Chinese Embassy was attacked deliberately (it just
makes no sense whatever) and since the accident couldn't have occurred
the
way NATO spin-doctors are describing, we are at a growing loss to
understand
the situation. We can understand how the accident happened much better
than 
we can understand the increasingly bizarre explanations. As we move
further from the event and more information becomes available, everything
makes less sense.

NATO has said it would give out no further information. Given what it has

handed out so far, we think silence is an outstanding idea.

http://www.stratfor.com/crisis/kosovo/specialreports/special67.htm
Further Consideration of NATO's Faulty Map Explanation

In maps of Novi Belgrade from a reliable source in Belgrade  reportedly
taken from a directory published for tourists by the Belgrade City
Council
Block 11a, on which the Chinese embassy is now situated, is empty but for
the headquarters of the Energoproject construction company and several
parking lots. Given the names of the streets, some of which were changed
in recent years, the maps were made some time in 1997 or 1998. The map
appears to indicate areas of planned construction, but the embassy
building is not yet drawn in. According to the source, who lives in
nearby
Block 30, the dotted lines in Block 11a denote the parking area that was
made smaller when the embassy was built. The parking lots reportedly were
usually empty, but for some city and Energoproject buses.

Interestingly, the map NATO used in its briefing on the embassy bombing
shows Block 11a empty but for the Energoproject building. Two other maps
of the area we acquired from other sources show some construction in the
block, though it is difficult to discern whether it represents previous
buildings, previous plans, or the embassy itself. A 1991 map by
Kartografiai Vallalat in Budapest, Hungary  published by Falk-Verlag
Cartographia  shows one other building than the Energoproject building in
Block 11a, in the northeast corner of the block. Otherwise the block is
empty, and Cherry Flower Street has not even been built yet. A 1996 map
by
Geodetski Zavod Slovenije in Slovenia  published by Freytag & Berndt
shows five buildings in addition to Energoproject in Block 11a. It also
lists the Chinese embassy at its old address of Number 6, Kralja
Milutina.

The Hotel Yugoslavia, which was also hit the night the embassy was
bombed,
appears labeled with an H in the upper right of all the maps, in Block
10,
to the east of Bulevar Nikola Tesla. The building NATO initially claimed
it was targeting  the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement  when
it missed and hit the embassy, is located at Number 2 Bulevar Umetnosti.
It does not appear on the maps from Belgrade City Council or from NATO.
However, judging by the numbered units along Bulevar Umetnosti in Block
30
of the Belgrade City Council map, the Directorate should be somewhere
along the boulevard in Block 31, near the police station. In both the
Hungarian and Slovenian maps, there is a large building located between
the police station and Bulvar Umetnosti, about where wed expect the
Directorate to appear.

Judging from these maps, including the one provided by NATO, it remains
difficult to see how the bombing of the Chinese embassy could be a simple
map error. Perhaps it was a complex, inadvertent, and very unlucky
transposition of grid coordinates, with the Directorate being listed a
block away from where it should have been, in an empty parking lot, where
an embassy had unexpectedly appeared  but that was not NATOs explanation.




___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]