1 Tuesday, 4 May 2004

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Madam Registrar, can you please

6 call the case.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Case number

8 IT-01-47-T, the Prosecutor versus Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir Kubura.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

10 Appearances for the Prosecution, please.

11 MR. WITHOPF: Good morning, Mr. President. Good morning, Your

12 Honours. Good morning, Counsel. For the Prosecution, Kyle Wood, Daryl

13 Mundis, Ekkehard Withopf, and the case manager, Ruth Karper.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

15 Appearances for the Defence.

16 MS. RESIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President.

17 Good morning, Your Honours. On behalf of Mr. Hadzihasanovic, Edina

18 Residovic, counsel; and Stephane Bourgon, co-counsel. Thank you very

19 much.

20 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. On

21 behalf of Mr. Kubura, Rodney Dixon, Fahrudin Ibrisimovic, and Nermin

22 Mulalic, legal assistant. Thank you.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. We would like to

24 greet everybody present in the courtroom, Mr. Withopf, Mr. Mundis, and the

25 Defence counsel, as well as the accused, everybody present in the

1 courtroom, court reporters, the interpreters, and security officers.

2 I understand that Mr. Withopf wanted to tell us something at the

3 beginning of today's hearing, but do you want to do it in the presence of

4 the witness or in the absence of the witness?

5 Mr. Mundis, please, you have the floor.

6 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning, Your

7 Honours, and good morning to everyone in and around the courtroom.

8 Mr. President, the issue that I wanted to briefly raise perhaps

9 might best be done in the presence of the witness. It concerns some

10 documents that he refers to in his report and which we have translated for

11 the benefit of the Defence.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then. We are, then,

13 going to bring the witness into the courtroom.

14 Usher, can you please go and bring Mr. Reinhardt into the

15 courtroom. Thank you.

16 [The witness entered court]

17 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honours.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Good morning, General.

19 First I would like to make sure that you are receiving the

20 interpretation.

21 THE WITNESS: Everything is all right, sir.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then.

23 There is a problem in the translation of documents. Mr. Mundis,

24 you have the floor.

25 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

1 It's not so much a problem. Let me explain very briefly.

2 General Reinhardt in his report cited to a number of German regulations.

3 When he was last here and at the behest of the Defence, we endeavoured to

4 get those documents translated for the benefit of the Defence. General

5 Reinhardt consequently gave us his copies of those documents. We have

6 since had them translated, and General Reinhardt, when we met with him

7 prior to his testimony, asked that those documents be returned to him

8 following the translation so that he would have them available in the

9 event he was questioned with respect to those German regulations and since

10 he had given us his only copy. And I would simply like to ask the usher

11 to show the translations back to the Defence and then for those documents

12 to be returned to General Reinhardt, and I wanted to do that in open court

13 so that I didn't return any documents to the witness in the absence of the

14 Trial Chamber and the Defence.

15 I would also just indicate for the Defence that -- and for

16 General Reinhardt's benefit that the documents, the German regulations

17 that he provided to us, certain portions of them were highlighted by

18 Mr. Withopf for the benefit of the translation service so they would know

19 which passages needed to be translated. So I would ask if the usher could

20 perhaps show those documents to the Defence and then return them to

21 General Reinhardt. That's what I would like to just call to your

22 attention.

23 And again, the markings on the documents were made by the

24 Prosecution in order to direct the interpretation services to which

25 portions of the documents needed to be translated.

1 Thank you, Your Honours.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then. So may the

3 document be given to the Defence for their possible comments.

4 Any comments on behalf of the Defence?

5 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. We

6 don't have any comments, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Dixon?

8 MR. DIXON: Good morning, Your Honours. No comments for us

9 either. Thank you.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

11 We are going to continue with the cross-examination. I'm going

12 to give the floor to Mr. Bourgon.

13 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

14 WITNESS: KLAUS REINHARDT [Resumed]

15 Cross-examined by Mr. Bourgon: [Continued]

16 Q. Good morning, General Reinhardt.

17 A. Good morning, Mr. Bourgon.

18 Q. I had a few questions for you which were remaining from

19 yesterday's part of my cross-examination, but I prefer to -- because we're

20 limited on time, to move straight on into the first substantive part, and

21 that was going over some of your qualifications in order to help the Trial

22 Chamber, as I've mentioned yesterday.

23 So the first question I have for you this morning - and I refer

24 to your -- to your -- the information you have provided the Trial Chamber

25 in your document concerning your career, and you said that you had -- you

1 began your military career in 1960 but that you had done the first five

2 years of your military career as a platoon leader. Can you confirm for

3 the benefit of the Trial Chamber that as a platoon leader this is where

4 you learned the basic tenets of leadership and the difficulties of leading

5 young soldiers into the military profession.

6 A. This is correct, sir.

7 Q. Could you elaborate, in terms of what as a junior officer and a

8 platoon leader is the focus of the platoon leader in leading his soldiers.

9 A. There is a double focus. One focus is that you train your

10 soldiers to become perfect in their profession, and I commanded, for

11 instance, the High Mountain Platoon of my battalion, where we have all the

12 mountain specialists. You train them in their mountain training, in their

13 skiing and military training. And the second aspect is that you take care

14 of the well-being of your soldiers. And I think this is as important

15 as -- as the professional thing, as training, because if they don't feel

16 being treated accordingly, you cannot train them accordingly.

17 Q. Thank you very much.

18 General, could you confirm that even though a platoon leader can

19 be identified as being a junior leader in the scale of the officer

20 profession, that nevertheless a platoon leader is of the utmost importance

21 for the soldiers of the platoon and that they would look to the platoon

22 leader as in accordance to the principle of unity of command basically the

23 people, they will always look up to for anything they need, in terms of

24 their profession?

25 A. Yes, that is right. The platoon leader is the incorporation of

1 the army for the refugee -- for the recruit, for the individual soldier.

2 He represents the whole organisation for him, because he is the guy he is

3 constantly in touch with.

4 Q. Thank you very much. I move on to the next part in your career,

5 where in 1967 you were sent to the university to go into studies of

6 history and political science and where you ended up doing your thesis.

7 Now, I -- hoping to find some material, I did get a copy of your thesis,

8 and I did not find what I was looking for in terms of command and control

9 but I did find some very interesting material in terms of your thesis and

10 entitled, "Moscow: The Turning Point? The Failure of Hitler's Strategy

11 in the Winter of 1941-1942." I have not read all of it, General, to be

12 honest, but I have one quick question concerning one of the things you

13 referred to constantly in your thesis is the problems due to the economy

14 and the problems due to the armament industry. Could you confirm that

15 armament industry and the lack of weapons or the difficulty in order to

16 obtain the proper weapons to wage war and economic difficulties are indeed

17 very important issues for a commander.

18 A. Well, I wouldn't say that the armament industry is very important

19 for the commander, but the output of the armament industry. If he doesn't

20 have the appropriate armament, if he hasn't -- if he doesn't have the

21 appropriate weapons systems, it's difficult for him to fight an enemy.

22 Q. I move on, General, to -- in terms of 1974-1975, when you attend

23 the command and general staff officer course. Can you confirm that this

24 is the course where one is usually selected to attend because potential

25 has been identified in the junior officer to attend more senior ranks and

1 that this is to go for the ranks usually of a lieutenant colonel to

2 colonel?

3 A. Yes, sir, this is a -- a course which you run through before in a

4 selection course, and only 10 per cent of a year group are then selected,

5 based on different tests you run through for a whole year. And then you

6 attend the General Staff College, which is the key -- the key institution

7 which qualifies you for colonel and above.

8 Q. And in 1975, you had the opportunity, General, to attend a

9 similar type of course, which is the United States Command and Staff

10 College at Fort Leavenworth. Now, would you agree with me that attending

11 this course did turn out to be a major issue in your career because of all

12 the Americans that you met there, all the officers from other countries,

13 and a chance to discuss the doctrine of the United States and to compare

14 it with your own?

15 A. I think this was the key thing. I don't believe that I learned

16 very much more, but the comparison about the way of achieving your goals,

17 that there is not only one way but different ways to be successful or not

18 successful and to get in touch with soldiers from all over the world - we

19 were some thousand students, about 120 foreign students - was the key for

20 me to attend this course.

21 Q. And in 1976, General, you moved on to headquarters CENTAG in

22 Heidelberg, and where you -- what I have down but I think that you said

23 something, you might have said something differently yesterday. What I

24 have down from your document was that you were the G3 staff officer. Can

25 you please confirm that this, the G3, is the person who deals with

1 operations and what were your duties in CENTAG?

2 A. My duties were to write the general defence plan for the southern

3 part of Germany, i.e., from the area of Kassel south to the mountains for

4 all the forces operating into this -- in this area; i.e., the German, the

5 Belgian, the American, and the French forces, to come up

6 with the consolidated defence plan for the entire area.

7 Q. Thank you. And that's when during this period I take it

8 somewhere between 1976 and 1980 you became military assistant to the

9 vice-Chief of Staff of the German Army. Would I be correct in saying that

10 from that point on you really were dealing with issues at the operational

11 level and even at the strategic level?

12 A. Yes, it's been somewhere in between, because the vice-chief of

13 the German armed forces is responsible for the planning of the military

14 structure, the military operation of the Bundeswehr in comparison to the

15 budget available, and I was his key assistant in this planning process.

16 Q. Ask then in 1983, or I guess for a period of, I think, something

17 like three years, you were personally selected by Dr. Manfred Worner to

18 become his senior military assistant when he was Minister of Defence.

19 During that time frame, could you confirm that you indeed dealt with

20 strategic issues?

21 A. Yes, sir.

22 Q. Now, of course you commanded following this assignment with the

23 Minister of Defence, you commanded a brigade of 6.000 men.

24 A. Yes, sir.

25 Q. Would I be right in saying that this is the ultimate command

1 position for a military commander, a land force military commander, in

2 terms of where he still has direct input with the men, and -- if I compare

3 with the higher assignment, and at the same time he is a very senior

4 officer?

5 A. I couldn't have put it in a better way, sir.

6 Q. In 1988, you moved and your career took a bit of a -- of a move

7 towards when you became a Brigadier General, and you were then the deputy

8 Chief of Staff plans for the German Armed Forces. Some of the things you

9 dealt with, according to the information we have been provided with,

10 includes procurement, structure, and the reorganisation of the German

11 Armed Forces. My first question deals with procurement. Can you give a

12 brief description of the difficulties encountered in the procurement of

13 military equipment in your own experience.

14 A. Yes, sir. There are a couple of major problems, but the key

15 problem is that the -- the requirements of the military are normally

16 exceeding the budget possibilities of the country, so the question is how

17 to cope with the requirements on the one side and the budget, on the other

18 side, to come up with the consolidated plan, which satisfies the

19 requirements of the forces.

20 The second big thing is that amongst the forces, the requirements

21 of the different services, like army, navy, air force, medical service,

22 and so on, are contradicting itself, because they all ask for a bigger

23 share, which normally can be paid only at the expense of their brother

24 services. And to harmonise this internally within the military and then

25 with the government, with the -- with the finance minister and the

1 chancellor is a hell of a job.

2 Q. Thank you very much, General. Can you elaborate a bit more in

3 terms of -- and we'll come back to this later, but the idea of procurement

4 as you've just described it, of course you were talking in peacetime.

5 Could you comment on what it could be like in a combat situation if your

6 own state was at war.

7 A. This is very difficult, Mr. Bourgon, because the whole

8 procurement process was geared at that time not toward peacetime but

9 toward deployment operations, because at that time we still had our

10 problem with the Warsaw Pact. We were ready to deploy within 48 hours to

11 defend Germany and the Alliance, so we were not talking peacetime. We

12 were talking preparation for the worse case. And therefore, everything

13 was geared on -- on fighting forces and make them ready the best way to

14 train, to fight them, and give them the best materiel.

15 You know, today the modern equipment is so complicated, it's so

16 complex that what you don't have available at the beginning will never

17 reach you at the end any more, at least in this very modern and high

18 operation speed warfare, so you had to procure in anticipation what could

19 happen very much in detail what you needed.

20 Q. Thank you very much. And the second part of my question relates

21 to the reorganisation of the German Armed Forces. Now, this was the

22 period 1988 and 1990. Could you confirm that as part of the German Army,

23 but also if you have the knowledge, compared to other armies, that this

24 was a significant period for the military in many parts of the world in

25 terms of reorganisation due to economical factors and the world economy,

1 that at that point on many armed forces in the world were reorganising?

2 A. Well, we were undergoing a very special situation by that time.

3 We had to reorganise our forces the way you just explained it; i.e.,

4 reducing the forces, making them more modern, reducing them from 480.000

5 to about 370, 380.000.

6 At the same time, having been forced to do that, you remember that

7 we had the unification of Germany, and the question came up how to -- how

8 to deal with the East German national army, which was more than 100.000

9 personnel which had to be somehow amalgamated with the West German Army,

10 and I think this was a unique situation no country ever had done before,

11 and we had no precedence to do that and we had to plan on this in very,

12 very short notice. And -- and to harmonise these two main -- main

13 streams; i.e., reducing the Bundeswehr, on the one hand, and somehow to

14 amalgamate the two parts, two very antagonistic parts of the armed forces

15 was a very difficult endeavour. And I must say that I never encountered

16 in my career such a difficult time than this was.

17 Q. Thank you. Could you confirm, General, that this experience gave

18 you both the knowledge and a feel for the -- the utmost difficulties in

19 military reorganisation, whether it is in downsizing or increasing the

20 military?

21 A. Yes. As I already said yesterday, this is a very, very difficult

22 part. And if you have to do this in an unorganised fashion -- we were in

23 a rather happy situation, because there was no war going on. So even

24 under the political pressure and the military pressure, we could -- we

25 could do our business in a rather normal way. Even so we worked day and

1 nights. But we were not attacked by anybody, so it was easier for us.

2 But nevertheless, it was a very, very difficult task.

3 Q. And, General, could you -- you've touched upon this issue

4 yesterday, and again we'll come back to it, but could you relate this

5 situation to that of a newborn state trying to build its own military.

6 A. I was by that time pretty often in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I was

7 very, very sorry for my brothers in arms, having to deal on the one hand

8 with fighting an enemy and, on the other hand, to become independent and

9 to build up their own organic armed forces. I must say that this was very

10 difficult, having seen the country in a very destroyed way, having seen

11 all these refugees. I remember rebuilding the bridge in Visoko with my

12 forces over the Bosna River, being in Kakanj very often. Having all these

13 in mind, it was a total different task and a much more difficult task.

14 The commanders of the ABiH were at that time than we were, even so our

15 tasks we thought were very difficult. For them I think it was very, very

16 difficult to do that.

17 Q. Thank you. In 1990, you were promoted Major General, and you

18 were appointed or assigned as commander of the General Staff and Command

19 College. I take it that this is the same college that you had attended

20 yourself, or was it a different college?

21 A. No, sir. This is the highest ranking institution as far as

22 training and education is concerned in the German Armed Forces.

23 Q. And, General, could you confirm -- you mentioned this in your

24 written statement -- but that you -- the importance of such an institution

25 to build a national military that is effective and that is what you, I

1 guess, referred to as the institutional background.

2 A. Yes. This is the melting pot in which you basically have every

3 staff officer or every captain before he becomes a staff officer in the

4 same training to get the proper direction of the armed forces and to

5 prepare them for acting as future senior officers. This is the key

6 institution and the mental backbone of an armed forces.

7 Q. I move quickly, General, to 1993, when you are promoted

8 Lieutenant General. And you are assigned as commander of three corps in

9 Koblenz. And you mentioned that your corps was composed of two Panzer

10 Grenadier Division, also 5 and 10 Panzer Division, and 30.000 corps

11 troops, for a total of 90.000 troops. We will get on later with the

12 composition of a corps. Can you confirm that this is one of the largest

13 corps that you commanded and how much of a challenge it was to command

14 this corps and especially to accomplish your mission, which was to take it

15 apart and to disband it and to reorganise it into something else.

16 A. Well, the corps was one of the biggest corps in Germany defending

17 the very famous Fulda Gap together with our American friends. It was a

18 very powerful tool, but at the same time, since we were already in the

19 process of reducing the German Armed Forces it had to be disbanded, and

20 out of my three divisions, only elements of one division remained. And I

21 tell you it's much easier to build something up than to disassemble a

22 unit, because it creates a lot of tears, a lot of frustration amongst

23 those who have to give up their battalions, their brigades, their homes

24 and move on, or just lose the job. At the same time, we had to build up a

25 new organisation, because we started with the deployment of German forces

1 to Somalia, and it became obvious that other peacekeeping operations were

2 due in the Balkans, and we need an organisation to organise, to train the

3 people before the deploy and also to command and control them as a

4 national element wherever they went abroad. And therefore I had to

5 transfer my corps staff into a much smaller army forces staff for those

6 out-of-area operations.

7 Q. And all the meanwhile, General, can you confirm of course you are

8 dealing with a professional officer corps to help you in doing so.

9 A. Yes, sir. As I -- as I tried to mention yesterday, all the

10 officers which are -- who are being assigned to a corps staff are first

11 class officers. You get the best of -- of your army, because this is

12 the -- one of the key staffs for operations. So they all have been

13 through command training before, they all have commanded companies, all

14 battalions on the senior staff level. They are all handpicked, and I had

15 a big saying in who would serve on my staff or who would not be qualified

16 enough to do that.

17 Q. Thank you. I move to 1994-1998, when you built the German Armed

18 Forces command in Koblenz and that you were kind of the coordinating

19 agency for the Bundeswehr operations abroad. Now, my understanding of

20 this position is that you were kind of the force generator, which means

21 that based on the missions which are taken up by Germany, you would

22 identify the troops who would deploy and ensure that the replacement would

23 be prepared in time to deploy for future deployments.

24 A. No. There's more about that, sir. This is not only providing

25 the troops to deploy but much more important is to prepare the troops

1 to -- before they deploy for their particular mission, which is totally

2 different in Somalia from the deployment to Croatia, in UNPROFOR, for

3 instance. You have to prepare them in all the escalatory and

4 de-escalatory means in peacekeeping rather than in fighting, because you

5 don't go there in fighting an enemy; you go there with a purpose of

6 re-creation of normality, of helping people to come back to normality,

7 which is a total different approach.

8 So we trained our ourselves. We basically came up with training

9 systems. And every soldier before he deployed had to undergo a very

10 robust additional training of about six to eight weeks, depending on what

11 he was doing. And I was also responsible for their equipment. And let me

12 tell you that this was not a very easy thing, because I needed special

13 equipment for the security -- for the force protection of my forces. And

14 as I said before, our army always -- the army always is confronted with

15 scarce resources, so the security problem was the key problem, that we

16 don't have too many casualties once we deploy. And this fight for the

17 appropriate equipment, also command and control equipment, was -- was key

18 for the sake of the soldiers who had to deploy.

19 Q. Thank you. Am I right in saying that as the -- in this position

20 you were considered as the national commanders for any German deployment

21 abroad?

22 A. Yes, sir, this is correct.

23 Q. Did you actually deploy with the troops, or were you back in

24 Germany and then visited the troops on and on?

25 A. The second is the proper thing. I had a commander -- a brigadier

1 commander on the spot, and I was there almost every second week to check

2 and to help and to see how the -- how the operations would go on.

3 Q. Thank you. So but the -- can you confirm that the overall

4 authority for each of those deployments were -- you were entrusted with

5 this overall responsibility.

6 A. I was entrusted vis-a-vis the Minister of Defence for the

7 deployment and the well-being of soldiers under my command. And every

8 soldier who deployed abroad came automatically under my

9 command, notwithstanding to which unit he belonged before.

10 Q. Thank you. And I moved -- and I tried to move a bit quicker,

11 because I've got lots of questions, but I think this is important for the

12 Judges to get a good understanding of the military. You mentioned that

13 your employment culminated in 1998-1999, when you became commander of

14 Allied Land Forces Central Europe, or LANDCENT, and in that capacity you

15 played a role in NATO's structural reform and where NATO's tasks were

16 redefined. Can you elaborate on this briefly.

17 A. Well, I will elaborate very briefly. The key thing by that time

18 was that NATO was too bulky in its staff capabilities. It was too much

19 separated in army, navy, and air force components, and our endeavour was

20 to make it more joined; i.e., to get army, navy, air force more in a

21 synergistic way, introduce staffs in order to streamline, to have less

22 chiefs on the -- on the spot and more indians on the ground, and we tried

23 very hard to reduce the size of our staffs and to compose the staffs and

24 to join staffs.

25 Q. Thank you. And in 1999 you had your -- probably your ultimate

1 assignment - and if I'm wrong, please correct me - when you are assigned

2 as commander of the KFOR or the international peace force in Kosovo. And

3 in that capacity you had to command 50.000 troops from 39 nations,

4 including four Russian battalions and 1200 soldiers even from the United

5 Arabic Republic. Can you elaborate on the challenge of commanding such a

6 force in Kosovo.

7 A. Well, the biggest challenge at the beginning was that I had no

8 command and control assets whatsoever. As I elaborated on yesterday, my

9 predecessor, General Jackson, the British general, redeployed his army

10 corps plus all his signal command and control forces, and I had all my

11 command and control assets still in Sarajevo because my staff also acted

12 as the staff of SFOR. And when the staff redeployed, we left all our

13 equipment there. So we had to build a total new command and control

14 system which did not apply only for my own forces but which was used by

15 the United Nations, by the police, and everything, because there was no

16 functioning system in -- in Kosovo by that time. We had to build this up,

17 and then you had those different nations. And I thought it would be a

18 very difficult way to command and control nations of total different

19 doctrines, different religions, different colours in the face, from

20 Argentina to Azerbaijan, but it was easier because all these young

21 soldiers deployed to help people getting back into normality were very

22 eager to do the utmost and trying to help in order to, well, make the

23 situation for the families of -- in the country for the -- for the

24 Albanians and the Serbs better than they used to be during this war

25 before.

1 So the adhesion of those KFOR forces, notwithstanding the nations

2 they belonged to, were much closer and much easier to deal with than I

3 ever anticipated.

4 Q. And you can confirm, General, that you are -- first -- you have

5 firsthand experience of the difficulties in setting up such a command and

6 control system in a new environment concerning this peace -- international

7 peace mission?

8 A. Yes, sir.

9 Q. And based on this experience, you could relate to trying to

10 establish the same thing, where the soldiers you deploy with are either

11 untrained or simply not soldiers at all and the lack of a professional

12 officer corps and in a fighting mode where you are in combat. Could you

13 relate your experience, how difficult it was to this second scenario?

14 A. As I already pointed out in my paper, it must have been very

15 difficult for the commanders, for the leadership in the Army of

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina to build up, to equip, to train the soldiers, and at

17 the same time to fight a double enemy, and it was a hell of a job what

18 they have to do, and it's amazing for me, on the other hand, how

19 operationally successful they were in doing that.

20 Q. And could you confirm, General, that the focus which was on your

21 mind when you were in Kosovo with this challenge that you were facing was

22 definitely your mission?

23 A. Yes. But coming back to your last question, the mission was

24 totally different from the one my comrade-in-arms in Bosnia-Herzegovina

25 had because I was not there to fight. I was there to stabilise internally

1 and externally the situation as a prerequisite to build upon this

2 stabilisation a new administration and to improve the economy.

3 If I had had to fight an enemy with the forces at my disposition I

4 would have been in deep trouble, in deep trouble, and I don't know how I

5 would have succeeded in fighting a war-fighting operation with this kind

6 of multinational forces, because they were not fighting forces; they were

7 peacekeeping forces, and it's quite a difference.

8 Q. Thank you. I move to the last part of your career, which is of

9 less application to this case, and where you went back to LANDCENT but

10 then you had to reorganising [sic] into a joint headquarters. I would

11 simply like to -- if you could confirm for the benefit of the Trial

12 Chamber that the joint headquarters is -- when we say "joint," it doesn't

13 deal with multinational but it deals with the three services, and that now

14 all the focus of multinational operations is placed on joint operation,

15 where the navy, the air force, and the army worked together, in terms of

16 an organised system?

17 A. Well, it's both, sir. First of all, the staff I had is a

18 multinational staff; still is. So I had all NATO nations on the staff,

19 including now the new NATO nations, like the Poles, the Czechs, the

20 Hungarians, which we incorporated in my staff once I redeployed. But the

21 key focus was to basically take harvest of our efforts, which we discussed

22 before, to make a lame staff into a more component staff. So I included

23 some 60 naval -- some 60 air force and some 20 naval and marine officers

24 in my staff, and I had to reduce my army component considerably to have

25 all the knowledge of the services available in my staff to be more

1 effective to fight the way we -- we see today modern warfare developing.

2 Q. Just out of curiosity, General, I was wondering if you took part

3 in a big military exercise which took place. It was a command post

4 exercise which took place near Prague in 2000, where it was a big NATO

5 exercise and command post exercise.

6 A. No, I did not take place in this one, because by that time when

7 this was prepared I was still commander in KFOR. I monitored this, but at

8 that time we still had much more problems in integrating the -- the Czech

9 Army elements into the NATO army, and we trained them differently in my

10 headquarters, but I did not attend that particular exercise in Prague.

11 Q. Thank you, General. This concludes the first part of my

12 cross-examination concerning your background, in terms of dealing with

13 your own experience and helping the Trial Chamber.

14 I move on to the second part. In this part, General, I'd like to

15 basically go over the structure of a corps and to go to the basic elements

16 in order to help the Trial Chamber. I propose to begin with some very

17 basic concepts and to move on to more complicated concepts, but on most

18 occasions I would simply like you to confirm whether you agree with some

19 of the things I will propose to you, and this stuff comes from a doctrine

20 manual, so I guess we could move rather quickly to these -- to these

21 propositions I have for you.

22 MR. BOURGON: Can I ask the usher, please, to give the following

23 document to the witness and to circulate it around. Thank you.

24 Q. General, you have a structure, the rank structure within the

25 army. I mean, the land element. Now, even though there are some

1 differences amongst the rank structure from country to country, could you

2 confirm that basically this is the normal rank structure on the left side

3 from the officer side, moving from officer cadet to second lieutenant to

4 lieutenant, captain, major, or in some countries it's called a commandant,

5 lieutenant colonel, colonel, brigadier general, major general, lieutenant

6 general, and four -- full four-star general, which is the rank that you

7 achieved?

8 A. Yes, sir.

9 Q. And in the non-commissioned officer side, on the right side of

10 this drawing, where you move from a recruit, a soldier undergoing basic

11 military training, and you move up the scale until you are -- in some

12 countries it's called a warrant officer, like in Canada; in some countries

13 it might be called a senior non-commissioned officer; and then you have

14 different levels of seniority. Would that be the normal structure?

15 A. Yes, sir.

16 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] I would like to tender this

17 document, and I would like it to be marked for identification, please.

18 Can I have a number, Mr. President, please?

19 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I'm not sure if Mr. Bourgon wants to

20 tender this into evidence or simply have it marked for identification.

21 The Prosecution has no objection to this document, either being marked for

22 identification or actually being admitted into evidence. It's -- it's up

23 to the Defence and Your Honours, of course.

24 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, in that case, can we

25 have an exhibit number straight away.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.

2 Madam Registrar, can we have an exhibit number for this document.

3 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit Number DH135.

4 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

5 [In English] I'd ask the usher to please pass on a second

6 document.

7 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

8 MR. BOURGON:

9 Q. This document, General Reinhardt, would I be right in saying that

10 this is, again, taking into account that in some countries it might be

11 somewhat different, that overall this is the basic diagram representing

12 formation in units, in subunits in the land element, moving from a

13 detachment from three to six soldiers, to a section, to a platoon, to a

14 company, to a battalion, a regiment - and where we have "battalion"

15 and "regiment," of course the name differs because sometimes it would be

16 called a regiment in the artillery world - moving to a brigade, a

17 division, and a corps. Would that be the basic order of units and the

18 average size of these units?

19 A. Yes, sir.

20 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, you should like to

21 tender this document.

22 Q. This is a basic question for you, General, but the idea behind

23 this -- this sketch, because we are talking in this case of all these

24 units, and to the Defence it is important that we have a good grasp of

25 what is each unit and what it is composed of. Now, I understand that from

1 what you mentioned in your written statement that the size of the units

2 that you could encounter, based on the documents that you've read, might

3 not be exactly these same numbers.

4 A. Yes, sir. But if I may elaborate, also the size of the numbers

5 of divisions and corps in NATO vary very much amongst each other. I

6 commanded six multinational corps. And every corps looked totally

7 different from the other one because of the multinationality. The size,

8 the composition was totally different. So we have to see this is a term,

9 but what is behind the term, sometimes it's very difficult. Very

10 different also from country to country. And also the same applies to the

11 division.

12 Q. Thank you very much.

13 MR. BOURGON: May I ask the usher to pass on another document.

14 [Interpretation] Excuse me, Mr. President. Could I have a

15 number.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

17 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, with respect to the -- the document

18 that we now have before us with the -- from corps down to detachment,

19 again, the Prosecution has no objection to this document being tendered

20 with the caveat that I think the Defence put forward as well, that this is

21 more or less a generic structure or that the sizes are generic and are not

22 necessarily specific to the 3rd Corps of the ABiH. But other than that,

23 Mr. President, we have no objection to the document titled, "Formations,

24 units, and Subunits" being admitted into evidence.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Quite.

1 Madam Registrar, can we have an exhibit number.

2 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH136.

3 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

4 Q. [In English] General, to illustrate exactly what you were

5 referring to - and I've got two of these documents for you - to illustrate

6 that when we are talking about an army corps there are indeed different

7 types of corps. And that two of the -- one of the qualifications that is

8 important when looking at a corps is that if you have a heavy corps or a

9 light corps, and if you have a heavy corps because, for example, it could

10 be or armoured or mechanised. I would like you to confirm that an

11 armoured corps, we are talking about a corps where most of the troops will

12 be armoured; whereas, a mechanised corps will be most of the troops being

13 infantry but using track vehicles. Would that be a fair statement?

14 A. No, sir. This is based on the idea of the former Warsaw Pact,

15 vis-a-vis NATO-type corps. This is totally outdated. These two different

16 types of army, armed and mechanised corps don't exist. It even didn't

17 exist in my army during the time I was just talking about, because you

18 always have a mixture of troops to give the most of flexibility to the

19 commanding general. So you have mechanised forces even in the brigade and

20 in the division you have already this kind of mixture. So there is only a

21 heavy corps, which could be an armoured or mechanised, and it's always

22 mixed, and there might be a light corps, like light infantry and air

23 mobile. But that's basically it. And even this has been disbanded today.

24 Q. Thank you, General. Maybe my question was not precise enough.

25 What I was referring to is not how you would refer to the corps but that

1 basically if a corps uses more armoured or mechanised, or if a corps

2 uses -- is motorised or a light, in terms that it does not have either

3 wheel or track vehicles, that this would have a bearing on the number of

4 soldiers in the corps and that this will also have a bearing on the

5 support element required for the corps to operate.

6 A. Well, the size of the corps might be different because

7 non-mechanised forces normally are stronger; they have more personnel than

8 mechanised forces. But the support for mechanised forces, on the other

9 hand, is much more exceeding this of -- of light infantry. So there is an

10 offset. And it's very difficult to categorise like this; therefore, I'm

11 very hesitant to say, "Yes, you are right." Because all the corps today

12 are -- the way we do them, they are somehow structured in a very modular

13 system, based on the mission they might have. And this is a little bit

14 too antique -- historically too antique. It used to be more this way, but

15 it's not any more.

16 Q. Thank you, General. Maybe I would just like to say, to follow on

17 with this question: The corps you commanded had 90.000 troops, and was

18 there a relationship because -- between the size of your corps and the

19 type of equipment, because you had Panzer Grenadier Division, and also

20 with the fact that because you had a Panzer Grenadier Division, which is

21 mechanised infantry, that you needed a very large support element?

22 A. You are right. But let me explain again. A Panzer Grenadier

23 Division is made up of three brigades: two mechanised brigades, and an

24 armoured brigade. But in the armoured brigade you have a mechanised

25 battalion, and in every mechanised brigade you have at least also one

1 armoured brigade -- battalion, so this is always a mixture right from the

2 beginning where you mix as far down as possible.

3 And just to show you the difference from where we are right now.

4 In the former Bundeswehr, we used to have 5.800 tanks in the German Army.

5 Today we are down to 530. So this is less than 10 per cent which we used

6 to have, so we are much more turning today to a total different kind of

7 corps. So again, this is nice for history, but this is for the last five,

8 six years already not in existence any more.

9 Q. Thank you, General.

10 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, in view of the

11 nature of the comments made by the witness regarding this document, I

12 don't intend to produce it as an exhibit, so I should like to go on to the

13 next document.

14 Q. [In English] This sketch or this document, General, again is not

15 to put a tag on a corps but simply to illustrate that if a corps has to

16 accomplish a mission abroad in, for example, another country, or should a

17 corps have to do some -- some -- accomplish its mission on its own

18 territory, there might be a difference in the size of the corps, and again

19 in the support element required for both types of corps.

20 A. You're absolutely right. But it's not only the logistic support.

21 It's even more the command and control support which you need. If you

22 deploy abroad, you have to build up everything from scratch. If you

23 defend your own country, you use everything you have in your country for

24 the well-being and the sake of your defensive operations.

25 Q. Thank you, General.

1 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I should like to

2 tender this document and could I have a number for it, please.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, regarding this

4 document, please, "Nature of military corps," any comments?

5 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, again the Prosecution has no

6 objection, with the caveat that this is obviously based on United States

7 Marine Corps material, based on the text of the document.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit --

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] A number, please.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH137.

11 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

12 We can move on to the next document, Madam Usher, please.

13 Q. [In English] General, you will have understood from my questions

14 that what I'm trying to achieve is simply to give information to the Trial

15 Chamber as to what is a corps and what a corps does. And would you agree

16 with me that the document you now have in front of you is a document that

17 outlines or highlights the different levels of war, moving from the

18 strategic level, to the operational level, down to the tactical level, and

19 that this really determines where a corps will fit and that the corps

20 indeed fits in at the operational level of war?

21 A. Yes, sir.

22 Q. To be a bit more precise, could you, General, elaborate a bit

23 further in terms of the difference between the strategic level, the

24 operational level, and the tactical level.

25 A. I would say ten years ago the answer was rather simple because

1 the strategic level was always all the means and efforts a country as an

2 entire unity -- as an entire body would dispose for an operation. So it's

3 not only the military; it's the whole economic, political, moral, and

4 other efforts a country combines in -- in the pursuit of an objective

5 which he would then pursue by military forces. But strategy always

6 involves, based on -- on the definition which we have from Clausewitz,

7 that the political and the moral and the economic things are -- are

8 prevailing the operation -- the military operations.

9 The operational level, until about ten years ago in my army and

10 most other armies, were more or less contained to the corps level, but

11 this is history. Because in out-of-area operations even a small operation

12 of a special forces company or so could have operational consequences and

13 is being called an operation. So the level of a -- of an organisation is

14 not the key hinge to the question is this operational or is this tactical.

15 The question is how important is it to pursue the strategy of this

16 individual country.

17 So normally the tactical level is platoon, company, battalion,

18 brigade; division is already in -- in different ways. Some countries

19 don't have corps any more; some countries don't have divisions, and they

20 fight brigades by corps. So this is a little bit blurred, and you really

21 have to look on the mission these forces have to accomplish, whether it's

22 a tactical or an operational mission.

23 For instance, in the last war in Iraq, a division, the 3rd

24 Armoured Division or the 3rd Mechanised Division attacking Baghdad had an

25 operational level. Even so, normally a division would be beyond that.

1 But in that particular case, no question about it.

2 Q. Thank you, General.

3 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to

4 tender this document as well.

5 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, other than the same caveat as with

6 respect to the previous documents, Mr. President.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

8 Madam Registrar, can we have an exhibit number.

9 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH138.

10 MR. BOURGON:

11 Q. I have a further document, General, I would like to show you in

12 relation to the levels of war, to confirm basically what you have just

13 said. Could you confirm, General, that this diagram illustrates the

14 linkages between the strategic level, the operational level, and the

15 tactical level?

16 A. Yes, sir.

17 Q. To try and portray this diagram, which may look a bit complicated

18 to people who have never seen diagrams like this one before, could you

19 confirm if I create -- if I try to make it very simple that at the

20 tactical level I will assign troops and give them a very specific task,

21 that at the operational level the task accomplished will have a role, in

22 terms of the campaign, and that at the strategic level all the campaign,

23 everything that takes place at the campaign, fits in into the overall

24 strategic objective of a state?

25 A. Yes, sir. This is a very good description of that picture -- of

1 that flow chart. Yes.

2 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I should like to

3 tender this document into evidence also, and can I have an exhibit number

4 for it.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, can you give us

6 the references for this document, which is obviously an annex to another

7 document, a book. Where was this table taken from? And you could also

8 ask the witness whether this table applies to the NATO countries; is it

9 applicable to the countries of the former Warsaw Treaty, though

10 ex-Yugoslavia was not a member of the Warsaw Treaty countries, and was it

11 applicable -- did it apply in 1993? Because judging by the responses of

12 the witness, he appears to be referring to the situation as it is today.

13 What is of interest to the Chamber is 1993. So does this table apply to

14 the situation in 1993?

15 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, you are quite right.

16 I will be more specific with my questions because, of course, the aim is

17 to assist the Chamber. So I apologise for this shortcoming on my part.

18 Q. [In English] [Previous translation continues] ... that this

19 diagram does not really refer to any particular army doctrine, whether it

20 was Warsaw Pact or NATO, but that this is more basic military principles

21 and that they were indeed applicable in 1993 to most armies in the world,

22 including the warring factions in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

23 A. Was -- I'm sorry, was this a question? I thought this was a

24 statement.

25 Q. This was.

1 A. Yes, I agree with that.

2 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I don't have the

3 exact source of the document. I believe that it is a part of a Canadian

4 book. However, I can't give you the exact reference. I can provide it to

5 you at a later stage.

6 I would like to note, Mr. President, that on the right-hand side

7 there is a number which is DLCD6. This refers to a Canadian book, and I

8 can give you the exact reference at a later stage.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Can we have the number.

10 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH139.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, maybe I was too

12 quick. Maybe the Prosecution would like to object to this document which

13 has been confirmed by the witness, who said that this general table was

14 applicable to the situation that existed in 1993.

15 MR. MUNDIS: We have no objection, Mr. President. We would be

16 grateful once Mr. Bourgon's identified the source if that could be

17 provided at a later date. Thank you.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then. Madam

19 Registrar, once again could we have the exhibit number, please.

20 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH139.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

22 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

23 Q. [In English] I have a further document, General, which I would

24 like to show to you, and this document once again deals with the levels of

25 war, as we believe that it is important to understand at what level the

1 war fighting was taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993. This

2 document, General, does have references. It is taken from NATO doctrine.

3 It is also taken from United States doctrine. And the document itself

4 again portrays my description given a little earlier on as to what happens

5 at the operational level of war. I draw your attention to the part in the

6 middle from the United States where in bold it reads: "Activities at this

7 level link tactics and strategy by establishing operational objectives

8 needed to accomplish those strategic objectives, sequencing events to

9 achieve the operational objectives, initiating actions and applying

10 resources to bring about and sustain these events."

11 Could you confirm, General, that this description of the

12 operational level would have been an application in Bosnia and Herzegovina

13 as a general military principle in 1993?

14 A. If we talk about corps operations [Realtime transcript read in

15 error "cooperations"], yes, sir, because the corps operations [Realtime

16 transcript read in error "cooperations"] were the linkage between the

17 strategic objectives of the country and -- and to transfer those, then, in

18 operations which were accomplished on the tactical level.

19 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, sorry to interrupt. Before my

20 learned colleague goes on, I think there might be an error in the

21 transcript, page 32, line 1. I'm not sure if the witness said, "If we

22 talk about corps operations" or if he said, "We talk about cooperations."

23 And that word is repeated twice. Perhaps my learned colleague can clear

24 that up prior to proceeding.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Can you please clarify

1 with the witness.

2 MR. BOURGON:

3 Q. General, I don't know if you can read the transcript in front of

4 you or if you -- do you have the transcript in front of you?

5 A. Yes. I just tried to find it, but I definitely was talking about

6 "corps operations" and not "cooperative operations." I was talking about

7 the operations of the 3rd or the 5th or what have you corps.

8 Q. Thank you, General. I would --

9 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, can I have a number

10 for this document that I wish to tender.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, do you have any

12 objections?

13 MR. MUNDIS: No objections.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then.

15 Madam Registrar.

16 THE REGISTRAR: DH140.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18 MR. BOURGON: I have a further document I would like to show to

19 the witness.

20 Q. General, the document which is -- has just been given to you

21 illustrates the principal elements that you would find in an army. Could

22 you confirm -- now, you see from this diagram that it comes from NATO

23 doctrine, because at the left it talks about supreme allied headquarters.

24 Could you confirm that normally within a state this would be the typical

25 organisation of the army and that there would indeed be the two components

1 in the field and at home; whereas, in the field the national army

2 headquarters will be composed of, for example, a corps divided normally

3 into some three divisions, but that could change. As you mentioned, it

4 could be very flexible. And that within a division, there will be between

5 two and four brigades, and that this will be the typical organisation of a

6 brigade? Could you --

7 A. Yes, sir. I think what you said is right. But one has to see

8 that there are also situations, like there were in the former German Army,

9 before the war came down that the army in the field and the army at home

10 were just one army. And I think this is important to mention, because

11 this was the same application for the Bosnian forces. There were

12 territorial forces at home and forces in the field. They -- you could not

13 distinguish between them. So this is for expeditionary forces. But for

14 forces defending their own country, this distinction is normally not the

15 way you have army structured.

16 Q. Thank you, General. You actually beat me to my question, because

17 what I wanted to ask you was whether in the case of an army defending its

18 own territory, whether you would have to overlap both these organisations

19 and to link it into one.

20 A. Yes, sir.

21 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to

22 tender this document into evidence. I don't have the exact source. We

23 only know that we -- that this document originates from the NATO

24 documents.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, do you have any

1 objections?

2 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President, but perhaps again if --

3 if the Defence is in a position perhaps in the next few days to identify

4 the specific source of the document, we would be grateful for that. But

5 we have no objection to the document being admitted into evidence.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then. Mr. Bourgon,

7 can you please make sure that -- to tell us where this document originates

8 from.

9 Madam Registrar, can we have a number.

10 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH141.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

12 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

13 [In English] I have two documents I would like to give to the

14 witness together, and then I would like to -- later on I would ask them

15 to -- to introduce them as evidence as one document.

16 Q. General, could you confirm that the two documents you have just

17 been given - they are a bit long to read, but if you can glance through

18 these documents - the first one illustrates the corps commander's campaign

19 design. Could you by looking at this document explain in your own words

20 and experience what we mean -- what is meant by a "campaign design" and

21 whether this part of a doctrine manual from Canada would illustrate the

22 normal corps commander's campaign design and that it would have been

23 applicable in 1993 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

24 A. Well, there's not such a big contradiction in this, because what

25 I see from that Canadian pamphlet here, it is also very much

1 mission-oriented; i.e., the commander gets the mission to attack or defend

2 an objective. He's given the means to do that. But the way how he does

3 it is up to him. So the way how he decides which forces to use, for what

4 particular course of action within his overall campaign plan, and how he

5 basically prioritised the mission of his forces, how he does the

6 supporting element, and how he cooperates with the neighbouring forces,

7 this is his intuition which he's working out with his staff, and this,

8 then, will become a decision and out of this decision you devise a

9 campaign plan.

10 General Guderian was very ad libitum in this way. He was not

11 very much reduced in his freedom of operating by the time, based on the

12 German doctrine that they say the mission is up to the commander on the

13 ground to execute it the best way possible without interference from

14 higher headquarters.

15 In other countries, you have a very different way where every

16 different detailed step of the campaign has to be approved by higher

17 headquarters, and then the higher headquarters controls it in a much, much

18 more rigid way than we would do it in this German or British or French

19 mission-oriented kind of operations. So there's a big difference in -- in

20 the way of -- taking the initiative to react in time according to the

21 situation as it deploys in the field.

22 As far as I know and as far as I have deducted from the documents

23 which I read on the JNA and my discussions with former JNA officers, their

24 restriction in freedom of movement on the lower level in a -- in a kind of

25 mission-oriented way of doing business was much more reduced than in the

1 way it has been depicted here. It's a different way of coordinating

2 operations. The one is giving more trust to the subordinate that he would

3 do the job accordingly. And then you also have to accept that he commits

4 mistakes [sic].

5 In the American Army, for instance, the -- the different orders

6 given to the commander are much more in detail than they are in the German

7 and in the British Army. And as far as I remember in the Warsaw Pact and

8 as I talked also to my East German colleagues once we went together, the

9 rigidity was much, much deeper than anything I ever encountered for the

10 decision-making of -- on my level and on our way of doing this military

11 operations.

12 Q. Thank you, General. Now, based on the -- what is depicted in

13 this historical perspective from General Guderian in 1940, my question to

14 you is that what -- the issues a corps commander deals with are indeed

15 issues such as those represented on those documents.

16 A. The issues is that he basically selects the terrain in which he

17 will fight his campaign, that he prepares the troops, prioritises the

18 troops, the way he sees them best fit for his operation, and the whole

19 support going with that, but all this within the framework of the overall

20 operational objective given to him by his higher command. A corps

21 commander has an army commander; an army commander by that time had an

22 army group commander; and above this was the army commander, and above the

23 army command you had Hitler. So there were quite a few echelons in

24 between. And he had to make sure that his campaign really fit into the

25 overall picture of the campaign, which he describes here, the proper way.

1 So he always had to think at least two echelons above his level to make

2 sure that everything he conceives and decides as an operational campaign

3 really fits into the overall plan of the campaign which he was aware of,

4 rather than only seeing his little nitty-gritty area of terrain in which

5 he was conducting his operations. I think this is the key thing that you

6 always transfer your ideas, your operational ideas, at least two levels

7 higher, depending on the -- on the level in the individual state. At that

8 time, he really had to think three levels higher in order to comply with

9 the overall campaign plan.

10 Q. Thank you very much, General.

11 Now, if I try to take the same information and to apply it to

12 Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, having a corps commander and not -- no

13 specific corps commander, but are these the type of issues a corps

14 commander would have been dealing with given the situation of the corps,

15 which was, as you know, between the Supreme Command in Sarajevo and the

16 rest of the troops down in the field? Would that be the kind of issues

17 that would have been or should have been, in any event, on the commander's

18 mind during the waging of war in Bosnia?

19 A. The corps commander in Bosnia always had to take in consideration

20 the objectives of his strategic level; i.e., the -- the supreme

21 headquarters of his army, and also the strategic ideas his president had

22 for the campaign, because it shows that President Izetbegovic was very

23 keen on what was going on there, obviously, in a rather small country. So

24 as a corps commander, I think you always had to keep in mind what were the

25 objectives on the political level, what were the objectives on the highest

1 military level, the Supreme Command, before you start your thinking about

2 the own operations which were just only a means to achieve the strategic

3 and operational objectives of the country.

4 Q. Thank you very much, General.

5 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to

6 tender the two documents, and can I have two numbers, please.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. There are two documents.

8 We have been asked to give them a number, one number.

9 Mr. Mundis.

10 MR. MUNDIS: No objections, Mr. President.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, then.

12 Madam Registrar, can we have one number for these two documents.

13 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH142.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] DH142.

15 We have five minutes before the break.

16 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to show

17 the witness the last document, which consists of two pages, and this is

18 what I would like to finish with before the break.

19 Q. [In English] General, I'm -- you have just been provided with two

20 documents, or two pages of one document. The first document, the source

21 is indicated at the top. Would you agree with me that if I look at the

22 overall structure and where the corps fits in within a sovereign country

23 and the overall hierarchy of every unit, going from a detachment all the

24 way up to the Defence Ministry, with the figures that are provided and the

25 rank structure that is provided, that this would more or less be the

1 typical organisation and that what is in the frame actually shows where

2 the corps fits in?

3 A. I agree with you, Mr. Bourgon, but one has to see that there are

4 corps which don't fight divisions; they fight directly brigades. The

5 level of the division, then, is not established in this particular army,

6 which applies more often than one would believe.

7 Q. If I try to follow up on your answer -- if I try to follow up:

8 In the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina there were not officially any

9 divisions; am I correct?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Nevertheless, would this be, taking into account the numbers

12 might be a bit higher on this sketch than what you would find in the Army

13 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, would that illustrate basically and give an

14 understanding of someone to know the hierarchy of the units and

15 approximate numbers and the relationship between the various units?

16 A. Yes, sir.

17 Q. If I move to the second page, which is really -- again, we have

18 the reference to this document -- and that is to really put it into a very

19 easy and common definition, in terms of being -- that the corps

20 headquarters -- sorry, I look at the middle paragraph: "A corps consists

21 of a corps headquarters, corps troops, and such divisions as may be

22 assigned to it." And if I look on top of the corps, you will find the

23 headquarters, which is above, and then: "The corps headquarters is

24 designed so that a single commander can coordinate the combat operations

25 of two or more divisions." Would that be a very common but easy

1 representation of where and what a military corps does?

2 A. Yes, sir. But again, division is not a must. It could be an

3 operational group; it could be nothing. It could be that the division

4 level is deleted and instead of division then you would have a brigade,

5 and the brigade would be directly under the corps commander.

6 Q. And if I apply this to Bosnia and Herzegovina more

7 specifically --

8 A. That's the way.

9 Q. -- that would be the case.

10 A. Yes, sir.

11 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, can I have a number

12 for this document. And this is actually the last part of my

13 examination -- cross-examination.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

15 MR. MUNDIS: No objections.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Madam Registrar, can we have a

17 number for this document.

18 THE REGISTRAR: [Previous translation continues] ... DH143.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We have arrived at the break

20 time. It is half past 10.00. And we will resume at five to 11.00.

21 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

22 --- On resuming at 10.59 a.m.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, you have the floor

24 once again.

25 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I will

1 continue, Mr. President, with the second part of my cross-examination,

2 that is, questions regarding the concepts of command which, we believe,

3 could be useful to the Chamber in their determinations. And it will also

4 allow us to check and confirm above all the ability of the witness to

5 assist the Chamber as an expert witness.

6 Q. [In English] General Reinhardt, we ended up with -- before the

7 break by going through one of -- a sketch which illustrates the typical

8 organisation of a corps. Are you familiar, General, with a concept known

9 as span of control?

10 A. Yes, sir.

11 Q. Could you give your own definition, based on your own knowledge,

12 of what is meant by span of control.

13 A. The span of control basically encompasses the variety of units

14 you can coordinate and control in an effective way if you have too many

15 subordinate units or subunits, it's very difficult to control in detail

16 what they are doing. So there's only a certain number which normally

17 should be controlled from a higher headquarters. And this is basically a

18 question of the organisation of the individual army, how they do this, and

19 what you just told us is reflecting a span of control that on all

20 different levels you have somebody who really can have a grip of what's

21 going on on the subordinate level.

22 Q. Thank you, General. I would like to show you a document which is

23 taken from Canadian doctrine and also from Harvard Business School

24 concerning span of control.

25 General, I refer to you in terms of the top of this document,

1 where it is mentioned, paragraph 3, "span of control," which basically

2 highlights exactly what you just said, in terms of: "There is a limit to

3 how much one person can effectively direct. A formation, or units, number

4 of subordinate activities, and its air of operations must be such that one

5 person can command or control the formation or unit." Do you agree with

6 this statement?

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. And the middle paragraph, taken from the Harvard Business Review

9 of 1956; there's a paragraph basically that says at the end, and I'll just

10 read the highlighted or the portion in bold: "If you have too many people

11 reporting to you, two things will happen, both bad. First, you will

12 become the organisation's bottleneck and can quickly blow away any money

13 you save by getting rid of middle management; second, it becomes much

14 harder for the individuals reporting to you to feel that their work is

15 seen, recognised, and appreciated." Could you give or state whether this

16 paragraph can have a military application.

17 A. Yes, that is exactly what I said before. Therefore, you have

18 individual levels in between which help you to execute command and

19 control, not directly but with having other people sharing your span of

20 control on the lower level.

21 Q. And as to the third part of this document, which is basically a

22 quote from, I take it, some -- General, Sir Ian Hamilton, and I refer to

23 the last part of this group, where it says: "Organisations are run by

24 rule, a rule whereby from three to six hands are shepherded by one head,

25 each head in turn being a member of a superior group of from three to six

1 who are being wielded into line one by one. And as to whether the groups

2 are three, four, five, or six, it is useful to bear in mind a by-law."

3 And this is what I would like to ask your opinion on, this by-law: "The

4 smaller the responsibility of the group member, the larger may be the

5 number of group -- of the group and vice versa; that is to say, one

6 NCO..." which I take to stand for non-commissioned officer, "...in charge

7 of three private soldiers would be too idle; however, one lieutenant

8 general in charge of six divisional generals would be too busy."

9 Could you say whether you agree with this statement.

10 A. I don't understand what it means to bear in mind a by-law. I

11 don't understand this term. But the basic content of this paragraph is

12 absolutely right.

13 Q. Thank you very much.

14 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I should like to

15 tender this document into evidence. It comes from the Canadian doctrine,

16 on top; the middle part comes from the Harvard Business Review; and the

17 third part from a book by Sir Ian Hamilton, "The Soul and Body of an

18 Army."

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

20 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

22 Madam Registrar, can we have a number.

23 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH144.

24 MR. BOURGON:

25 Q. To move on this with document, General, talking about span of

1 control, would you say that a commanding general taking steps to reduce

2 his span of control or, to be more precise, to increase and enhance his

3 command and control takes steps to reduce the number of immediate

4 subordinates that will report to him in order to be more effective? Would

5 you call such a commander a reasonable commander, or how would you qualify

6 such a commander?

7 A. He's a clever commander.

8 Q. Let me go on, General, by showing you another document. This

9 document, General, is the basic organisation of a corps. What I would

10 like to ask you, General, on this specific diagram is to confirm whether

11 the corps depicted on this diagram, which is in fact a true corps, which

12 is the 5th US Corps, which is normally stationed in Germany and presently

13 deployed in Iraq and which includes 42.000 troops, is that -- could you

14 recognise the contents of this corps, based on your knowledge, and whether

15 this would be an organisation of a corps?

16 A. Yes, sir. And it used to be one of my corps.

17 Q. In respect of this specific corps, General, I note at the bottom

18 of the diagram where we have a mention of the 13th Panzer Grenadier

19 Division, which is stationed in Germany but not included in the total

20 strength. Based on your knowledge, can you say exactly or more -- with

21 more details what was the relationship between the 5th US Corps, from the

22 United States, and the 13th Panzer Grenadier Division from Germany?

23 A. It's a rather simple relation. In peacetime, the 13th Panzer

24 Grenadier Division is a pure German division. In case of war, i.e.,

25 defence of NATO, the 13th Panzer Grenadier Division becomes an organic

1 part of the 5th US Corps, which is a US/German corps. So the 13th Panzer

2 Grenadier Division in its training, in its command and control, as far as

3 war is concerned, is an entirely integrated part of the 5th US/German

4 Corps.

5 Q. Thank you very much, General.

6 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I should like to

7 tender this document as an illustration of a typical corps according to

8 the standards of NATO.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

10 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

12 Madam Registrar.

13 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH145.

14 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

15 Q. [In English] General, you mentioned a little earlier in answer to

16 one of my questions looking at your -- or reviewing your qualifications

17 that the staff officers assigned at the corps headquarters were the best

18 amongst the professional officers and that you would always get the best

19 at the corps headquarters. You would get fully professional and qualified

20 officers. Is that a fair recap of what you mentioned?

21 A. Yes, sir, it is.

22 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that in order for a corps

23 commander such as yourself, when you commanded three corps in Germany,

24 that it is very important for a corps commander, of course any commander

25 but even more so for a corps commander, to rely on a very effective staff?

1 A. This is key. The commander is only as good as his staff is, so

2 the better the staff, the more competent the commander could be.

3 Q. I would like to show you a diagram of the general staff assigned

4 to corps headquarters, and I would like you to confirm that this is the

5 type of people that would be found into a corps headquarters.

6 Looking at this diagram, General, can you confirm that this would

7 be a typical organisation of a corps headquarters, going from, of course,

8 the deputy commander, down to the Chief of Staff, down to the principal

9 advisors? And the Trial Chamber has had the opportunity to hear this, I

10 believe, once before, but I would like you to explain what is meant by the

11 acronyms "G1" to "G6." And also, if you can say a word about the special

12 staff that you would find in a corps headquarters.

13 A. G1 to G6, or very often also J1 to J6 if you have a joint staff,

14 is just the abbreviation. 1 is for personnel; 2 is for intelligence; 3 is

15 for training and operations; 4 is always wherever you are in NATO

16 logistics; 5 is civil affairs; 6 is communications. Today we also have 7

17 for training; and 9 for CIMIC. So these are the normal subdivisions of

18 the corps staff.

19 The special staff which you see here is a very typical

20 American special staff, which is in many ways different from other corps

21 staff. He is very heavy on additional personnel. But normally you're

22 sure you will have -- you will have a public relations officer, you will

23 have a personal staff helping you to go through all the things, and you

24 will have a staff -- a judge advocate on your staff taking care of all the

25 legal things. So I think this is -- these are the things which you would

1 normally have in every staff. The other things are very much

2 Americanised.

3 Q. General, I'd like to -- you mentioned the staff judge advocate.

4 I have a specific question unrelated to this specific diagram, but can you

5 confirm that in the German military a staff judge advocate or a legal

6 advisor is only found, at least in 1993, at the division level and up?

7 A. Right, sir.

8 Q. Which would mean that at the brigade level, you would not in the

9 German Army have a legal advisor.

10 A. This is right, sir.

11 Q. And could you comment or could you agree with me that an army

12 which deploys legal advisors at the brigade level, or at least endeavours

13 to do so, is an army that is very conscious about legal matters?

14 A. I just wanted to add on before you explained on that that our

15 brigades deploying, for instance, to Kosovo or so, they have legal advisor

16 because the legal business in your deployment is so paramount and takes so

17 much precedence over other things, that without the legal advisor a

18 brigade commander just cannot do his job in another country.

19 Q. And as to my earlier statement that an army who endeavours to

20 deploy legal advisors, would you say that this is a conscious army about

21 legal matters?

22 A. Yes, sir.

23 Q. I move back to this specific diagram.

24 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] And, Mr. President, I should like

25 to tender this document, and could I have a number, please.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

2 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

4 Madam Registrar.

5 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH146.

6 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

7 Q. [In English] General, I have a few questions also in relation to

8 the staff under the corps commander. Can you confirm that the Chief of

9 Staff who manages the work -- is the one who manages the work of all the

10 principal advisors, G1 to G6 or even to G9, as you mentioned, and that

11 basically he is one who is in command of the headquarter element?

12 A. The Chief of Staff is the right and the left hand of the

13 commander. He is the most important figure after the commander. And as

14 you said, he is coordinating the staff and the entire staff work, and he

15 is the closest -- the closest advisor to the commander.

16 Q. Now, to give you a specific scenario, should a commander not be

17 available for a long period and should you have the Chief of Staff be

18 asked to replace the commander for a long period of time, would you say

19 that this would be extremely difficult for such a Chief of Staff in that

20 he would have to have two positions at the same time at that moment?

21 A. It's very difficult, because he is overburdened by taking command

22 responsibility plus his coordinating responsibilities as the Chief of

23 Staff, but nevertheless this is common practice, and we expect normally

24 that a officer who made it up through the Chief of Staff is capable of

25 doing that for a certain period of time.

1 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that the aim would be to,

2 as soon as possible, either appoint the Chief of Staff and assign him as

3 commander or at least appoint a new commander?

4 A. This is very sensible to do it that way.

5 Q. As far as the deputy commander goes, General, would you agree

6 with me that sometimes you have a deputy commander, sometimes you don't

7 have a deputy commander, but normally the commander will decide on the

8 duties he will assign to his deputy commander and that the deputy

9 commander may be called upon to assume command, to replace the commander

10 if he either gets killed or simply is not available?

11 A. Yes, sir. Under normal circumstances, at a certain level you

12 should have a deputy just for the case if the commander is killed or

13 ineffective, to do his job, that another guy can take over fresh. He

14 knows what's going on in that staff.

15 Q. Thank you, General. Looking at -- or on the basis of your own

16 experience, if a corps commander uses his deputy to handle many matters on

17 the ground and to basically act -- or to have the function of his eyes on

18 the ground, to report to him what is going on in order to be fully aware

19 of the situation, would you -- how would you qualify such use of a deputy

20 commander?

21 A. The deputy commander in this regard is the alter ego of the

22 commander, and he is his eyes and brains on the spot, so there's a close

23 relation between the commander and his deputy, and everything the deputy

24 does he does only for or on behalf of his commander. As I said, he is the

25 alter ego of him.

1 Q. And unless a commander has any information or specific

2 information to the contrary, would you say that it is of the ultimate

3 importance that he trusts his deputy commander?

4 A. Absolutely. If he doesn't trust him, this deputy commander

5 cannot be his alter ego, so there must be a very close relation. And I

6 assume that the deputy commander, everything he has done or does is in

7 very close or closest coordination with his commander and the commander

8 knows what the deputy has done and why he has done what he has done.

9 Q. And if a commander assigns a mission to his deputy commander and

10 upon return to the headquarters the deputy commander informs the commander

11 of how the mission was accomplished and the result of that mission, would

12 it be normal for the commander to fully trust the information he is

13 provided with?

14 A. I would say so.

15 Q. I move on, General, to the issue of communications which was

16 raised in your report, in terms of the importance of communications.

17 Would you agree with me, General, that to operate effectively the corps

18 commander must be supported by an effective system of communications which

19 will link all military formations and that the aim of this is to allow him

20 to receive reports and returns from subordinate units and also to transmit

21 reports and returns to his superior headquarters at the army level?

22 A. I agree with that.

23 Q. Would you agree with me, General, that SOPs, or standard

24 operating procedures, related to communications facilitate and standardise

25 communications between all military units?

1 A. Yes, sir. These SOPs basically standardise the way the content

2 should be broken down, so everybody knows where he's report -- where he's

3 supposed to report. But also the time when a message is due and what the

4 contents of the message should be all about. This goes in -- in both

5 directions.

6 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that a commander who does

7 issue instructions to his lower formation or lower units, subordinate

8 units, sorry, in terms of how and when and concerning what issues they are

9 to report to him, that this is indeed part of the corps commander's

10 functions?

11 A. This is one of his functions, and this is the daily routine.

12 Q. And would you say that a commander who does issue such SOPs is

13 indeed doing his job properly?

14 A. Yes, sir.

15 Q. You mentioned in your report and again yesterday that the

16 superior headquarters was responsible for setting up the communications

17 system which will link it to subordinate units.

18 A. Yes, sir.

19 Q. Now, this -- am I right in saying that this refers to the putting

20 in place of the communications system?

21 A. Yes, sir.

22 Q. Once that system is in place, could you confirm - and I'd like to

23 give you a specific example - if a subordinate unit changes location, can

24 you confirm that it will be the subordinate unit's responsibility to

25 re-establish links with the superior headquarters?

1 A. It's not a yes or no answer I can give you to that. The

2 subordinate unit will change the location and report this immediately to

3 higher headquarters, but very often the receiving end of higher

4 headquarters at that subordinate headquarters -- I mean the receiving end

5 in communications basically moves with the subordinate command at the same

6 time, so it's also their mission to report to their signal brigade of the

7 corps, for instance, that they have moved with this particular brigade.

8 So it's a twofold thing which shows the responsibility. One is the

9 technical responsibility; we have moved to another headquarters. And the

10 other one is the communication responsibility, of those communication

11 means provided by higher headquarters, that the higher headquarters knows

12 that they have moved.

13 Q. And if I ask you to comment on simply common sense and your

14 expertise that it would be normal for the lower -- the lower or the

15 subordinate unit to know where the superior headquarters is located but

16 that the opposite might not always be true?

17 A. That might be the case. Even I cannot imagine that. But under

18 normal conditions, I would say the superior headquarters knows where its

19 subordinate headquarters are deployed to.

20 Q. And in a combat environment, when issue -- when orders have been

21 issued and that the area in which this subordinate headquarters is

22 conducting its operations, the superior headquarters will know the general

23 area where its subordinate unit is but might not know the exact location

24 within that area?

25 A. That might be. And again, that depends very much on the level we

1 are talking about, sir. If we talk about the battalion, it might be that

2 the battalion doesn't know for a certain period of time where a specific

3 company is doing its operations and the company might not know where every

4 individual platoon is. But having a rather static headquarters on the

5 brigade level and a rather static headquarters on the corps level, I would

6 assume that on this level you normally would know where your counterpart

7 is.

8 Q. Now, General, the -- you mentioned that communications could be

9 established in many ways, and I think you did mention - but correct me if

10 I'm wrong - that communications could be established by courier, which is

11 the most direct and simple form of communication, radio, telephone,

12 satellite, electronic - and I have another note, but I can't even read my

13 own handwriting, I'm sorry - but would you agree with me that there are

14 many ways in which communications can be established and maintained?

15 A. Yes, sir. I think in addition to what you just said today, very

16 often it's email, the computer system as such, plus Motorola. Motorola

17 basically today is -- is superseding almost every other means of

18 communications.

19 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that a corps commander who

20 uses all the means at his disposal is a reasonable commander who is trying

21 to do the best -- his best in the circumstances?

22 A. Absolutely.

23 Q. Now, the section that we're dealing with today is most -- for the

24 most part simply information and knowledge. And as you could see, I have

25 some specific questions, but tomorrow I will move into the specifics. But

1 with this particular issue, based on the documents that you have seen, can

2 you confirm that the corps commander in this case went out of his way to

3 establish communication with the subordinate units?

4 A. I think he did the utmost to establish and to keep this

5 communications.

6 Q. One last question dealing with communications, General: Would it

7 be normal for a military unit, a subordinate unit, which is not able to

8 communicate with the superior headquarters, to try and establish or

9 re-establish the communications link by doing what is called a relay and

10 going by -- through another unit?

11 A. This is a must, and this is also normal procedure.

12 Q. Based on the documents that you have reviewed, have you seen any

13 instances where subordinate units have had to use the relay technique,

14 because they could not reach their superior headquarters?

15 A. Maybe I have seen one, but I don't recall it.

16 Q. And in the documents that you have seen, General - and this will

17 be my last specific question, because this is not the aim of my questions

18 today - did you see documents or orders or reports in which subordinate

19 units were complaining about the lack of effective communications within

20 the corps area?

21 A. Yes, definitely. There is a report of the 3rd Corps complaining

22 about the poor communications on the tactical level, and there are reports

23 of the operational group, the Operational Group Bosanska Krajina, but

24 there are also reports of the 7th Mountain Brigade -- motorised -- the 7th

25 Mountain Brigade -- Muslim Mountain Brigade, complaining about the poor

1 communication means and the way how they tried -- how they tried to

2 overcome that.

3 Q. Thank you very much, General.

4 I'd like to show you one document in order to finish with the

5 issue of the way a corps controls its information. This document,

6 General, is -- portrays typical distances or area of responsibility of a

7 corps, and it is quoted as being: "An example of the parameters for a

8 defensive operation." According to what we see on the diagram, the area

9 of interest would be 300 kilometres; the area of influence would be 150

10 kilometres; whereas, the front line will be anywhere from 30 to -- to 80

11 kilometres.

12 Looking at page 2, the terms, "area of responsibility," "area of

13 interest," and "area of influence" are defined. Can you, by looking at

14 this document, and in your own -- based on your own professional

15 experience confirm that these would be typical figures for a corps?

16 A. These are the figures which you get out of the manuals. But

17 again, as I have said before, a corps is very much composed on the

18 mission - and it's a modular system - and the question is: What means

19 does the corps have to effectively influence the battle? If you have a

20 normal standard corps like a German corps with an artillery range of about

21 30 kilometres maximum, it's no use that you extend this if you cannot

22 influence the area for which you are responsible. An American corps,

23 which has with the -- with the modern MLRS system a range of influencing

24 what's going on on the battle up to 350 kilometres, the operational depth

25 is totally different.

1 So really you have to see this as a normal parameter, which you

2 then have to adopt to the capabilities of your original corps, how to

3 influence the area of influence, how you can react in there, and also how

4 broad your -- your area of responsibility is at the beginning. So these

5 are figures of the thumb which have to be adapted to the real capabilities

6 of -- of the individual corps which is in that area. I just want to make

7 that caveat, because otherwise these numbers might stick. They are only

8 rough rules of the thumb.

9 Q. Thank you, General. If I move more specifically to the frontage

10 or the -- the size of the front line, would you agree with me that the

11 longer your front line is, the more difficult it will be on the corps

12 itself but also on the planning of the corps commander?

13 A. Yes, sir.

14 Q. Would you also agree with me that should that front line be two

15 different front lines with two different enemies, that that would make

16 things even more complicated on the corps and more complicated on the

17 corps commander?

18 A. Yes. This is a hell of a difficult job.

19 Q. Would you also agree with me, General, that -- I refer to the

20 last sentence of the bottom of page 1, where it says that: "The corps

21 commander usually plans up to 96 hours ahead."

22 A. Yeah.

23 Q. Could you explain what this means in practical terms.

24 A. You have the brigade commander and the division commander

25 fighting the actual battle on the ground, and the corps commander is

1 influencing this battle by attaching additional means, cross-attaching

2 forces, but besides that he keeps out of the actual battle -- this is not

3 his business. He plans and has his hat free for the things which might

4 follow on, and he has to think much farther in advance because the

5 cooperation with the air force, the movement of troops in order to

6 influence the battle in three, four, five days in order to establish the

7 support accordingly to the follow-on operation takes time. It normally

8 takes much more time than we anticipate, and therefore it's his business

9 not to be bogged down with what's going on right now but to look into the

10 future, to imagine what might happen on his level, on the side of the

11 enemy, and to take the appropriate measures in order that they can be

12 executed in time, that after 96 hours they are effective on the ground.

13 Q. Thank you, General. Would this commentary apply to a corps

14 commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993?

15 A. I think seeing the -- the operations as they have been

16 conducted - and these are operations not on the very large scale; these

17 are many, many small-scale operations which had to be planned and operated

18 upon - I think the duration of the planning staff of a corps in

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina might have been shorter than 96 hours.

20 Q. How much shorter? Half? Three-quarters? What?

21 A. I really don't want to give a figure, because the distances were

22 much smaller. He had to fight with the forces available. They were not

23 so large distances as you would normally have when the corps moving large

24 units from one area to the next one. The cooperation with the air force

25 was not the key issue, which normally is one of the key problems for a

1 corps headquarters, where you always have to think in three to four days

2 in advance because there was no Bosnian air force really supporting the

3 land forces. So the -- the elements the corps commander had to deal with,

4 the problems he had to deal with were much closer to him and to his staff

5 than it would normally be to a corps staff.

6 Q. Thank you, General. Now, tomorrow I will show you two specific

7 operations that were planned, and then we can again come back on this

8 issue.

9 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] For the moment I would like to

10 tender the document into evidence, and may I have the number, please.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The document about the

12 responsibility of the corps.

13 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, the Prosecution has no objection to

14 this document. We would, however, as with the two previous documents, ask

15 that the Defence could please provide us with a source when they have that

16 information available.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18 Madam Registrar, may we have a number, please.

19 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH147. Thank you.

20 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] The Defence is going to provide the

21 Prosecution with the source of the document as soon as possible.

22 Q. [In English] Let me move on, General, by going through the

23 responsibilities and the operations as a corps, depending on the type of

24 military assignment it is involved in. I will try to move a bit quicker,

25 but I'd like to propose to you that there are some basic missions that can

1 be assigned to a corps. I'll give you six examples, and I would like if

2 you can confirm whether these are six typical examples of assignments

3 which can be given to a corps in any country. These six examples are as

4 follows: The first one is a corps involved in support to civil power; for

5 example, in a course of disaster relief. Is that a typical assignment of

6 a corps?

7 A. That could be an assignment, yes, sir.

8 Q. The second type would be in support to civil authority; for

9 example, in a case of internal disturbances, to assist in the maintenance

10 of law and order.

11 A. It could be, but in many countries it's forbidden. In my

12 country, it's absolutely impossible to talk about this. And we're just

13 having a big discussion in Germany. It's not possible in my country.

14 Q. But --

15 A. And in other NATO countries it's not possible either.

16 Q. Do you know of any countries where this is indeed possible?

17 A. I think it's -- if I see that correctly, it's possible, for

18 instance, in France, where they even have special forces to do this,

19 "Les Gendarmerie." It's possible in Italy where they also have special

20 forces to do this, like the "Carbonari." And where the constitution is

21 different.

22 Our constitution is very much based on the history of our country,

23 and therefore many things are not allowed to the German military which are

24 allowed in other countries. Like also in the United States it's possible;

25 you can call up the National Guard and use it for antiriot, which is

1 absolutely impossible in Germany.

2 Q. Thank you, General. The other type of assignment could be, for

3 example, a peacekeeping mission, such as UNPROFOR.

4 A. Yes, sir.

5 Q. Another possible assignment would be a peace enforcement mission,

6 such as IFOR, or the implementation force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. Another possible assignment would be to wage war in another

9 country.

10 A. Yep.

11 Q. And a sixth -- another possible assignment could be to wage war

12 on its own national territory.

13 A. Yeah.

14 Q. If I compare the six different assignments - there might be

15 others - but if I compare the six I've highlighted to you, would you agree

16 that the toughest assignment, the most difficult and the most complex

17 assignment that can be given to a corps is to wage war on its own national

18 territory when it is being attacked?

19 A. This is probably the most important one and a very difficult one

20 to execute. Yes, sir.

21 Q. If I compare these six types of assignments, would you agree with

22 me, General, that the legal regime applicable to each is likely to be

23 different?

24 A. I think so.

25 Q. If I give you, for example, that in disaster-relief assistance,

1 most likely national law would apply plus maybe some specific legislation.

2 A. Right, sir.

3 Q. In aid to civil authority, which you say does not exist or could

4 not exist in Germany, then it would be national law for sure where it

5 exists.

6 A. Yeah.

7 Q. And the army would definitely be subordinate to civil

8 authorities.

9 A. Yeah.

10 Q. In a peacekeeping mode, the law that would apply is likely to be

11 United Nations Charter Chapter 6.

12 A. Plus the laws of the individual nations which have deployed

13 forces, because the national law for the soldiers operating abroad applies

14 to them even abroad, and that makes the thing so complicated. Because the

15 national laws are so -- in many ways so different from country to country.

16 Q. And as far as international law goes - I'm not sure whether

17 you'll be able to answer this question or if you know based on your

18 experience - but even though it might not apply officially because it

19 might not be specifically in force, the troops who participate in

20 peacekeeping mission will always be asked by their own country as a

21 minimum to apply the spirit and principles of international law, such as

22 the Geneva Conventions.

23 A. Absolutely.

24 Q. If we move into the peace enforcement assignment, then the legal

25 regime would be the United Nations Chapter 7, which allows for the use of

1 force to accomplish the mandate.

2 A. Yeah.

3 Q. And in addition, as you've mentioned, national law and

4 international law.

5 A. Yeah.

6 Q. If we move into waging war into another country, you will agree

7 with me that the only possibility of doing so legally would be to do so

8 under collective self-defence, which is United Nations Charter Article 51,

9 where you come to the help of another country, and that in such a case

10 international law applies and the full body of international humanitarian

11 law applies?

12 A. This is right. But the interpretation of Charter -- Article 51

13 of the United Nations charter is pretty broad. This is one of the

14 problems which we are realising right now. I understand what you're

15 saying. I agree to that, but there are nations who see that differently,

16 or their -- their interpretation of Article 51 is different.

17 Q. Thank you, General.

18 And in the last type of assignment I referred to, which is waging

19 war on your own national territory, this is likely, at least if the attack

20 is coming from another state, this is likely to be in self-defence mode,

21 again under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, but at the same time

22 would you agree with me that national laws will continue to apply, the

23 international law will apply, and international humanitarian law will also

24 apply, albeit it could be in a limited way, depending if it is an internal

25 or an international armed conflict?

1 A. Yes, sir, I agree with that.

2 Q. Would you agree with me, General, that based on this legal regime

3 applicable when you wage war on your own territory, that the conflict of

4 laws between national laws and international law makes it a very difficult

5 situation, from a legal perspective?

6 A. I don't know whether I would like to follow you on that, because

7 the national law and the international law are not exclusive. They are

8 basically supplementary in many ways. And I think even if you are in a

9 national disaster situation and defending your country, the international

10 law and the humanitarian law has to be applied the same way as otherwise.

11 Q. And these laws would have to be applied in a complimentary way.

12 A. Yes, sir. That's the way to put it. I'm sorry for my English.

13 Q. Now, in conclusion on this issue, General, as to the sharing of

14 responsibilities between the military and the civil authorities in the

15 last scenario we covered --

16 A. Mm-hm.

17 Q. -- would you agree that this will depend -- that this will have,

18 sorry, a direct bearing on the role, the functions, and the obligations of

19 the corps?

20 A. For sure.

21 Q. If I give you an example of a corps which is fighting while the

22 civil authorities, such as the police or civil security or the courts are

23 functioning, that this will determine and set the right and left

24 boundaries of what the mission of the corps is?

25 A. Yeah.

1 Q. To use another example which -- of which you are familiar with,

2 that of Kosovo. In Kosovo, you had, of course, KFOR, the international

3 peacekeeping force of which you were the commander, and you had the United

4 Nations Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, and that the two shared the

5 responsibilities for the governing of this kind of UN state, if I may use

6 this term.

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. In fact, I've had the opportunity to read many of your press

9 releases while you were commander of KFOR, in which you actually were

10 acting along with Bernard Kouchner, and you referred to as being twin

11 brothers taking care of the land. Would that be a fair statement?

12 A. I think so. Yes, sir.

13 Q. I move on to another section of my cross-examination, which deals

14 with something you raised in your report, which is professionalism and a

15 professional army. In this respect, would you agree with me, General,

16 that a professional army will be one that is one, first of all, loyal to

17 the state; and two, that will be disciplined?

18 A. I think one has to assume this. Yes, sir.

19 Q. And that these are the two most important qualification or

20 qualifiers which will make an army a professional army?

21 A. Well, I think it's also the way an army has been trained. How

22 well trained they are professionally, in consonance with the objectives of

23 their country.

24 Q. If I look at the importance of -- or the loyalty to the state,

25 would I be right in saying that an army which is loyal to the state, it is

1 important for at least two reasons, including that the army will have

2 legitimate authority and that the army will have -- and that military

3 operations will be legal?

4 A. Yeah.

5 Q. And if I move on to discipline -- you did mention a lot about

6 discipline yesterday -- would you agree that discipline refers to two

7 things: First, discipline refers to the culture of obedience?

8 A. Yeah.

9 Q. And that if you do not have discipline, it is simply not possible

10 to have a professional army?

11 A. Discipline and professional army are almost synonym. But I would

12 go one step further: A draft army is also placed on discipline, so this

13 is not exclusively only for a professional army. It also applies to most

14 every kind of army I can imagine, because without discipline, an army is

15 not capable to function.

16 Q. And discipline also refers to, General, and if you need

17 discipline, you also have -- you also need the means to enforce, to ensure

18 that you have a disciplined army.

19 A. Yeah.

20 Q. And this has a direct bearing on your combat potential.

21 A. Right, sir.

22 Q. And that a commander should as a priority focus on the discipline

23 of his troops to ensure that he has fighting-capable troops.

24 A. I don't know whether this is the priority, as I understand you

25 just put it, but it's a very high priority for him.

1 Q. When we talk about the enforcement of discipline, General, would

2 you agree with me that what matters is that soldiers abide with the law?

3 A. Yeah.

4 Q. Would you agree with me that what they did wrong or how you

5 qualify what they did wrong is secondary?

6 A. Yeah.

7 Q. Would you qualify -- would you agree that if you want to enforce

8 discipline, whether it is a minor disciplinary offence, such as not

9 reporting for duty, or a criminal offence, such as stealing, that in the

10 eyes of the commander both are important and both need to be handled?

11 A. No question about it.

12 Q. Because what the commander wants is troops that will be

13 disciplined and that will abide by the law.

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. An issue has been raised in this trial - and I need -- I would

16 like to have your opinion - and that is the issue of war crimes. You

17 would agree with me that the same applies, whether it's a war crime,

18 whether it's a criminal act, whether it's a disciplinary offence, they all

19 deserve and must get the commander's attention?

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. Because what the commander wants is to be sure that his troops

22 are ready to fight.

23 A. Yeah. Because war crimes affect the discipline considerably.

24 Q. Now, as a matter of fact, if -- could you confirm that in Germany

25 in 1993 it would not even have been possible for someone to be accused of

1 a war crime because there was no such thing in German law?

2 A. There is no war crime; there is only crime, criminal activities

3 which then would be brought in front of a civil court. But you are right;

4 there is no special war -- military justice in this regard, and therefore

5 the term "war crime" in this regard is only considered against

6 international humanitarian law.

7 Q. Now, my understanding, General, is that this has changed with the

8 ratification by Germany of the Statute of the International Criminal Court

9 and that now in German law you have something called war crimes.

10 A. Yes, sir, this is right.

11 Q. Now, I referred to an example that I would like to give you where

12 in a trial before the Bavarian High Court in February of 1997 the

13 defendant was charged with the following: Genocide, murder, and

14 deprivation of liberty, according to Sections 221, 220A, and 239 of the

15 German Penal Code, which defines those crimes. And this would go to show

16 that genocide is an offence that exists or existed in 1993 in German law

17 but that the other offences did not exist under the heading "war crimes"

18 but existed under the heading "deprivation of liberty or murder," which

19 could be used for any civilian or anyone.

20 A. That's what I meant before. It's in the penal law which is

21 applicable then also to the military.

22 Q. And what matters again to the commander is that to ensure that

23 any criminal act is looked upon.

24 A. Yeah.

25 Q. I -- this is a commentary I have, and I don't want to -- to put

1 it for the record, but I'd just like to -- it's a document that was --

2 it's a German document which deals with the customary law provisions of

3 additional Protocol I. But talking about this specific trial in the

4 Bavarian High Court, they say that both courts considered these acts as

5 being unlawful behaviour in war, even though they were criminal acts in

6 the German Penal Code. You can relate to this issue.

7 A. Yeah.

8 Q. I move on to other qualifications required for a professional

9 army. And I would talk to you -- I would suggest to you that integrity is

10 also a very important qualification of a professional soldier and a

11 professional army.

12 A. Yeah.

13 Q. And I would suggest to you that integrity is important because

14 integrity is mutual trust amongst soldiers but also within the chain of

15 command and because the chain of command must be able to rely on the

16 information it gets.

17 A. Yes, sir.

18 Q. If I give you an example of something that happened in Kosovo,

19 where there were some allegations while you were commander of the force

20 over there that Lieutenant General -- I'm not sure if I pronounce the name

21 right, but I would try Ceku. I'm not sure if that's the right

22 pronunciation. There were some allegations that he was responsible for

23 violations of international law and that the matter was reported to you.

24 Do you recall this or --

25 A. Oh, yeah, very much.

1 Q. Yeah. Now, my question is: Your answer in a -- in a press

2 release was that there were no such surveillance -- violation and that you

3 fully trusted Lieutenant General Ceku to have provided you with accurate

4 information as to what had happened.

5 A. Well, there were two things I had to consider. One was that

6 there was the accusation against Ceku, without any evidence; the other

7 thing, this was that I had Madam Carla Del Ponte in Kosovo at almost the

8 same time with some of her gentlemen, and I asked her whether she has

9 anything on Ceku, and I said, "If you have anything on Ceku, I have to

10 know that, because he's one of the key figureheads for this province, and

11 if there's something we have to consider, then we might also reconsider

12 his position for the Kosovo Protection Corps as a civil organisation."

13 And I was told that there was nothing against him. So this was the reason

14 why I then went to the press and said, "As long as I have no evidence, as

15 long as there is no official accusation, only what is in the paper,

16 Lieutenant General Ceku for me is still a trustworthy man."

17 Q. And can you confirm, General, that Lieutenant General Ceku was

18 the former head of the Kosovo Liberation Army?

19 A. He was the head of the UCK. He was before that a brigade

20 commander of Croatian forces fighting in the Krajina. And he was a JNA

21 officer, been trained there, and he was very proud of his training in the

22 Yugoslav forces.

23 Q. And can you confirm that you assigned him, I guess -- I

24 understand that you did assign him as commander of the Kosovo Protection

25 Corps.

1 A. No, this is wrong. Because the assignation was done, Bernard

2 Kouchner, and he was not under my command, he was as -- the protection

3 corps under the command and being paid by the United Nations.

4 Q. Now, in the circumstances, the issue I would like to raise with

5 you is that regardless of the past of Lieutenant General Ceku, regardless

6 of the circumstances, you had dealings with him and you trusted the

7 information that he provided you with.

8 A. Yep.

9 Q. Because it was your understanding that as commander of the Kosovo

10 Protection Corps he was worthy of that position and unless you get

11 information specifically to the contrary, you would continue to trust him.

12 A. I called him a couple of times on -- on accidents, on allegations

13 in the country, even during the night, and get him in to check myself

14 whether they were true or not, and some of these actions led to the ouster

15 of subordinate commands of Ceku out of the Protection Corps because I said

16 I cannot trust these guys, and I just threw them out, which was not very

17 easy by that time, with the consequences. But I had no reason not to

18 trust General Ceku at that time during my period, and I think he was

19 really trying to make the utmost out of his position. And one also has

20 to see that he is a figurehead amongst the Kosovars with probably the

21 highest reputation of all the Kosavars in country because the people --

22 the Kosovo population thinks very highly of him. So if you do something

23 against him, you really have to have hard evidence; otherwise, you have

24 the whole population against you.

25 Q. Thank you, General. And my point really on this issue is that --

1 can you confirm the importance for a commander once he has assigned people

2 to positions, once he is working with people subordinate to him, that it

3 is important for him to trust these persons and to trust the information

4 he gets from them unless he has information specifically to the contrary?

5 A. I absolutely agree with you. But I'd like to repeat:

6 General Ceku was not under my command.

7 Q. Yes.

8 General, I move on to another qualification of a professional

9 army, and that could be volunteerism, the fact that a professional army

10 usually will be an army of volunteers who are, one, ready to make the

11 ultimate sacrifice of their life; and two, they are willing to pursue some

12 kind of a career in this army, not matter at what level and what officer

13 or non-officer?

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. Would you agree with this?

16 A. Yeah.

17 Q. Would you also agree that one of the qualifications of a

18 professional army, and you referred to it a little earlier, would be

19 knowledge and training?

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. And that knowledge and training is divided into two parts:

22 Individual training and collective training? And that this is indeed very

23 important for a professional army?

24 A. Sure.

25 Q. And if we think about training to prepare for combat or to

1 prepare for any mission, any military assignment, a lot of care and a lot

2 of attention will be devoted to ensuring that the soldiers are ready for

3 whatever mission they are about to undertake.

4 A. This is true.

5 Q. I would like to show you a diagram which refers to the type of

6 training, or at least which depicts the training cycle in preparation for

7 a mission.

8 This diagram comes from a Canadian military manual, and basically

9 it highlights seven levels of training, where you will try or begin by

10 individual battle skills.

11 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I am missing one

12 copy. I'm one copy short.

13 THE INTERPRETER: Could a copy be placed on the ELMO of the

14 document, please.

15 MR. BOURGON:

16 Q. That level 1 of such training will begin by individual skills and

17 battle tasks, to be followed by section training, subunit, platoon level,

18 and then company level, and then a combat team, which means usually a mix

19 of subunits, combat arms unit training at the battalion or even -- sorry,

20 at the battalion level; to be followed by formation level at the brigade

21 level. And if we look at the drawing at the bottom, this is basically the

22 type of training, and it shows the cycle, going from at the bottom left

23 individual training, right up to in-theatre training, and then the force

24 is deployed. And the reconstitution phase is where you take the same

25 soldiers following their deployment and you prepare them either for

1 another tour of the same mission or you train them anew with a completely

2 different training programme for a different mission.

3 Is that the normal planning or training cycle that is used in the

4 military to ensure that troops are ready for their deployment and their

5 mission?

6 A. This is the almost ideal way to do that, but it doesn't say that

7 all the nations do it like this. Very few nations do like the Canadians

8 do. A formation-level training on the brigade level almost never happens

9 because all the brigades are multinational today and that means that the

10 training remains in national hands so the nations at their utmost do a

11 battalion training. And as far as I know, with, so to speak, my Canadian

12 battalions, Princess Patricia and Van Doos and so on, it all was on the

13 battalion level.

14 But, Your Honour, if I might add one point which I think is very

15 important: Training is not just the normal military skills. A key thing

16 in this kind of preparation for deployment is the preparation of the

17 soldiers for the cultural, the religious, the political background on

18 which they are forcing and to prepare them mentally, also very much on the

19 legal level - at least, that's what most of the European nations do - so

20 the soldiers know how important, especially this kind of non-grippable

21 information and training is all about. And it's sometimes more important

22 than the training with a rifle or the tank or so on.

23 Q. Thank you very much. One last question concerning the

24 qualifications of a professional army, which you referred to in your

25 report, is experience and having an institutional background or

1 foundation --

2 A. Yeah.

3 Q. -- based on lessons learns, on specialised training, and on a

4 career pattern. I'm not sure these are all things you mention, but can

5 you elaborate on this as being an important aspect of a professional army.

6 A. Yeah. I think the ones who join a professional army want to

7 qualify, to go up in -- in the system. And to qualify, you have to go

8 through specific training; you have to get experience on certain levels;

9 and you have to show that your experience on that level as a competent

10 commander, platoon commander, battalion commander was really a solid one,

11 a good one. Otherwise, you don't raise up through the system. So

12 training, competence goes very closely with your career. If you don't

13 qualify adequately, you won't make it. And I think it's the inherent

14 desire of a professional soldier that he doesn't stay on the lowest level

15 but he wants to proceed as far as he can go, and his career is very much

16 affected by his capabilities and his professional knowledge in -- in the

17 way he can prove it -- the best way he can prove is in the staffs and in

18 the command functions.

19 Q. Thank you, General. Could you -- would you agree with me that

20 the last two issues we covered, knowledge and training, as well as

21 experience and having a force with an institutional background, that all

22 of this, if you do not have this prior to being thrown into combat, that

23 this can be very difficult?

24 A. Well, I think I was very clear on this in my statement, making

25 sure that everybody understands how difficult it was for the Bosnian

1 forces to build up their forces under those very adverse conditions.

2 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that - and I give you a

3 hypothetical scenario - that if in such circumstances a corps commander

4 would nevertheless attempt to train his troops, both individual training

5 and also collective training, and even officer training at the command

6 level, that such a commanding general would be a very reasonable commander

7 with -- doing more than his best in the circumstances at the time?

8 A. He would be very reasonable because without doing that, it would

9 be even more difficult for him to have forces available to operate with

10 them according to the mission given to him. So it's in his own interest,

11 in his own professional interest to do exactly what you just said. The

12 more you raise the level of your forces, the more effective your forces

13 will be to do what they're supposed to do.

14 Q. And the last question on this is: To mix training while you're

15 fighting a war, to mix the two, is indeed something very difficult.

16 A. Yes. You only can use the pauses in the operations to train the

17 soldiers and to apply what they have learned in combat in order to

18 reinforce this knowledge, but it is very, very difficult, but it can be

19 done to some extent. And it's been done to some extent.

20 Q. Thank you very much, General.

21 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I should like to

22 tender this document. I have one more topic to address before the break.

23 I don't know when we are going to take the break, but I have just one more

24 topic. I should now like to have a -- an exhibit number for this document

25 on training and education.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

2 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

4 Madam Registrar.

5 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH148.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

7 Mr. Bourgon.

8 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

9 Q. [In English] General, the last issue I would like to cover before

10 the break -- again, I say "technical break"; it's not because we want to

11 take a break - but it's the creation of a professional army. Would you

12 agree with me that to create a professional army requires many things.

13 And I will suggest to you some of the things that are required to create a

14 professional army. The first thing is you would need governmental

15 legality and governmental legitimacy.

16 A. Absolutely.

17 Q. The second thing would be: There would have, of course, to be a

18 raison d'etre and a plan to create an army which normally will be based on

19 the need for security of a sovereign nation.

20 A. I would agree to that. It's not necessary to build up an army

21 because the nation is under threat, but the part of the sovereignty, the

22 self-esteem of a country, a sovereign country, basically requires it to

23 have its own forces for self-defence.

24 Q. Another thing that would be required to build a professional army

25 would be time.

1 A. Yeah.

2 Q. It takes a lot of time to build a professional force.

3 A. Normally it takes much more time than people anticipate, and we

4 see this right now in reality how difficult it is.

5 Q. Some people have even suggested that by the time an army is a

6 fully professional army, it may take as much as 30 years; whereas, your

7 first recruits have reached the top of your army. Now, even though this

8 would probably be the -- the higher end of the spectrum, would you agree

9 with such a statement?

10 A. I would say it takes a lot of time, but I wouldn't quote any --

11 any specific years' time, because it's always very, very dependent on the

12 circumstances under which you build up an army.

13 And let me -- let me refer to the one we are discussing on -- on

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were officers who have been already in the

15 training who have been experienced and professional officers in the

16 Yugoslav army who could transfer this information and their training to

17 their soldiers, so they started very, very cold from scratch. Otherwise,

18 we have the wrong impression here.

19 Q. I was just leading to that -- coming to that question concerning

20 human resources. Of course, if you want to build an area of

21 responsibility, you need human resources. And as much as possible, you

22 also need qualified human resources.

23 A. Yeah.

24 Q. And by "qualified" I mean to make a soldier it takes training and

25 almost any human being but if you need a doctor, if you need engineers,

1 and if you need lawyers, then if you have such professional qualification

2 as raw material, then you use those and go faster.

3 A. Yes, sir.

4 Q. And you also need, of course, material resources, where to build

5 an army takes a lot of money, because you need weapons, you need vehicles,

6 and you need infrastructures.

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. And to build an army, you also right from the get-go must include

9 an individual training system, as well as a professional education and

10 development system.

11 A. Yeah.

12 Q. And that if you put all of these together, then you will be able

13 to create a professional army with time.

14 A. [No audible response]

15 Q. And would you agree with me that today it would be quicker to

16 build a professional army because we have computers and because we have

17 some kind of collective memory, we can go on the Internet, like I said,

18 and pick all these document manuals. So it is possible to go quicker,

19 based on more information being available today. Would you agree with

20 that?

21 A. No. Even if you have all this information available, you have to

22 transfer this information into the knowledge of the individual soldier.

23 So the transformation process from having the knowledge here and getting

24 it into the behaviour of the soldier hasn't changed, no matter how much

25 information is applicable by that time. So they -- the time to need --

1 you need for the transformation of a civilian into a good soldier is

2 unaffected by our modern information age.

3 Q. Thank you, General.

4 One example I'd like to give you concerning procurement, because

5 you have been involved in procurement: It has been suggested that for a

6 nation to buy a tank, from the moment the requirement is identified, from

7 the moment the tank is delivered to the squadron, it could be up to ten

8 years.

9 A. This is very optimistic. I think it never happens in that short

10 period of time, at least not to my knowledge.

11 Q. Now, to do all of this, General, the creation of a professional

12 army with all these requirements and to have to do this and to try and put

13 it into perspective, with a 5 per cent of the troops being already

14 professional troops but 95 per cent of the troops being untrained soldiers

15 or former conscripts, would you agree with me that this would be a very

16 difficult challenge to do so in a combat environment?

17 A. I don't doubt about this, but I don't want to take an untrained

18 soldier on the same level as a conscript soldier. If you have a good

19 conscript system, the conscript soldiers still know a lot about what they

20 have learned, and you will use them to the utmost. And to come one step

21 back, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time; you can buy things

22 or use things which you find on the market and don't develop it on your

23 own, because otherwise you will really need the 30 years, as you said

24 before.

25 Q. Now, General, a commanding general who is fighting a war on his

1 own national territory in a defensive mode, being attacked by two enemies,

2 trying to create an army, trying to develop a training system, being

3 bogged down by some communications problem, how would you describe this

4 type of situation for a commanding general and what would be his focus at

5 the time?

6 A. He must be a world champion in improvisation. And there is not

7 only one focus; there is a whole bunch of focuses he has to concentrate

8 his efforts, because the key thing is for him to do the defence of his

9 country against those who attack him. And everything he does has to be

10 focussed on -- on this objective, and this is such a variety that I

11 just -- I just hesitate to say that there is one focus only. This is just

12 not possible, to focus on one thing.

13 Q. Thank you very much, General.

14 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I have another topic

15 for the rest of the day dealing with the responsibilities of a commander.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. It is 12.25. We

17 will resume at ten to 1.00.

18 --- Recess taken at 12.27 p.m.

19 --- On resuming at 12.55 p.m.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We will resume.

21 Mr. Bourgon, you have the floor.

22 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

23 Q. [In English] General Reinhardt, I'd like to move on with the

24 cross-examination on the responsibilities of a corps commander, of a

25 commanding general. I would like before I do so, however, to show you two

1 more documents. I would like to have the usher show these documents to

2 the General.

3 MR. BOURGON: If there are documents left over, if we can bring

4 them to the interpreters. I forgot to bring it to them.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, it would be very

6 useful for the interpreters to put all the documents on the ELMO, if

7 possible.

8 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

9 Q. [In English] General, I ask you to take a look at, first of all,

10 the document which has a diagram called Figure 2.1, "Combat power." And I

11 would ask if you can put it on the ELMO, which is the device immediately

12 to your right. And this will allow everyone to see the diagram.

13 This, General Reinhardt, is a Canadian document that relates to

14 combat power. The aim of the Defence in producing this document or in

15 showing it to you is whether you can relate moving from the centre, where

16 you have the commander in the middle, or the function of command, and

17 where you have combat power being defined into two distinct circles, the

18 first one meaning the combat functions, as being the main effort, the

19 tempo of operations, and synchronisation; and followed by, in the inner

20 circle, the six combat functions, as being command, followed by

21 information operations, followed by manoeuvre, firepower, protection, and

22 sustainment. I am not so much interested as -- in the text that I'm

23 presenting to you, but could you relate that this diagram does represent

24 the way we can picture combat operations and how you can increase your

25 combat power by following this procedure.

1 A. I don't know whether you can increase your combat power, but you

2 can maximise it in a way, because you don't get anything in addition to

3 what you have right now. Therefore, "increase" is probably not the proper

4 term. But you can maximise it, you can synergise it the way it's shown

5 here, and this is the key mission of the commander: Taking the means

6 available to him and make the maximum use out of it.

7 Q. If I refer you to the second document, which is a document

8 called, "Integration of Combat Functions," paragraph 66 of this document

9 refers exactly to what you have just mentioned, which is: "The multiple

10 combinations of the combat functions are designed by the commander to

11 produce maximum combat power."

12 Could you refer to paragraph 67 and see whether "Main effort,"

13 without -- whether this name can be employed or not, whether the first

14 paragraph determines a very important part of maximising combat power.

15 A. This is a fast-reading class I'm undergoing right now. It really

16 stresses very much on my mental flexibility. But I'll try to do it.

17 I think the key thing which is said here is that you have to --

18 to concentrate the forces available to you on one main objective; i.e.,

19 to -- to channelise everything you have and not to disperse your forces.

20 The more you have a main effort, the more successful you might be. And

21 therefore, we always go for a main effort, and to find the main effort is

22 one of the key missions or -- or to define the main effort is one of the

23 key missions of the commander.

24 Q. And if we refer to page 2 of this document, which paragraph 71 on

25 the top, about synchronisation. Could you elaborate on paragraph 71 and

1 what is meant by the "synchronisation."

2 A. I think "synchronisation" sounds very easy, but it's probably the

3 most difficult part in the execution of the operation because you have

4 different -- a different kind of forces to do the job, and you have air

5 forces, you have far-reaching artillery, you have helicopters, what have

6 you, and all these have to be synchronised in time on your main emphasis.

7 And to do this time-wise and also organisation-wise is a very heavy burden

8 and really makes the guts out of the capability of a commander, whether

9 he's capable of doing that, and not piecemealing his forces into business.

10 Q. And can you relate, General, to the line 3 of the paragraph 71,

11 where it is mentioned: "He is attacked or threatened from so many angles

12 at once that he is denied the ability to concentrate on one problem at a

13 time or to establish priorities and facing menacing dilemmas about how and

14 where to react, he is torn in different directions. Even if not totally

15 paralysed, he finds it hard to respond to coherently and in a timely

16 manner." Can you relate this description.

17 A. Yes, but you're not torn to pieces. I'm still here in my entity;

18 and General Hadzihasanovic as well. So, sure, this is right.

19 In [indiscernible] operations, this is very difficult. But let's stress

20 again that you're not constantly day and night, over days and weeks and

21 months in operations. There are operational pauses, and then it might be

22 necessary to take over some of the things which you had to delay during

23 the operations and catch up and try to solve the problems then. So this

24 is absolutely true in the peak of operations, that you basically

25 concentrate and leave everything aside, but this doesn't preclude you from

1 doing things which you are entitled to do or which you think are necessary

2 to do afterwards.

3 Q. And the last part on paragraph 74, with respect to tempo, it says

4 exactly what you've mentioned, that: "The tempo will also be a

5 determinate -- a determining factor."

6 A. Yeah. I agree with that.

7 Q. And at the last page of this document, where we have an

8 illustration again of the same three principles or combat functions into a

9 drawing, would you agree that this is -- when you compare the desired end

10 state that you will exercise main effort, synchronisation, and tempo in

11 order to apply maximum combat power?

12 A. Yes, I think this picture here is a good explanation of what you

13 actually have to do.

14 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to

15 tender the first page of the document with the diagram, just the first

16 page, because the rest does not matter, so only the first page with the

17 document, with three pages, "Integration of combat forces." I would like

18 to have a number, one number for the two documents.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

20 MR. MUNDIS: No objection, Mr. President.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Madam Registrar.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH149.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

24 MR. BOURGON:

25 Q. Moving on, General Reinhardt, in terms of the responsibilities of

1 a commander. Would you agree with me that if I tried to take all

2 responsibilities of a commanding general and to divide them into three

3 categories: Responsibilities towards the chain of command and the state;

4 responsibilities towards the troops and the subordinates; and legal

5 responsibilities?

6 A. Yes, sir.

7 Q. If I look at the first type of responsibility, which is

8 responsibility towards the chain of command and the state, would I be

9 right in talking about -- in this respect, the supremacy of the mission as

10 being the focus of the commanding general?

11 A. I think this is right.

12 Q. I take it, General, that you are familiar with the principles of

13 war?

14 A. You're read my Clausewitz. Yes, sir.

15 Q. I would like -- I would like to show you a document, General,

16 which basically is a comparison between the principles of war as applied

17 in a number of different armies in order to compare.

18 Looking at this diagram, first could you explain to the Trial

19 Chamber what is meant by the "principles of war"?

20 A. I think I really I have to look through this diagram first. I

21 see it for the first time. It's a rather complicated thing. I'm an old

22 general; I'm a retired general; it takes me a little bit more time.

23 But I think the principles of war, if I'd like to elaborate on

24 that, are principles which are applicable, notwithstanding which army it

25 is, notwithstanding which kind of operations it is, which apply

1 historically throughout our -- our perception of war, and this is that you

2 normally have to be effective, that you have to have a main emphasis, that

3 you have to use maximum surprise on the enemy on securing your own forces,

4 that you have to be very flexible, and that the -- that the war is

5 normally a part of the overall strategy of a country, of a state.

6 So surprise, security, concentration of forces is a key thing on

7 the battleground, but it -- it's based on the morale of the soldiers. If

8 you don't have the morale, if you don't have the discipline, if the

9 soldiers don't want to obey your orders because they are disillusioned or

10 so, all the other principles don't fit into the business. They don't

11 materialise, I would rather say.

12 So I think one of the key problems in all wars, notwithstanding

13 whether it is Alexander the Great or a war of today is how to maintain the

14 moral on the highest level, because this is your biggest asset.

15 Q. General, if I can refer you to -- in terms of line 1 of this

16 page, it talks about under "Canadian Forces," the number one principle of

17 war as being "selection and maintenance of the aim." That appears to be

18 the same for the British Army. That objective would be that for the

19 United States Army, "advance and consolidation" for the USSR Army - now,

20 you can see that this is an old document - and the People's Republic of

21 China as being the aim of war is "singleness of direction." Would you

22 agree with me, General, that this is -- for all these five different

23 countries, that this means the same?

24 A. Yeah.

25 Q. And can you relate to this principle?

1 A. Yeah.

2 Q. Can you explain what would be meant by "selection and maintenance

3 of the aim."

4 A. This is that you decide your main emphasis and you concentrate

5 everything on that main emphasis, which is the objective always is the

6 maintenance of the aim or the singleness of the direction; that is, you

7 have one key objective on which you coordinate all your forces.

8 Q. And if I refer you to the second page of this document, at the

9 bottom, where we talk about the ten principles of war and we talk about

10 paragraph 5(a), "Selection and maintenance of the aim," where it says

11 that: "In the conduct of war, as a whole and in every operation of war it

12 is essential to select and define the aim clearly. The ultimate aim is to

13 break the enemy's will to fight."

14 But my -- the issue I'd like to raise with you is five lines from

15 the bottom, where it says that: "The selection and maintenance of the aim

16 must be regarded as the master principle and has therefore been placed

17 first. The remaining principles are not given any particular order since

18 their relative importance will vary according to the nature of the

19 operation in question." Would you agree with this statement?

20 A. No. This is very academic, but the reality shows that this

21 normally, under normal principles, you go for the enemy's will to fight,

22 but it can be -- very well be just that you have the second principle,

23 making it the first principle.

24 Henry V, when he fought the French in Agincourt, he basically had

25 a much larger army in front of him, he was totally outnumbered, but based

1 on the maintenance of his morale he defeated a much higher and much, much

2 more efficient army just on the principle of morale.

3 So it -- it really can be a different way where you just wage the

4 principles of war differently; therefore, that this is the master

5 principle, this is one key principle, but you really have to play with the

6 elements which you have depending on the situation, depending on the enemy

7 on -- on the opposite number -- on the opposite side.

8 Q. And, General, if I can put my question another way as being the

9 master principle, what I'm referring to is the ultimate importance of the

10 mission, which would be determined by the application of all the other

11 principles.

12 A. Sure, the mission is your key direction under which you basically

13 concentrate everything you're doing. You always have the mission which is

14 given from higher headquarters as your basic azimuth of what you're doing.

15 Q. Now, if I may allow, General, from -- one question related to the

16 facts. Like I said, tomorrow will be more a factual day. But from the

17 documents that you have read, have you identified what would have been

18 General Hadzihasanovic's mission?

19 A. I think his key mission was to defend against the HVO and Bosnian

20 Serb forces, his own country, and to make sure that as few as possible of

21 his Muslim brothers and citizens in the area are -- have been molested.

22 So his main emphasis was to liberate -- to liberate those forces and those

23 people in the area of which he had responsibility from attack from two

24 sources attacking him at the same time.

25 Q. Thank you, General.

1 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I would like to

2 tender this document into evidence. I would like to have a number for it,

3 please.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis.

5 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, again, the Prosecution has no

6 objection to this document being admitted into evidence. We would, again,

7 ask for the source of this document to be provided to us in due course.

8 I'm also not sure if perhaps my learned colleague can comment on

9 the fact that the document on the bottom of page 2, at least, seems to

10 indicate that it's restricted. I don't know if this document is otherwise

11 in the public domain. Perhaps that's linked to the source of the

12 document, but I simply draw that to the Trial Chamber's attention.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, it does say "restricted"

14 on page 2. What is the provenance of this document?

15 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] This is from the Canadian Forces,

16 and the security code of the document is restricted. I don't know

17 exactly, but there are different codes. There are documents which do not

18 have any classification. The first level is the restricted diffusion. It

19 can be secret and very secret. The documents which are restricted are

20 limited, there is limited diffusion of the documents. However, there's no

21 problem for us using it. But my learned friend does have a point here.

22 He is not aware of the source, but we will inform them as soon as

23 possible.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Madam Registrar, can we have

25 the number, please.

1 THE REGISTRAR: Defence Exhibit DH150.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

3 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

4 Q. [In English] General Reinhardt, I'm moving on. Of course, that

5 was the upward responsibility, but there's also a downward

6 responsibility. Would you agree?

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. Now, in terms of the downward responsibility, I'm not sure about

9 the German Army, but at least in the Canadian Army it is an ongoing

10 dilemma as to is there such a thing as loyalty from the commander to the

11 troops. What would your reading of this -- what would you answer to this

12 question?

13 A. I wonder about the question mark.

14 Q. And if there was a situation in which a commander was placed

15 between what you say is the loyalty to the troops and loyalty to the chain

16 of command, which one would come first?

17 A. Well, he has to go for the loyalty of the chain of command

18 because this is his basic mission, but I think this is very academic, the

19 way you try to split it up. Because you can accomplish your mission only

20 with the troops on your hands. And if they're not loyal to you, your

21 loyalty towards the mission of the state cannot be executed. So this is

22 mutually supporting. And that applies to General Hadzihasanovic, like to

23 any other general. You know, you really have to have the loyalty of your

24 troops, because they have to sacrifice their life, they have to go into

25 combat, into fire. And normally they don't go into combat for any big

1 terms, like liberty and things like this; they go most of the time into

2 combat on loyalty for their brothers-in-arms and for their commander. If

3 they don't believe in their commander, they will not follow you.

4 So this is a thing which I'm very, very hesitant to say, this is

5 priority number 1, this is priority number 2. I think it's mutually

6 supporting.

7 Q. And in this sense, General, would you agree with me that in this

8 mutual supporting or supportive role that the commander as a minimum has a

9 duty to his troops to optimise their chances of survival and to maximise

10 the security of his subordinates?

11 A. Yeah.

12 Q. And that in doing so the commander will enhance cohesion,

13 confidence, and morale of his troops?

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. But in the same respect, when and should there be a conflict, he

16 will have to have the chain of command come first.

17 A. Yeah.

18 Q. Now, that was the downward responsibilities. Now, of course, we

19 come to the legal responsibilities. And from reading your report, I guess

20 you will agree with me that the legal responsibilities of a commander is

21 first and foremost to respect the law.

22 A. Yeah.

23 Q. And that includes the national laws, including degrees --

24 decrees, sorry, regulations, as well as binding army regulations.

25 A. Yeah.

1 Q. And that the commander must also respect international law.

2 A. He must --

3 Q. If it applies, of course.

4 A. Well, he has to respect it, and most of the time the national law

5 forces him to respect the international law, and it's amazing how much

6 stress the new Bosnian government has put on this question of

7 international law and the humanitarian law and made their soldiers aware

8 of how important it is for the new country.

9 Q. And are you referring in this comment to 1993?

10 A. 1992.

11 Q. 1992/1993, yes.

12 A. Yes, sir.

13 For me it was amazing seeing all those documents that in such a

14 difficult situation Bosnia was at that time how much stress was put on

15 making sure that the soldiers fighting the battles are obliged to adhere

16 to the rules of international law. I think this was a very important

17 thing, and it really struck me how much -- how much importance has been

18 given by that -- to that by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

19 Q. And would you agree with me that it is also the commander's

20 obligation to ensure that his subordinates of course respect and apply the

21 law?

22 A. Yeah.

23 Q. So not only the state has to do it but the commander also -- also

24 needs to do it.

25 A. Yeah.

1 Q. And you will also agree with me that it is the commander's

2 obligation or duty when there are breaches to the law to see that these --

3 that he suppress and repress, if necessary, these breaches.

4 A. Yes, he has to --

5 Q. And it is his duty to do so.

6 A. It's his duty to suppress them and to prevent repetitions of

7 these things.

8 Q. And because we mentioned earlier that the focus of the commander

9 was on his mission, would I be right in saying that all the good things we

10 have said about mission, about focus, about the difficulties of the

11 commander, that this must always be done within the confines of the law?

12 A. Absolutely.

13 Q. And that in this respect, the law is the left and right

14 boundaries of military action.

15 A. Yeah.

16 Q. However, that they will not be the focus of the commander as long

17 as -- as he is within those boundaries.

18 A. Absolutely. I agree with you.

19 Q. I move on to a section that also deals with the responsibilities

20 of the commander, and that basically deals with accountability versus

21 criminal liability. You have said in your report that a commander -- the

22 commanding general is responsible for everything. Do you see a difference

23 in this respect between accountability of a commander and the criminal

24 responsibility of a commander?

25 A. If I say he is responsible for everything in his area of

1 responsibility, I think that covers criminal aspects as well as

2 disciplinary and operational aspects. So everything, it's everything.

3 Q. But do you figure that accountability is the same as criminal

4 liability?

5 A. I must tell you, I think I'm not -- I'm not good enough to really

6 differentiate between those two terms. I don't -- I'm not firm enough in

7 your language to see the difference.

8 Q. I would like to show you a document, General Reinhardt.

9 MR. BOURGON: I would like to ask the usher to bring this

10 document. The reference of this document is -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I

11 thought you had the document. Sorry, I will wait.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It seems that there's not

13 enough copies for everybody in the courtroom.

14 MR. BOURGON:

15 Q. This document, General Reinhardt, is -- the reference is from the

16 Canadian National Defence, and this is from the chief of the defence

17 staff, and this is guidance to commanding officers taken out of 1999 and

18 2000, Book 1, and this is an executive summary. And what we see in this

19 document, the first part, which I put in bold: "The responsibilities of

20 an officer may involve the most hazardous and demanding circumstances and

21 of course carries with it the responsibility for the lives of their people

22 and the understanding of their risk, which are at the core of every

23 officer's responsibilities and competency." Would you agree with such a

24 statement?

25 A. Yeah.

1 Q. At paragraph 105.2, direction of guidance given is: "You must

2 abide by all prevailing laws, regulations, rules, and policies." And I

3 leave you to read the rest of this quote. But would you agree with this

4 statement?

5 A. Yeah.

6 Q. And that, talking about the responsibilities at paragraph 203.1,

7 the part in bold, it is mentioned that: "You have responsibilities to

8 your service, to the Canadian Forces, the nation, and humanity in general,

9 and that whether in peacetime or on operations, a commander, by force of

10 his personality, leadership, command style, and general behaviour has

11 considerable influence on the morale, sense of direction, and performance

12 of his staff and subordinate commanders."

13 Would you agree?

14 A. That's almost identical what I said before on the high importance

15 of the morale of the soldiers and your staff.

16 Q. I'd like to turn to the second page of this document, which

17 basically talks about authority, responsibility, and accountability. And

18 in the first paragraph, we talk about: "As a commanding officer you are

19 accountable for achieving results and for doing so within prevailing

20 laws." And then we go on to explain what is meant by "accountability."

21 Meaning that accountability is you are responsible for what happens and

22 everything that takes place within your unit. Would you agree with me?

23 A. Yeah.

24 Q. Would you agree with me that criminal liability is different in

25 terms of if a commander commits a crime, this will entail his criminal

1 liability?

2 A. Yeah.

3 Q. Now, we have mentioned -- or in your report you have mentioned

4 that there was such a thing as a vertical chain of command in that each

5 commander up the chain of command in the same chain were responsible for

6 one another.

7 A. Yeah.

8 Q. I'd like to mention one example to you. And again, it comes from

9 Canada, whereas in Somalia Canadian soldiers committed some violations,

10 whereas a Somali was tortured to death by two soldiers. Going up the

11 chain of command, the soldiers who committed the torture were charged and

12 court-martialled. The sergeant who was on duty that night was charged and

13 court-martialled. The duty officer, a captain, was also charged, even

14 though he had nothing to do with the act, on the basis because he was the

15 duty officer. And the commanding officer of the commando or the company

16 at that time was also charged in relation to the torturing of a Somali.

17 However, the commander of the unit was not charged. Based on your

18 experience, could you see a reason why the commander of the unit was not

19 charged?

20 A. The only reason I would see is that the commander of the unit by

21 the time this happened did not know about the incident and that once he

22 has known about the incident has taken all the means necessary to

23 investigate and to prevent further happening. So I would say that this

24 commander has taken the appropriate steps once he was informed what

25 happened, while the ones who were charged were the ones who knew what

1 happened and did -- were involved in these happenings. This is my

2 explanation. I don't know whether the explanation is right, but this will

3 be my explanation.

4 Q. Now, in this respect, I would like to provide you with two

5 further examples: The first one where yourself in your capacity as German

6 national commander for a number of deployments. Would you agree with me

7 that during those deployments, breaches of the law did take place by

8 German soldiers?

9 A. Yeah.

10 Q. And that you were not -- never in any way charged or had any

11 judicial procedures taken against you for such breaches.

12 A. No, I was never charged.

13 Q. But you were nevertheless responsible for those breaches.

14 A. But whenever I heard about something like this, I started

15 investigation right away.

16 Q. And would you agree with me, General, that in a sense that at

17 some point in the chain of command when it can be determined that a

18 commanding general acted reasonably, took the necessary and reasonable

19 measures in the circumstances, that in such a case he is no longer

20 criminally responsible?

21 A. Yes, sir.

22 Q. If I relate to your own example in Kosovo, where you were a

23 commander of KFOR, I relate to one incident of a -- if I take it -- I

24 believe it was a murder that was committed by a United States member -- a

25 member of the United States Army.

1 A. Yeah.

2 Q. And measures were taken.

3 A. Yeah.

4 Q. Not by yourself but by the United States military, because they

5 were responsible for the disciplinary aspect.

6 A. But also by myself.

7 Q. And you were not in any way involved in any judicial proceedings

8 about this event.

9 A. I was not involved in the judicial --

10 Q. Involved yourself, I mean.

11 A. -- proceeding. But I tell you this was a big thing for the KFOR

12 forces, and I really dug very much into that business and spent a lot of

13 time to make sure that things like this would not happen and that the

14 perpetrator was -- was pursued by his country accordingly.

15 Q. So you took the necessary and reasonable measures in the

16 circumstances to ensure that the matter would be dealt with.

17 A. Yes, sir.

18 Q. And in that respect, there was -- there was never an issue that

19 your personal liability --

20 A. No.

21 Q. -- would be involved.

22 A. No.

23 Q. I would like to refer to you [sic] to some of -- some quotes that

24 I found in some war crimes trial simply to know whether you would agree

25 with these quotes as applying or being an application of what I've just

1 mentioned. And the first one would be -- it comes from the Yamashita

2 judgement again. And I refer here to this -- to the test as being the

3 commander -- sorry, where the commander -- and I quote from page 169. No,

4 this is 169 of an article, I'm sorry. I would have to quote from -- this

5 is footnote 53, and that would be -- I will provide the reference later,

6 but it comes from the Yamashita judgement, and it says: "Where the

7 commander deviates significantly from customary command practices and war

8 crimes are committed by subordinates as a direct result, the commander may

9 be guilty of underlying offences just as if he had committed them

10 himself."

11 Can you comment on this quote, not again -- not from a legal

12 perspective, from a command perspective.

13 A. Well, I think the case being as you just described it, the

14 commander knew about criminal offences. He did not intervene. He let

15 them go, so in this case I think, yes, he is reliable and accountable.

16 Q. And I'd like to refer you to a different quote, this time in the

17 High Command case, and in this case we find the following rationale:

18 "Military subordination is a comprehensive but not conclusive factor in

19 fixing criminal responsibility. A high commander cannot keep completely

20 informed of the details of military operations of subordinates. He has

21 the right to assume that details entrusted to responsible subordinates

22 will be legally executed." Would you agree with this quote from a command

23 perspective?

24 A. Yeah.

25 Q. And it goes on to say: "There must be a personal dereliction

1 that can only occur where the act is directly traceable to him or where

2 his failure to properly supervise his subordinates constitute criminal

3 negligence on his part." From a command perspective, would you agree with

4 this quote?

5 A. Yes. I think the negligence part is the key question here.

6 Q. And it goes on to say- and this is my last - "In the latter

7 case, it must be a personal neglect amounting to a wanton immoral

8 disregard for the action of his subordinates, amounting to acquiescence.

9 Any other interpretation of international law would go far beyond the

10 basic principles of criminal law as known to civilised nations." From a

11 command perspective, would you agree with this quote?

12 A. Could you -- could you repeat the quote. I think -- I think I

13 just didn't -- I just didn't get it --

14 Q. I see time running by. It's my mistake. I apologise.

15 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel please slow down.

16 MR. BOURGON:

17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... quote again, and it

18 goes: "In the latter case, it must be a personal neglect amounting to a

19 wanton immoral disregard of the action of his subordinates amounting to

20 acquiescence. Any other interpretation of international law would go far

21 beyond the basic principles of criminal law as known to civilised

22 nations."

23 A. Well, this is on a very high level and very abstract, I must say,

24 but basically yes, I think I would go with that.

25 Q. General Reinhardt, in your written report - and I refer you to a

1 specific paragraph in your report - where you deal with the actions that

2 must be taken by a commander. And I take it that -- I think this is an

3 issue that comes, again, into one more place in your report.

4 Paragraph 2.14.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And this is at the top of page 5. So I'll start with -- sorry,

7 with the bottom of page 4, so we have the full paragraph, so we

8 don't -- "A commander has to investigate and to initiate appropriate

9 actions as soon as he becomes aware of alleged or de facto criminal

10 activities or acts violating international law committed by individuals or

11 units in his area of responsibility."

12 Now, your reference in this case is the German Military

13 Disciplinary Code. I can refer you to the exact section of the Penal

14 Code, but may I suggest to you that the words "as soon as he becomes

15 aware" are not found in the German Penal Code.

16 A. Yeah, I didn't quote verbatim.

17 Q. And you go on in this respect by saying that: "By individuals or

18 units in his area of responsibility." Now, you recall that yesterday we

19 discussed that the only legal provision that you could find concerning

20 area of responsibility was of no application and that there were no other

21 that you could find which talked about area of responsibility. Should

22 that be so -- because, of course, it is for the Trial Chamber to determine

23 whether that is the situation or not. But should that be the situation,

24 in the sense that the area of responsibility is not to be found in a legal

25 text, would you agree with me that what is the test is the applicable

1 international law?

2 A. Well, there's no question about the applicable of the

3 international law [sic]. But I think the way you interpret what I said

4 yesterday is too exclusive. What I talked about yesterday in this law

5 which you said is not applicable, the JNA law on the rules of the

6 application of international law, it says that the commander is

7 responsible also for the things done by units under his command and even

8 individuals not under his command, in his area of responsibility. So for

9 me it's not the question of the area of responsibility which I was quoting

10 yesterday in -- I think it's Article 21 of this regulation, but it's --

11 it's the question of responsibility for things done by subordinates and

12 even non-subordinates but somehow operating in his area of responsibility.

13 I think area of responsibility is found more often in the

14 different legal papers I have -- I went through.

15 Q. Now, General, if I suggest to you that -- that "area of

16 responsibility" and "acts committed by others" is not the applicable

17 standard, neither in national law or international law - I just suggest to

18 you - are you telling me that on your -- on the basis of your professional

19 experience you are talking about area of responsibility or are you talking

20 area of responsibility and others as a matter of law?

21 A. I think this is not exclusive. I think you are given an area of

22 responsibility as a commander with troops, with a geographical limit for

23 which you are responsible, and everything which happens in that area has a

24 legal aspect to the things you are responsible for. So I don't see this

25 exclusively as you see that. I think -- well, I don't want to repeat it.

1 I just -- I just tried to explain myself. This is the way I interpret

2 this, the way I was trained and educated to -- to see the area of

3 responsibility.

4 Q. And my last question, just to finalise on this issue: Do you see

5 a difference between a commander who is in occupation, occupying a

6 territory as being responsible for what happened in his area and a

7 commander who is not into an occupying mode?

8 A. Well, he must have the means to effect -- to have effective

9 control over the forces in the area and over the area he is responsible

10 for; otherwise, if he's just been given an area without the means to

11 control it, he can't execute what he's supposed to do. So again, this

12 both is somewhere very closely supplementary.

13 Q. And what if the -- in the area of responsibility a civilian

14 authority, as we discussed earlier today, was still -- the civil

15 authorities were still operating --

16 A. Yeah.

17 Q. -- and that they are responsible for what he is not responsible

18 for as a commander?

19 A. Well, as far as criminal activities are being committed by

20 civil -- by civilians, they are being dealt with by the still-existing

21 civilian authorities.

22 Q. I leave it at that, General.

23 I just now go on to, again, the top of this paragraph, where you

24 go on to say: "In this case, he must immediately initiate an

25 investigation." And you quote paragraph 18 -- footnote 18 in Section 46

1 of the German Penal Code. May I suggest to you that Section 46 of the

2 German Penal Code does not refer to "immediately initiate." Would I be

3 correct? I could refer you to the German Penal Code, but would I be

4 correct?

5 A. No. The things which are in 56 are the bullets which I -- which

6 follow here. This is the way I'm -- I've been trained, based on the

7 German law, that if something happens like this, I as a commander have to

8 react as soon as possible as I know that, and maybe immediately might be

9 too harsh on that, but this is at least my understanding, that you have to

10 react as soon as something is in your knowledge in this regard. You

11 cannot defer it, because it's too important.

12 Q. And in this respect - because you say that this is the way that

13 you were trained - so you're not saying that this is what the law

14 requires.

15 A. I don't know right now whether the law says "immediately," but

16 the law says all these bullets which follow afterwards.

17 Q. And that would be in footnote 18.

18 A. Yeah.

19 Q. Section 46.

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. Because I have Section 46 here, and I think it is important that

22 we take --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel come to the microphone, please.

24 Could counsel come to the microphone, please.

25 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] I have only five more minutes,

1 Mr. President. I believe that it is very important for me to pursue in

2 order to clarify this situation.

3 Q. [In English] [Previous translation continues] ... German Penal

4 Code just so we can clarify this matter. Can you take it from the

5 material that is with you --

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, we don't have the

7 text. Perhaps you would be kind enough to read to us Article 46.

8 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I shall

9 read Article 46. It is a text drafted in English, and it reads as

10 follows: [In English] Supervision, senior -- [Interpretation]

11 Mr. President, I think the best idea would be to put the text on the ELMO

12 so that everyone can see the text.

13 Q. [In English] [Previous translation continues] ... if you could

14 put it on the device immediately to your right, the ELMO, so that everyone

15 can see Section 46. And, of course --

16 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Mr. President, this is the

17 Article 46 of the German Penal Code, disciplinary code.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So it's not the Penal Code.

19 It's the disciplinary code. I see, the disciplinary code of the German

20 Army.

21 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] And this is the reference given by

22 the witness in his report at footnote 18.

23 Q. [In English] If I read this text, you have the German in front of

24 you, would I be right in saying that what this section refers to is what a

25 senior disciplinary superior can do with respect to measures that were

1 taken by a first-level disciplinary superior?

2 A. Or not taken.

3 Q. Or not taken.

4 A. Yes, sir.

5 Q. Well, or not taken -- I'd like you to refer to me as to where it

6 says "not taken," because I don't see that in Section 46.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] On the ELMO, we have the German

8 text. Could we have the English translation, please.

9 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] I have the text in French. Only

10 I've marked it in colour. If my colleagues accept, I can have that one

11 placed onto the overhead projector.

12 Mr. President, this is the text, headed "Supervision." And I'm

13 reading it: "The definition of the senior disciplinary superior is given

14 earlier on."

15 [In English] [Previous translation continues] ... "in the

16 exercise of their disciplinary authority."

17 [Interpretation] And the Article continues regarding disciplinary

18 superiors who issue disciplinary measures and what can be done to cancel

19 them.

20 [In English] [Previous translation continues] ... so that we have

21 the full -- and even if we go up --

22 [Interpretation] If we move it further up, we will see that

23 nothing is stated in this section that refers to measures that need to be

24 taken if the first disciplinary level has not taken any measures.

25 [In English] Could you switch to the second page.

1 Q. Now, General, my point is not whether -- I mean, this is -- this

2 is the law. The Chamber is there to interpret the law. And in addition,

3 this is German law. My point is not this. My point was simply that in

4 this code of discipline, which is your national German provision, the idea

5 of these measures that you're talking about in paragraph 2.14 are not

6 there, but I take it that this is the way you were trained.

7 A. This is -- I think I have to say again. This is not a verbatim

8 quotation from that as you see this in the bullets. And if you look

9 into 17, footnote 17, I say, "This is between section 28 and 41." These

10 are the measures which I basically deduct from the contents of my law.

11 The way I've interpreted it, the way I had done this, and as I say, you

12 have to make an immediate investigation based on Article 46 to do that.

13 I did not -- I did not want to say that this is the -- some kind

14 of verbatim of 48. This is the condensed or condensation of the measures

15 I as a German commander would be responsible to take based on 21 to 46.

16 Q. Thank you, General. But the only issue I was trying to bring

17 about is that in neither of these sections, from 28 to 41, including 46,

18 the issue of area of responsibility and the issue of immediately are, in

19 my view, not there.

20 A. That's true. That's true.

21 Q. -- issue of debate. I just wanted to bring that up.

22 A. "Immediately" is not there.

23 Q. Now, with respect to the issue of "immediately," I'd like to read

24 you a quote, which I took from a -- an article written by a former United

25 States marine who has become a very well-known writer.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, we should finish

2 soon. It's five to 2.00.

3 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Yes, I will, Mr. President. I just

4 have one more question.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please finish off, because we

6 can't stay over 2.00.

7 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation]

8 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... of this law article, the

9 author is Mr. Hays Parks, and he basically reviews the theory of prompt

10 investigation. And he says that: "To the commander whose forces are

11 heavily engaged in an intense operation or pitch battle, no reasonable

12 means may exist to secure prompt punishment of an offence prior to the

13 conclusion of that engagement. The theory of prompt investigation, trial,

14 and punishment will be more stringently applied to a commander in a static

15 tactical situation than one in a very fluid fast-moving situation which

16 requires complete devotion to the accomplishment of the mission at hand."

17 Would you agree with this statement?

18 A. I wouldn't contradict.

19 Q. Can you repeat? I'm sorry, I--

20 A. I would not contradict it.

21 Q. Now, my last question simply is: Can you confirm that when a

22 commander, a commanding general, has been shown not to have himself

23 committed a crime and he has not -- and he has acted reasonably and

24 necessary in the circumstances, that this commanding general should not

25 incur criminal liability?

1 A. You imply something right now and want an answer which is very

2 difficult, because as I said before, you are not constantly in the

3 situation as you quoted it before. There are pauses in the operations.

4 You are not six months constantly under this kind of stress. So I -- I

5 basically agreed to what you have said before under that particular stress

6 of a battle. But the question is: Will this continue or will this

7 discontinue? And then you have an operational pause or something like

8 this, where you can catch up what you could not have done beforehand, and

9 I think this is the important thing I want -- I want -- we will have to

10 see that what you have just said is absolutely right but it's not

11 constantly a way in which a commander is under this kind of battle stress

12 and battle fatigue.

13 Q. And therefore, would it be fair to say that you have to look at

14 all the circumstances --

15 A. Yeah.

16 Q. -- everything that was done, all the situations in order to

17 assess that?

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon.

19 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President, thank you.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Bourgon, there's a document

21 whose fate we don't know. It's a document entitled, "Authority,

22 Responsibility and Accountability." What are we going to do with that

23 document?

24 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] I'd rather not tender it,

25 Mr. President.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. In that case,

2 today's hearing, which was longer by 15 minutes than planned, is closing.

3 General Reinhardt, please come back tomorrow for the hearing,

4 which will start at 9.00.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And, of course, as I told you

7 yesterday, from now until then you shouldn't have any contact with any

8 party.

9 Thank you very much. We will meet again tomorrow at 9.00.

10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.59 p.m.,

11 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 5th day of

12 May, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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