[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 166 (Wednesday, October 25, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2027-E2028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E2027]]


                  THE UNITED STATES MISSION IN BOSNIA

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 25, 1995

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleagues' attention to an 
excellent analysis of the difficult issues surrounding a possible 
United States troop deployment in Bosnia by our former Secretary of 
State and my good friend, Dr. Henry Kissinger. The article, which 
appeared in last Sunday's Washington Post, rightfully calls for 
Presidential leadership and congressional approval for a well-defined 
and realistic mission in Bosnia--including American military forces.
  Dr. Kissinger offers a persuasive argument for why a U.S. 
participation in such a NATO mission is necessary, and he identifies 
the dire consequences for inaction. The President has extended a 
``commitment of U.S. troops for every foreseeable contingency,'' 
according to Dr. Kissinger, and therefore must lead Congress and the 
American public in a discussion of American objectives in the Balkans.
  I enthusiastically agree with Dr. Kissinger's call for an open and 
frank discussion of these extremely important matters, and I hope that 
a debate of this magnitude, on an issue where American lives will be at 
stake, will not be tainted by partisan politics. I made that point 
during the recent International Relations Committee hearing on this 
issue with Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher, Secretary of the 
Treasury William J. Perry, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Gen. John Shalikashvili. In the past partisanship stopped at the 
water's edge, but lately, unfortunately, our Nation's foreign policy 
has become a domestic political issue, and this has made it 
increasingly difficult to conduct a rational and effective 
international policy.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to read and carefully consider the 
issues raised by Dr. Kissinger and to fully participate in the upcoming 
debate.

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1995]

                          What Is the Mission?

                          (By Henry Kissinger)

       President Clinton's pledge to contribute 25,000 American 
     troops to a peacekeeping force for Bosnia has been greeted 
     with a mixture of resignation and uneasiness. Resignation 
     because, despite deep misgivings, it would be a grievous blow 
     to NATO if America failed to back an agreement it had 
     negotiated on behalf of NATO--an agreement that U.S. air 
     power, buttressed by British and French ground forces, played 
     a major role in bringing about. And uneasiness because 
     failure to fulfill the president's promise would almost 
     certainly lead to the withdrawal of British and French 
     forces, testing yet another presidential promise: that U.S. 
     troops will protect any allied withdrawal.
       To send troops when there is ambiguity regarding the 
     objectives, rules of engagement or relationship of NATO to 
     non-NATO forces such as Russia's would be to stockpile 
     dilemmas that the passage of time would be sure to magnify. 
     Therefore, the administration, Congress and NATO must clarify 
     goals and strategies in Bosnia. The agreements they reach 
     must be incorporated into the peace negotiations slated to 
     begin Oct. 31. Far better to pay the price to delay than to 
     have a NATO peacekeeping effort break down under the weight 
     of its internal contradictions or of American domestic 
     pressures. Repeating the experience of Somalia, where an ill-
     defined commitment concluded in ignominious withdrawal, would 
     gravely damage America's leadership position in the world as 
     well as in the Atlantic Alliance.
       Recent American efforts to bring peace to Bosnia have been 
     constructive. American power was used skillfully, and our 
     negotiator Richard Holbrooke has displayed persistence and 
     ingenuity.
       Nevertheless, before we go any further we must examine the 
     two ``commitments'' made by President Clinton that created 
     the dilemma on the horns of which we are in danger of being 
     impaled. The first was to promise some 10,000 troops to 
     assist in the withdrawal of British and French forces should 
     our NATO allies abandon their effort. The second was to 
     pledge an American contingent of 25,000 toward a NATO force 
     of 50,000 if a Bosnian peace agreement is concluded. Both 
     undertakings, amounting to a commitment of U.S. troops for 
     every foreseeable contingency, represented attempts to ease 
     immediate pressures without examining the full implications.
       The commitment to facilitate British and French withdrawal 
     was designed to provide a safety net to encourage our allies 
     to continue NATO's role in Bosnia. If a peace agreement 
     fails, the nearly inevitable British and French withdrawal is 
     expected to last 24 weeks, assuming such a redeployment is 
     possible at all.
       Whatever the schedule, a situation in which American forces 
     were being committed while allied forces were progressively 
     being reduced could tempt the three Bosnian ethnic rivals to 
     involve us in their brutal struggle, whether by inflicting 
     casualties to speed up withdrawals or by trying to incite us 
     against ethnic enemies by committing atrocities that would be 
     blamed on the other side, as has already happened. And at a 
     moment when our allies had washed their hands of the whole 
     affair, our military commitment would become increasingly 
     lonely. Thus the deployment of American forces to cover a 
     British and French retreat is the most precarious option. But 
     an American refusal to police a settlement would be likely to 
     make such a deployment unfavorable.
       I opposed the War Powers Act when it was legislated; 
     current domestic realities, however, permit no other choice 
     than to obtain clear and unambiguous congressional backing. 
     As a first step, the administration must answer these 
     threshold questions: What exactly is the peacekeeping force 
     supposed to protect? And how do we measure success?
       Until now, the administration has been extremely vague (or 
     perhaps merely confused) about its political objectives. This 
     ambiguity may have been helpful in encouraging the cease-fire 
     negotiations but when it comes to determining what is to be 
     safeguarded, ambiguity is dangerous and, in the end, self-
     defeating.
       Two schools of thought have dominated the debate about 
     America's objectives. The first treats Bosnia as a case of 
     Serb aggression calling for a collective response by the 
     world community or NATO or the United States. Convinced that 
     Serbia should be punished, this school of thought would 
     fortify the Bosnian Muslims with American arms, instructors 
     and perhaps air support to resist pressures and reestablish a 
     multi-ethnic, unitary state. Advocates of this approach 
     consider a cease-fire tantamount to collusion with 
     aggression, and are willing to agree to American peacekeeping 
     forces only to provide a secure basis from which to compel 
     dissident Serbs and Croats to return to a unified Bosnia.
       The other point of view sees Bosnia as an ethnic conflict 
     sparked by thoughtless NATO decisions in 1991 to treat Bosnia 
     as a unitary state, which it is not and never has been. 
     Composed of Croats, Serbs and Muslims united only by their 
     common determination never to be ruled by either of the other 
     groups, the resulting--nearly inevitable--ethnic conflict was 
     waged with the barbarities unfortunately characteristic of 
     all its forerunners.
       While the Serbs initiated the present round of slaughter, 
     they would no doubt hark back to comparable depredations 
     inflicted by Croats and Muslims within the memory of most 
     family groups. Early resistance by the Western allies to 
     ethnic cleansing might well have stopped the outrage, but by 
     now too many brutalities have been wrought by all groups 
     against their enemies to envision coexistence under a single 
     government as a realistic option.
       Indeed, such a project would court resumption of the 
     slaughter. Any change in territorial boundaries by any side 
     would produce ethnic cleansing; the quest for a unitary state 
     is therefore a prescription for open-ended war and continued 
     suffering.
       So far the administration has tried to carry water on both 
     shoulders. Its policy has promoted a cease-fire, which 
     implies partition, while its rhetoric has advocated a 
     unitary, multi-ethnic Bosnia that is unachievable without 
     continued war. Our action on the ground is not synchronized 
     with our rhetoric. As a result, the peacekeepers could end up 
     in an intellectual as well as physical no man's land. Is the 
     central government entitled to try to extend its authority? 
     Can the various ethnic enclaves receive arms from the 
     outside? Who controls the armed forces of the state and how?
       We need to stop dodging the central issue. An independent, 
     ethnically diverse Bosnia would require a concerted Western 
     strategy with a vast program of troops, arms and training and 
     constitutional tutoring for an indefinite time. Are we and 
     our allies prepared for a program of transforming 
     peacekeeping into nation-building--as we were not in 
     Somalia--and for the casualties it entails? Would it actually 
     work? How would other countries, especially Russia, react?
       The three ethnic groups have in effect been separated by 
     the revolting ethnic cleansing they have practiced. The so-
     called Croat-Muslim federation is a fraud. No Muslim 
     authorities are permitted in Bosnia's Croatian territory, and 
     the currency remains Croat. Therefore, the first question to 
     be settled is what the peacekeeping force is supposed to 
     protect--the dividing lines between ethnic groups or the 
     borders of a unified Bosnia? If it is the former, the 
     political goal must be 

[[Page E2028]]
     partition; if the latter, we need to be prepared for an open-ended, 
     brutal conflict. Ironically, a continuation of the war in the 
     name of a unified Bosnia is likely to be most disadvantageous 
     to the original victims, the Muslim community. For it is 
     likely to result in the partition of Bosnia between Serbia 
     and Croatia.
       Bosnia is not Haiti, where we can declare victory while the 
     country relapses into historical squalor under only slightly 
     modified oppression. In Bosnia, fudging the issue spells 
     continued conflict; the only outcome that has a slight chance 
     of surviving a time limit is partition, and even that is 
     unlikely to be effective in the one-year period that so many 
     American experts believe will be imposed by our electoral 
     timetable.
       It will not do for the president to try to propitiate media 
     and congressional concerns by assuring his interlocutors that 
     American troops will not be put in harm's way, as he has done 
     in some recent comments. In Bosnia, troops are inherently in 
     harm's way. And if we insist that the front lines be manned 
     primarily by allies, with little U.S. participation, we will 
     undermine the NATO alliance.
       What the American people, Congress, and the allies must 
     hear is precisely what the risks are in Bosnia, why they must 
     be run and over what period of time. And we must ask 
     ourselves where we will be a year from now, after casualties 
     have been suffered and journalists and other observers report 
     that they can discern no moral distinction among the warring 
     parties.
       No magic solutions are available to avoid the need for 
     clarity and purpose. Defense Secretary William Perry 
     mentioned a time limit of one year for American peacekeepers. 
     He has yet to explain what will have changed in one year and 
     who will then take on the burden if ethnic hatreds persist. 
     The feasibility of withdrawal depends on conditions on the 
     ground that cannot possibly be predicted at this juncture. 
     Nor will the use of American peacekeepers to arm and train 
     the Bosnians change the problems described here.
       I favor abandoning the arms embargo, which in any event 
     does not seem to have inhibited the Croats (and through them, 
     the Muslims) from developing a significant military 
     capability. But no military aid program, even backed by 
     American instructors, can change the demographic realities in 
     which Serbs and Croats between them outnumber the Muslims 
     nearly 10 to one.
       If we want an ethnically diverse, unitary Bosnia, we must 
     be prepared to pay the price--which is not peacekeeping but 
     the support of one side in a civil war. At the same time, if 
     American peacekeepers are deployed for whatever purpose, care 
     should be taken to convey determination, Doubt and hesitation 
     will invite attacks to speed our departure. Reducing the size 
     of our troop contribution too much might also have the effect 
     of limiting the risk to potential violators. Adversaries must 
     understand in advance that attacks on the peacekeeping force 
     will not, as in Somalia, go unpunished.
       Endurance becomes vitally important if non-NATO, especially 
     Russian troops join the peacekeeping operation. Given 
     Russia's historical ties to Serbia, a Russian role in 
     negotiations is desirable, and a Russian role in peacekeeping 
     could prove useful, provided we are ready to maintain a 
     symmetry of commitments.
       Still, it would be ironic if Russian peacekeepers on the 
     Serbian side and NATO peacekeepers on the Muslim side moved 
     an East-West confrontation line from the Elbe to the Drina. 
     And if we leave precipitately, we tilt the scales toward 
     Serbia and enhance Moscow's influence in the Balkans--all in 
     the name of peacekeeping.
       The deployment of troops to Bosnia is a fateful decision 
     requiring a full national debate that, in the nature of our 
     system, must be led by the president. He must clarify 
     America's political objectives--especially our view of the 
     relationship of the three ethnic groups to each other--and 
     explain the rules of engagement, the risks and the duration 
     of our commitment. There must be public agreement with our 
     allies about strategies and rules of engagement.
       In addition, the Bosnian parties must agree on dividing 
     lines and undertake not to change them by force.
       And Congress must unambiguously endorse the program.
       The word of the president is a national asset not to be 
     trifled with; the cohesion of NATO remains a vital national 
     interest. But we serve these causes only by devising 
     undertakings that can command consensus and be sustained over 
     a period of time.

                          ____________________