Bosnia and Herzegovina: U.S. Specialist

 
This New York Times article, published one month before the Srebrenica massacre, details U.S. politicians’ opinions regarding the possibility of sending American troops to Bosnia.

Guiding Questions:
  • According to this article, did congresspeople support the U.S. supporting Bosnia militarily?
  • What reasons did the congresspeople give for supporting or not supporting military engagement?

Sentiment in Congress today was decidedly against sending American ground troops to fight in Bosnia, although members of both parties said they might support allowing United States forces to help withdraw United Nations peacekeepers.

Even Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a pointed critic of President Clinton, said he would not object if the United States helped evacuate United Nations troops. But of the involvement of American forces for any other purpose, such as helping to move the peacekeepers to more defensible positions, Mr. Helms declared, “Not on my watch.”

President Clinton said on Wednesday that he might send troops to Bosnia not only to help with withdrawal but for “a reconfiguration and a strengthening” of United Nations forces. But he said that so far, he had not had any requests for such deployment and had made no decisions.

For 200 years, Congress and Presidents have wrestled over who has the final authority to send troops where battles threaten, and the political back and forth today certainly did not resolve this issue.

But among the voices of caution was that of Representative Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, the Speaker of the House.

“We should wait to see what’s happening,” he told reporters in Georgia. He said it was unlikely that “we would say to our allies of a half-century the U.S. won’t do anything, but at the same time we don’t want to go and get involved.” He added, “It’s very important for us to be very cautious.”

He said he had been reassured by Gen. John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “there were no circumstances where we would come under U.N. command.”

With the Administration’s intentions undefined, Republican leaders in the Senate planned hearings on Bosnia next week, while Democrats were muted in offering their whole-hearted support. Republicans and Democrats alike renewed their calls for lifting the arms embargo to allow the Bosnian Government to defend itself and urged the President to make the case to Congress -- and the nation -- for how involvement in Bosnia would serve American interests.

Despite the predictable criticisms of President Clinton’s handling of Bosnia -- Senator Bob Dole, the Republican leader, branded it an abject failure -- there were some surprising voices of sympathy for the President in what many view as an intractable situation.

“Nobody’s gotten it right yet, not Bush, not Clinton,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee and a leader on foreign affairs in the Senate.

“It’s easy to jump on the President,” he added. “I’ve done that on a variety of issues. But frankly, I don’t have any clearer idea of how to proceed from here than I believe he does.”

But by and large, Republicans and Democrats alike expressed little enthusiasm for American involvement in the Balkans.

“I hear from people about tax policy and pesticides and affirmative action, not about Bosnia,” said Representative Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican who, like most other members of the vacationing Congress, is back in his district talking with voters. “But I don’t see that the U.S. has to be at the eye of every storm over the globe. This is a European matter, and there ought to be enough resources in Europe 50 years after World War II to deal with it.”

Representative J. D. Hayworth, a freshman Republican from Arizona, said, “My constituents, who are among the most conservative, are not neo-isolationists but practical, and their question is, ‘Where is our national interest?’ “

The lack of a specific proposal from the President has made for some confusion on Capitol Hill. Senator Paul Coverdell, Republican of Georgia, said: “I think they were on reasonable, I underline reasonable, grounds, when they talked about evacuation assistance. But who in the hell can understand where reordering deployment goes?”

Mr. Coverdell faulted the President for not consulting in advance with Senator Dole, who has said the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees would hold hearings next week. “I think that when we’re back on deck Monday, there will be a very, very intense scrutiny that will mount very quickly,” Mr. Coverdell said.

Many Democrats appear as reluctant as Republicans to send troops, at least to fight as combatants. “I am not in favor of using U.S. ground troops in Bosnia,” Representative Richard A. Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, the minority leader, said in a statement. Like others, he said he would “reserve judgment” on providing limited troops for other purposes until he saw a specific proposal from NATO.

“The President is treading on very dangerous ground,” said Representative Billy Tauzin, a conservative Democrat from Louisiana. “We should not get dragged into this war.”

Representative Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said he would go “further than the President in terms of unilateral lifting of the arms embargo.”

But Representative Howard L. Berman, a liberal Democrat of California, a member of the International Relations Committee, and one who is somewhat sympathetic to the President, cautioned against such a move. “The existence of NATO is at stake here,” he said.

As for using United States forces to fight, Mr. Berman said: “You don’t want to fight without a massive deployment of personnel. You can’t do it with 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 troops, and not enough has been done yet to lay the foundation for a massive American invasion.”

One of the few Democrats to issue a ringing endorsement of President Clinton was Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee on National Security. “I absolutely agree with President Clinton’s position on Bosnia as laid out in his speech at the Air Force Academy,” Mr. Murtha said. “The national security interest of the United States is to protect against a wider war in the region.”

Administration officials gave a classified briefing on the Bosnia situation to some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week before the NATO air strikes. Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana and a member of the committee, said the officials outlined a scenario involving “a very large NATO force with about a one-third complement of Americans that would in fact be of sufficiently large size and military impressiveness and robust enough to extricate whoever is there.”

Mr. Lugar said such a force should then remain in Bosnia, secure major ports, airports and other strategic positions, and make it clear that it would stay until a diplomatic accord is achieved. He also sees this force as the solution to the hostage crisis.

Source:

Seelye, Katherine Q. “CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: CAPITOL HILL; Many in Congress Reluctant to Widen U.S. Role in Bosnia.” The New York Times. 2 June 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/02/world/conflict-balkans-capitol-hill-many-congress-reluctant-widen-us-role-bosnia.html.

From The New York Times. © 1995 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.