Chapter 11, Srebrenica: "Getting Creamed" Summary

In July 1995, three years after the start of the Bosnian war, Serb forces invaded the safe area of Srebrenica, overrunning UN forces. The safe area was home to over 40,000 Muslim men, women, and children. Over the next week, Ratko Mladic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, separated the Muslim men and boys from the women. His forces pursued anyone who tried to escape. In the end, he had slaughtered 7,000 Muslims. This was the largest massacre in Europe in over fifty years.

In the days before the invasion and massacre, no one in the West, besides the UN peacekeepers and the Muslims in Srebrenica, took the threat seriously. U.S. intelligence agents believed that the Serbs would not try to take the town, as they would then have to deal with the inhabitants of the safe area. Rather, agents believed...