Pentagon to ask Clinton to call up 33,000 reservists

ALSO NATO strikes Montenegro airport, targets in Serbia U.S. officials: No quick end to war, casualties likely  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo

April 16, 1999
Web posted at: 9:52 a.m. EDT (1352 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon wants authorization to activate up to 33,000 U.S. military reservists and National Guard members, mostly air personnel, to bolster NATO strikes against Yugoslavia, CNN was told on Friday.

The Pentagon is expected to present the call-up request next week and President Clinton is likely to approve it, military officials said.

There was no information on how long the activated personnel would serve.

Most of those called up would be in the Air Force Reserve or the Air National Guard, to handle duties such as refueling and aircraft servicing.

While many will be pilots or crew members for tankers, cargo planes or other support aircraft, some will operate fighter jets, including F-16s and A-10s, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The newspaper also said the Army is expected to call up a large contingent of reservists, many of them to support the deployment of two dozen Apache helicopter gunships to Albania.

The call-up would be the biggest since more than 200,000 reservists were activated during the Persian Gulf War.

The U.S. military relies heavily on reservists, sometimes called "citizen soldiers," for almost any large operation.

Many of the Air Force refueling aircraft in the Balkans already are operated by members of the Air National Guard. Nine Air Guard refueling wings from nine states already are participating in the NATO missions, as are KC-135 refueling units from five Air Force Reserve wings in five states.

The call-up of additional forces would follow a major buildup of U.S. and other NATO aircraft in the effort to halt Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province.

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