BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- U.S. B-52 bombers took off from their base in Britain Wednesday, and air raid sirens sounded in Kosovo's capital after NATO gave the go-ahead for allied airstrikes on Yugoslavia.
With NATO poised to strike, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic called on his people to defend the country "by all means."Milosevic delivered the appeal in a nationally televised address as it appeared NATO was about to launch its first attack against a sovereign country in its 50-year history.
"What is at stake here is the freedom of the entire country," Milosevic said. He reiterated his rejection of foreign troops to police a U.S.-brokered peace deal for Kosovo.
The decision on when to start the attacks lay with U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's top commander. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave Clark the formal go-ahead Tuesday night.
"No alternative is open but to take military action," Solana said solemnly at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Solana announced his move just hours after last-ditch talks in Belgrade between Milosevic and U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke ended infailure.
President Clinton cast the confrontation Wednesday as a stand against "destructive racial, ethnic, religious and cultural" aggression and offered thinly veiled criticism of Milosevic, referring to "people that are determined to divide and drive wedges between people because they are of different ethnic and religious groups."
Meanwhile, national security adviser Sandy Berger told a meeting of House Democrats that the airstrikes were imminent, according to participants.
Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, the House's No. 3 Democrat, raised the possibility that Clinton might make a prime-time address Wednesday night. "He does need to explain this to the American public. While many members of Congress have some reservations, members of Congress by and large have decided this is the right thing to do at the right time. But now he must take this to the public," Frost said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen were summoned to the White House before 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. After a briefing by his national security team, Clinton telephoned Russian President Boris Yeltsin and spent 35 minutes explaining Holbrooke's lack of progress with Milosevic and trying to stave off a rift in U.S.-Russian relations.
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov showed his opposition to the planned bombing by postponing his visit to Washington.
Clinton prepared the nation for an imminent attack on Serb targets, saying that although American troops would be at risk, the air campaign is necessary for Europe's long-term stability.
"I want to level with you," Clinton said in a speech Tuesday. "This is like any other military action. There are risks." But he said American diplomatic efforts had reached a dead end and Serb troops were terrorizing and murdering civilians in Kosovo.
"We have to take a stand now," Clinton said. "If we don't, we will have to do it later."
An opening volley of cruise missiles could be fired from four U.S. Navy ships and two submarines in the Adriatic, along with one British sub, plus the B-52 bombers flying from England. Also likely to be among the first in action: the Air Force F-117 Stealth fighter-bombers based in Italy.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday that the Yugoslav Army was dispersing its air defense equipment in anticipation of NATO airstrikes. Yugoslav officials, citing an "imminent threat of war," declared a state of emergency, mobilized troops and put the army on a high state of alert.
"We have plans for a swift and severe air campaign," Bacon told reporters. "This will be painful to the Serbs."
Fighting raged in several Kosovo villages Wednesday.
Serb tanks could be heard firing volley after volley for nearly two hours near the Blace border crossing into neighboring Macedonia, 12 miles north of the Macedonian capital Skopje.
An Associated Press television news crew saw three devastated villages with about 100 houses ablaze about two miles across the border from Blace.
The refusal of Milosevic to call off attacks and sign a peace plan agreed to in Paris last week by the ethnic Albanians, despite repeated pleas from the West, prompted NATO officials late Tuesday to order the allied military action.
Yugoslavia warned its citizens of impending airstrikes, shutting down the independent Belgrade radio station B-92 and declaring a state of emergency -- its first since World War II.