With an elite force of 2,000 Marines positioned on ships off the coast of Bosnia, President Clinton for the first time Wednesday said he is willing to order the “temporary use” of U.S. combat troops to help UN peacekeepers move to safer positions in that warring nation.
In doing so, Clinton is crossing the line that both he and his predecessor, George Bush, drew to prevent American ground forces from being drawn into the bloody Balkan conflict, now in its fourth year.
The president, despite having repeatedly ruled out American ground troops in the past, made it clear that the U.S. must be willing to help European allies whose peacekeepers are being targeted and taken hostage by defiant Bosnian Serbs.
“We have obligations to our NATO allies and I do not believe we can leave them in the lurch,” Clinton said in a commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. “So I must carefully review any request for an operation involving a temporary use of our ground forces.”
The policy shift came as British Prime Minister John Major spoke out forcefully against the withdrawal of UN forces from Bosnia and declared he would not be blackmailed by Bosnian Serb hostage-taking.
A withdrawal of forces, he told the House of Commons, could unleash a wider Balkan war and risk plunging Bosnia itself into “genocide.”
Clinton’s remarks and the British show of resolve coincided with the first indication of a possible break in the hostage crisis.
Miroslav Toholi, spokesman for the rebel Bosnian Serbs, told reporters in Bosnia that the Serbs were ready for immediate talks with the five-nation Contact Group about the hostage issue. He said the talks could be held in Pale, the self-styled Bosnian Serb capital, or in Sarajevo.
Toholi did not spell out the Bosnian Serbs’ intentions. But his statement could represent a recognition by Serb leaders that they have deepened the isolation in which they find themselves by taking hostages and are ready to seek a way out.
In Paris, French Premier Alain Juppe called for a meeting in Paris on Saturday of defense ministers from countries with peacekeeping troops in Bosnia to discuss creation of a rapid reaction force to better protect United Nations peacekeepers.
Juppe told the National Assembly that Britain’s decision to send an initial reinforcement of 1,000 troops would contribute to a rapid reaction force, as would 500 elite French troops aboard an aircraft carrier en route to the Adriatic.
In London, Britain’s Lord David Owen announced he would resign by the end of June after three years as the European Union’s peace mediator in the former Yugoslavia. A spokesman said he was quitting because he thought three years was enough and not because of policy differences with European governments.
But Owen told the House of Lords he feared British forces were being sucked into war in Bosnia and said he was convinced UN forces would have to be withdrawn by autumn. He said, however, that Britain’s reinforcement of its troops could make a “useful contribution” if it led to negotiations on a settlement.
In Washington, Clinton’s announcement was criticized immediately by congressional Republicans such as Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, who called the potential U.S. involvement “nothing more than a policy of reinforcing failure.”
And it is unclear how deeper military involvement will be received by an American public that, according to polls and members of Congress, seems to be of two minds: People favor stronger action to end the carnage in Bosnia, but they are deeply apprehensive about American casualties and a Vietnam-like entanglement.
A poll conducted six weeks ago by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes found that a 87 percent of respondents favored military force in Bosnia to ensure delivery of food and other aid, and 65 percent supported military action to protect civilians in the so-called “safe areas.”
But Rep. Lee Hamilton, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said Wednesday the only comment he hears back in his Indiana district is, “Stay out of Bosnia. That’s the sum and substance of it. Stay out of Bosnia, don’t send our young men and women into Bosnia.”
The prospect of American casualties could carry a heavy political price for Clinton, criticized even by some members of his own party for doing little to explain to the American public why U.S. troops should be sent to Bosnia.
Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who like Dole is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said the U.S. should help its allies withdraw from Bosnia and then lift the arms embargo.
Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he opposed deployment of U.S. troops.
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And Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), briefed on the administration’s plans, said he expects to see American troops help with rescue and redeployment of the UN peacekeepers.
Anything more, he said, “is going to require congressional action-much as the White House may not like it.”
In an indication of the split developing on Capitol Hill, Illinois’ two Democratic senators are at odds on the issue. Sen. Paul Simon said the introduction of U.S. ground troops may prove inevitable.
“What we can’t do is let (the situation) deteriorate further, and how we do that I’m not sure. I think it has to be more than diplomacy at that point,” Simon said in a morning news conference in Chicago. “If the decision is to pull (UN troops) out, then I think we have to assist. If the decision is to send in more ground troops to stabilize the situation, I don’t think the United States can say, `You do it all, we’re not going to do anything.’ “
But Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun opposes deployment of American forces.
“We need to think real hard whether U.S. ground troops in Bosnia will serve any achievable end at this point,” she said in an interview in Chicago. “Look at the map, look at where the hostages are. They’re all over the place. If anything, that has been one of the problems with this conflict from the very beginning . . . the enclaves kind of look like leopard spots.”
Though Pentagon officials said the allies so far have made no formal request, U.S. and allied military planners are studying a range of possible actions.
U.S. troops will not join the Western quick-reaction military force proposed by France, a senior U.S. defense official said. Instead, the most likely scenario is for American troops to join with beefed-up British and French forces arriving in Bosnia to protect UN peacekeepers as they attempt to move to more secure areas, according to administration officials.
But allied officials still are struggling with how to free the more than 200 peacekeepers and military observers held by the Bosnian Serbs as shields against renewed NATO airstrikes. Pentagon officials downplay the likelihood of commando raids to free them, since they are being held at numerous locations in Serb-controlled territory.
Beyond any redeployment of beleaguered peacekeepers, there remains the question of their future role in Bosnia.
Major, who brought Parliament back from recess to debate his decision to commit an extra 6,000 British troops to Bosnia, faced demands from right-wing members of his Conservative Party to get the country’s forces out of Bosnia as quickly as possible.
“Withdrawal is not a policy,” Major said. If the UN pulled out, Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia would be under threat and “the loss of life could be massive.”
Before Britain sent troops, he said, Bosnia was on the brink of genocide, and the West could not now “stand by and let such atrocities occur in southeastern Europe.”
He said a withdrawal of forces could trigger a wider Balkan war “with consequences that would be disastrous for Europe as a whole.”
Major stressed, however, that UN forces were not prepared to fight a war in Bosnia and said a solution to the conflict must come from diplomatic, not military, means.
At the United Nations, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he favors a scaled-down UN peacekeeping force that would support limited humanitarian operations and seek to negotiate agreements but would not use force except in defense of the vulnerable Muslim “safe areas.”
If the major powers want to do more, he said in a report to the UN Security Council, the current 22,400 UN peackeepers should be replaced by a more heavily armed multinational force-like the U.S.-led operations in Haiti and Somalia-that would not be under UN command.
The Security Council may begin discussing the report Thursday, but it appears unlikely to adopt any of those options.
Boutros-Ghali recommended against two other steps: trying to maintain operations under current conditions or withdrawing entirely, which he described as tantamount to the “abandonment” of the Bosnians.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, attending a NATO foreign ministers meeting in the Netherlands, said the U.S. will aid European allies in Bosnia to make it possible for peacekeepers to remain there.
“If they were to withdraw, the conflict would mushroom,” he said. “There would be a great deal of bloodletting . . . Because of what they’ve done, we’re prepared to stand by them if they get into difficulty.”
NATO military commanders held a crisis meeting on the USS Kearsarge, flagship for the 24th Marine expeditionary unit, off the coast of the former Yugoslavia. Officials said they reviewed planning for a NATO-backed troop withdrawal from Bosnia, which could involve up to 25,000 American troops and a like number of European soldiers, as well as the possibility of other requests to help UN peacekeepers.