Responding to horror stories of Nazi-style concentration camps, President Bush on Thursday demanded immediate international access to all detention camps in the former Yugoslav republics and vowed to do ”whatever it takes”
to deliver relief supplies to the besieged people of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Bush said he is establishing full diplomatic relations with Bosnia and two other former Yugoslav republics, Croatia and Slovenia. All three have declared independence from Yugoslavia.
Bush, criticized by Congress and Democratic rival Bill Clinton for responding too timidly to ethnic warfare in the Balkans, raised the possibility of limited military intervention along with the mainly diplomatic steps the administration is taking to prevent the conflict from expanding further and to address the most urgent humanitarian needs.
He is being prodded to take stronger action as well by some senior members of his own party, such as Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), and other conservative voices, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
But it was evident Bush remains extremely reluctant to commit American forces in what officials fear would be a military quagmire. There have been estimates that it would take a force of 20,000 troops or more just to provide for the secure delivery of humanitarian aid.
”My heartfelt hope is that (military force) will not prove necessary,”
he said.
The eyewitness accounts of executions, torture and rape at the camps, particularly those under Serbian control, have triggered international outrage and calls for outside intervention, even from the Vatican.
A high-ranking Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, suggested Thursday that Pope John Paul II would support United Nations or European military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina to permit delivery of relief supplies.
In addition, a number of Muslim countries, such as Turkey and Iran, are calling for intervention in Bosnia, which is 43 percent Muslim.
On Capitol Hill, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-4 for a resolution asking the president to call an emergency UN meeting to discuss possible military intervention.
The resolution called for using ”all necessary means, including military force” to protect deliveries of humanitarian relief to Bosnia and to halt the shelling of civilians.
And it implied a willingness to see American forces used in such a military effort.
”I encourage my fellow senators to reflect upon the reality of American casualties, as they will occur,” said Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of four GOP senators voting against the measure.
The president, ending a Western campaign swing, said he is asking the UN Security Council to pass a resolution authorizing the use of ”all necessary means”-UN parlance for military force-to ensure delivery of desperately needed food and medicine to Bosnia.
In fact, the U.S. has been seeking such a resolution for some time, and Bush acknowledged that the effort has been stalled by some countries unwilling to authorize what they regard as outside military intervention in the internal affairs of a nation.
More than a month ago, Bush and the leaders of the other major industrialized democracies said at their annual economic summit in Munich that they would seek the Security Council`s approval to use military force if necessary to provide humanitarian relief to civilians in Bosnia.
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”The international community cannot stand by and allow innocent children, women and men to be starved to death,” Bush said Thursday, standing on the airport tarmac before heading back to Washington.
Bush added that he felt ”a moral obligation” to see the detention camps inspected by international observers.
While Bush said that U.S. intelligence currently ”cannot confirm”
reports of full-fledged extermination camps, reports and pictures of emaciated inmates were ghastly reminders of the Nazi camps half a century ago.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said ”up-to-the-minute” intelligence, presumably from reconnaissance satellites, had been unable to find evidence of death camps.
The president said he has not ordered any mobilization of U.S. troops to deal with the crisis because U.S. armed forces already have ”significant assets” available in the region, including an aircraft carrier battle group located in or near the Adriatic Sea.
A day earlier, Democrat Clinton said it was time to use military force to stop the bloodshed in Bosnia.
”I would begin with air power, against the Serbs, to try to restore the basic conditions of humanity,” he said, campaigning Wednesday at a high school in East St. Louis, Ill.
Bush was asked about the possible use of air power against the Serbian artillery and mortar positions in the hills around the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, which came under renewed mortar attack Thursday night.
The president replied, ”This is a very complicated military question-very, very complicated, indeed. We have the best intelligence in the world on this, and it is not an easy military problem, even for our fantastic air force.”
Bush outlined non-military measures intended to ”defuse and contain”
the Balkan ethnic wars. The U.S. will work toward tighter international economic sanctions against Serbia ”so that all understand there is a real price to be paid for the Serbian government`s continued aggression.”
And Bush said the U.S. will ask the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main Europe-wide security and human rights organization, to place official civilian observers in the Balkan republics not yet involved in the fighting and in bordering countries, including Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
Bush said he will nominate ambassadors ”shortly” to the newly recognized nations of Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia.
The U.S. has recognized the independence of those former republics in April, but had not gone the next step of establishing formal diplomatic relations.
Ethnic rivalries have turned the Balkans into a ”true humanitarian nightmare,” Bush said, with 2.2 million refugees.
”To truly end the humanitarian nightmare, we must stop the policy of ethnic cleansing,” Bush said.