Word: yugoslavs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...another American President has put his faith in the spooks from Langley to get rid of an unsavory leader, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. As NATO warplanes roared over Serbia this spring, Bill Clinton signed a secret presidential "finding" giving the CIA the green light to try to topple Milosevic's regime. The agency's covert operation, sources tell TIME, is part of a wide-ranging plan Clinton has approved to oust the Serbian strongman. On the record, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says, "We are making it quite clear that we don't see Milosevic in the future...
...gave no immediate details and was prodded into a hasty backgrounder only after China's notoriously unforthcoming Xinhua News Agency outlined the U.S. positions: the use of maps that did not correctly identify the embassy; a U.S. intelligence officer who breached procedures in mistakenly picking the embassy over the Yugoslav directorate for procurement; outdated databases; aircrews unable to see identifying markers. Xinhua treated claims of procedural errors with disbelief, saying many current maps accurately identify the embassy and that the building and the directorate look nothing alike. Only three U.S. papers were invited to the American briefing, provoking a letter...
While only a few people in Moscow were privy to the plan, it seems to have been well known and warmly welcomed in Belgrade. The Yugoslavs went out of their way to facilitate the convoy's movement, Russian military sources say. Serbian state officials secured the convoy's route through Serbia and ensured that a road into Kosovo was kept free of refugees and retreating troops. To allow the convoy to travel at top speed as much as possible, a Yugoslav military officer rode in every third vehicle, ready to navigate if the convoy was broken up in traffic...
...using limited military force to achieve limited goals. No, say Western military analysts surveying the bomb damage now that the dust has settled. Monday?s New York Times reports that NATO forces have discovered, upon entering Kosovo and observing the Serb withdrawal, that the damage inflicted on the Yugoslav army was considerably less than had been initially claimed by the alliance. "NATO hit a lot of dummy and deception targets," a former alliance commander was quoted as telling European diplomats. Western officers found very few damaged tanks, military vehicles and artillery pieces. And some of the bombed equipment that they...
...Monday observed the anniversary of their historic defeat in Kosovo by the Ottoman Empire in 1389, one question facing NATO is what exactly compelled Milosevic to surrender the province 610 years later. The impact of the bombing campaign appears to have weighed less on the fighting ability of the Yugoslav army in Kosovo than on the civilian infrastructure in Serbia proper. And many analysts believe it was actually the prospect of a ground invasion by NATO that forced the Serb leader?s turnabout. But the question is about a lot more than apportioning credit: Conventional wisdom holds that bombing alone...