NATO And KLA In Cahoots

Military video shows a stick of 44 bombs from a B-52 catching several hundred Serb troops in the open. The successful attack is the payoff of a secret intelligence operation that allowed NATO aircraft to fly missions in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army, even though allied officials insisted there was no formal coordination with the KLA.

"We've indicated before we don't intend to serve as an air force for the KLA," Secretary of Defense William Cohen said during the bombing.

But CBS News has learned American and British operators worked with the KLA and reported its battle plans to NATO which tailored its strikes to take advantage of what was happening on the ground. They also gave the KLA video cameras to take into Kosovo to document evidence of war crimes, including this massacre of civilians.

The KLA was no match for the Yugoslav army, but when the guerrillas attacked, the Serbs would have to mass their heavy weapons, making excellent targets for B-52s and B-1s. During the first two months of the war, NATO planes destroyed only a small fraction of Serb forces in Kosovo. Once the KLA went on the offensive -- and coincidentally, the weather cleared -- the number of kills skyrocketed, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

"You can see almost exponentially it starts to go up," Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Shelton said, pointing to a graph. "To the point that when we suspended we were up to 450 artillery and mortar pieces, approximately, about 220 armored personnel carriers and we're up around 120 tanks."

Pentagon officials say that without the secret intelligence operation with the KLA, the air war almost certainly would have dragged on much longer.