'We bomb now, we invade later'

NATO LEADERS in Washington pledged yesterday to bomb Yugoslavia until it withdraws from Kosovo, while behind the scenes preparations began for a ground invasion once the risk of allied casualties looks minimal.

According to senior sources with Tony Blair in Washington for the Nato summit, this could come within a month. A British diplomatic source said: "It will take four to five weeks, then we will see where we are."

As the alliance pondered the risks of land war, Russia launched a last- minute peace initiative. Russia's Balkan envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, said in Belgrade after talks with President Slobodan Milosevic that Serbia was ready to accept an international presence in the province under United Nations auspices. Nato leaders responded cautiously to to what some fear is a ploy to derail the summit and split the alliance.Mr Blair said on US television: "We have to see the details of what Mr Chernomyrdin has brought ... because we don't know enough about it at the moment. "

Reaction from the White House was more positive,with President Bill Clinton saying it could represent progress: "If there is an offer for a genuine security force, that's the first time Mr Milosevic has done that and that represents, I suppose, some step forward." White House officials were subsequently more cautious, warning of a "propaganda ploy".

In the past two weeks, Nato has modified its insistence that any force entering Kosovo should be "Nato-led", saying instead that it should be an "international security force".

The apparent shift in the Yugoslav position came after an overnight missile attack on one of President Milosevic's residences. Washington categorically denied it was an assassination attempt, and the Pentagon insisted the building was equipped with command and control facilities and therefore a military target. A US presidential order forbids the assassination of foreign leaders.

As Nato leaders gathered for the 50th anniversary summit, it was clear a consensus favoured continuing the air campaign with no compromise. But views diverged on the need to deploy ground forces without the written agreement of Mr Milosevic, in conditions that could expose them to combat.

Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, said: "We are not going to commit ground forces in a hostile environment, nor do we need to. Time is our greatest ally."He appeared not to insist, however, on a formal agreement with Yugoslavia before the force was deployed.

The US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said US policy on ground troops had not changed: "We do not favour deployment of ground forces into a hostile environment."

At a joint appearance with Nato's secretary-general, Javier Solana, Mr Clinton said the alliance would "up the military pressure on Belgrade till the goal is met". But he supported Mr Solana's decision to order a revised assessment of the force needed for combat and non-combat intervention in Kosovo.

The five key players in Nato, the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy, have been in nightly contact to form a cohesive core at the summit and diplomats said Germany would remain committed to the campaign, in spite of misgivings by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's Green coalition partners.

In an attempt to put the Kosovo crisis in a broader context, Mr Blair last night proclaimed the outline of a new international doctrine that would justify outside military intervention in the internal affairs of other countries - superseding the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Speaking in Chicago, he said: "One state should not feel it has the right to change the political system of another or foment subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some claim. But ... acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter." Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and white minority rule in South Africa were examples of threats to international peace.

Mr Blair listed Nato as one of the major international institutions that would require changes to match the "globalisation" of the next century. With implied criticism of Nato's performance over Kosovo, Mr Blair said this would mean: "For Nato, once Kosovo is successfully concluded, a critical examination of the lessons to be learnt and the changes we need to make in organisation and structure."