[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3498-S3499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     PENTAGON REPORT PREDICTS BOSNIA WILL FRAGMENT WITHOUT VAST AID

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, when the Bosnian intervention 
question came before the Senate, I strongly supported President 
Clinton's request, but added that I thought it was unrealistic to 
believe that we could go in and in 1 year pull out.
  We made that mistake in Somalia and we should not make the same 
mistake again.
  Recently the New York Times had an article by Philip Shenon titled, 
``Pentagon Report Predicts Bosnia Will Fragment Without Vast Aid,'' 
which I ask to be printed in the Record after my remarks.
  It tells in very realistic terms why it is necessary to retain some 
troops in the Bosnian area in order to have stability in that area of 
the world.
  If we fail to do that, we invite bloodshed and instability that will 
inevitably spread to Macedonia, Albania, and other neighboring areas.
  The article follows:

[[Page S3499]]

                       [From the New York Times]

     Pentagon Report Predicts Bosnia Will Fragment Without Vast Aid

                           (By Philip Shenon)

       Washington, March 19--The Pentagon has offered its grimmest 
     assessment of the prospects for peace in Bosnia to date, 
     warning that without an enormous international aid program to 
     rebuild its economy and political institutions, the country 
     will probably fragment after the withdrawal of NATO 
     peacekeeping troops late this year.
       The assessment for the Senate Intelligence Committee was 
     prepared by the Pentagon's senior intelligence analyst, 
     Lieut. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, and it could signal an effort 
     by the Defense Department to distance itself from blame if 
     the civil war resumes shortly after the NATO withdrawal.
       General Hughes, the director the Defense Intelligence 
     Agency, offered reassuring words in his report for American 
     troops stationed in Bosnia, suggesting that NATO forces face 
     no organized military threat. If the war resumes, he said, it 
     will not be until after the American peacekeepers and their 
     NATO allies have pulled out.
       But the report, dated Feb. 22, offered no similar solace 
     for the people of Bosnia. General Hughes said that the 
     ``prospects for the existence of a viable, unitary Bosnia 
     beyond the life'' of the NATO deployment are ``dim'' without 
     a large international program to revive Bosnia's war-
     shattered economy.
       If his assessment is accurate, the peace effort in Bosnia 
     could well be doomed, since the civilian reconstruction 
     effort there is barely under way, its economy and physical 
     infrastructure--roads, water and electricity lines, 
     telephones--still in ruins. The last American soldiers are 
     scheduled to withdraw from Bosnia in December.
       General Hughes said that the strategic goals of the warring 
     factions in the region ``have not fundamentally changed'' 
     since the days of the civil war and that tensions among them 
     would probably grow in the months leading up to the NATO 
     pullout.
       If that is true, the Clinton Administration might come 
     under intense pressure from its NATO allies not to withdraw 
     American troops by the end of December--a deadline that the 
     Administration insists it will hold to.
       The Pentagon assessment also implicity questions basic 
     elements of the American-brokered Dayton peace agreement, 
     which laid out what critics in Congress called unrealistic 
     deadlines for political and economic reconstruction in Bosnia 
     and for the withdrawal of peace-keeping troops.
       ``There's only so much our soldiers can accomplish,'' said 
     another senior Defense Department official, echoing the 
     report's central findings, ``The military forces agreed to 
     keep the peace for a year, and that's what we're doing. But 
     this peace will not hold without an effort to rebuild the 
     country. That's not being done yet. And that's not our job.''
       The job of organizing the economic and political 
     reconstruction of Bosnia has been left to a European 
     delegation led by Carl Bildt, a former Swedish Prime 
     Minister.
       But Mr. Bildt has complained repeatedly in recent months 
     that foreign governments have been slow to make available the 
     billions of dollars needed for civilian reconstruction--
     everything from building bridges to printing election 
     ballots--and that the political component of the peace effort 
     is lagging far behind its military component. In a meeting 
     this month with donor countries, he pleaded that the donors 
     ``do more to honor the pledges we have made.''
       While questioning whether Bosnia was about to dissolve once 
     again into civil war, General Hughes said in his report that 
     ``in the short term, we are optimistic'' about the situation 
     faced by the 18,400 American soldiers stationed there as part 
     of the peace-keeping force.
       ``We believe that the former warring factions will continue 
     to generally comply with the military aspects'' of the peace 
     accord, the report said. ``We do not expect U.S. or allied 
     forces to be confronted by organized military resistance.''
       The threat faced by the American forces would come instead 
     from land mines ``and from various forms of random, sporadic 
     low-level violence,'' the report said. ``This could include 
     high-profile attacks by rogue elements or terrorists.'' So 
     far only one American soldier has been killed in Bosnia, an 
     Army sergeant who was killed in an explosion on Feb. 3 as he 
     tried to defuse a land mine.
       The report suggested that if the civil war resumes, it will 
     flare up only after the NATO forces have pulled out, removing 
     the buffer that has kept the factions at peace for most of 
     the last four months.
       ``The overall strategic political goals of the former 
     warring factions have not fundamentally changed,'' General 
     Hughes said. ``Without a concerted effort by the 
     international community, including substantial progress in 
     the civil sector to restore economic viability and to provide 
     for conditions in which national (federation) political 
     stability can be achieved, the prospects for the existence of 
     a viable, unitary Bosnia beyond the life of IFOR are dim.'' 
     The NATO forces in Bosnia are known as the Implementation 
     Force, or IFOR.
       General Hughes suggested that all of the fragile alliances 
     created by the peace accord might collapse--with tensions 
     between the Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats threatening 
     their federation, with the Bosnian Croats working toward ``de 
     facto integration'' with Croatia, and with elections and the 
     resettlement of refugees ``delayed or stymied.''
       He said that the Bosnian Serbs were likely to consolidate 
     their hold on their own territory, seeking ``some form of 
     political confederation'' with Serbia.
       Questions about whether any peace in Bosnia would outlast 
     the presence of NATO troops--and whether American troops 
     would be stuck there as a result--were at the heart of the 
     debate in Congress that preceded votes to authorize the 
     American military deployment. Senator Bob Dole, the front-
     runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, demanded 
     and won an Administration pledge to play a role in arming and 
     training the Bosnian Government's army.
       The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency is only 
     slightly more pessimistic than remarks heard elsewhere in the 
     Pentagon. Senior Defense Department officials have long 
     warned that the peace would fail without a huge effort to 
     rebuild Bosnia and to give the people some hope of economic 
     and political stability after years of slaughter.
       ``Ultimately I think the bigger problem is not the military 
     implementation of the peace agreement,'' Gen. John 
     Shalikasvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told 
     the House National Security Committee this month. ``We need 
     to make sure we understand that it is equally important to 
     the overall effort--and also the safety of the troops--that 
     we get on with the civilian functions that need to be 
     performed.''
       ``And when I say `we,' I don't mean the military, but the 
     nations that are involved in this effort,'' he added.
       ``The elections have to go forward, the refugees have to 
     begin to return, reconstruction has to start, the 
     infrastructure has to be rebuilt so that the people in the 
     country can see an advantage to not fighting.''

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