[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[February 9, 1994]
[Pages 218-221]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing the NATO Decision on Air Strikes in Bosnia and an 
Exchange With Reporters
February 9, 1994

    The President. Good evening. Over the past year, our administration 
has been working to do what we could to help to end the tragic conflict 
in Bosnia and to ease the suffering it has caused. Like people 
everywhere, I was outraged by the brutal killing of innocent civilians 
in the Sarajevo market last Saturday. The events of the past year and 
the events of the past few days reinforce the belief that I have that 
more must be done to stop the shelling of Sarajevo and the murder of 
innocents.
    Therefore, the United States, working with our allies, has developed 
a series of proposals to address the situation in Sarajevo and to 
reinvigorate the negotiations to bring the bloodshed and the aggression 
in Bosnia to an end. As a

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result, just now in Brussels NATO has decided that if any Bosnian Serb 
heavy weapons are found within 20 kilometers of Sarajevo within 10 
days--or after 10 days--or if there is any further shelling of Sarajevo, 
NATO commanders stand ready to conduct air strikes against Serb 
artillery positions. NATO would carry out such strikes in accord with 
procedures it agreed on last August.
    There are reports that as a result of NATO's impending action, 
Bosnian Serbs have already agreed to withdraw their heavy guns. If these 
reports are true, I welcome them. We hope that the Bosnian Serb actions 
will make air strikes unnecessary. But no one should doubt NATO's 
resolve. NATO is now set to act. Anyone, anyone shelling Sarajevo must 
recognize this fact and be prepared to deal with the consequences.
    Our Nation has clear interests at stake in this conflict. We have an 
interest in helping to prevent a broader conflict in Europe that is most 
compelling. We have an interest in showing that NATO, history's greatest 
military alliance, remains a credible force for peace in post-cold-war 
Europe. We have an interest in stemming the destabilizing flows of 
refugees that this horrible conflict is creating. And we clearly have a 
humanitarian interest in helping to prevent the strangulation of 
Sarajevo and the continuing slaughter of innocents in Bosnia. These 
interests do not justify unilateral American intervention in the crisis, 
but they do justify the involvement of America and the exercise of our 
leadership.
    I have been meeting over the last hour with leaders of both parties 
in Congress, and I stressed to them that our contribution to resolving 
the Bosnian conflict will be proportionate to our interests, no more and 
no less. We have also insisted that NATO not commit itself to any 
objectives it cannot achieve. Important as these NATO actions are, we 
must understand that in the end this conflict must be settled at the 
negotiating table by the parties themselves. In short, they must want to 
stop killing each other and to settle, to resume a peaceful life before 
that will occur.
    I have directed the Secretary of State to have the United States 
play a more active role in the negotiations. These efforts are well 
underway. We hope that our efforts and the efforts of other NATO 
countries and the efforts of perhaps other nations as well can help to 
reinvigorate the process of peace and bring these parties to an 
agreement.
    The ongoing tragedy in Sarajevo and Bosnia should catalyze all of 
our efforts to seek negotiated solutions. The actions that I have 
proposed and that NATO has approved today demonstrate that our Nation 
and the international community cannot and will not stand idly by in the 
face of a conflict that affects our interests, offends our consciences, 
and disrupts the peace.
    Q. Mr. President?
    The President. Yes?
    Q. Did you talk to President Yeltsin today about this, and what is 
Russia's reaction to this ultimatum?
    The President. I did not talk to him today, although I tried to for 
a couple of hours and there were technical problems that we couldn't get 
through. So I expect to talk to him--well, you know it's several hours 
ahead of us now, so I expect to talk to him either late tonight before I 
go to bed or maybe even sometime in the middle of the night. I am trying 
to get in touch with him, and he knows that I will take the call 
whenever we can put it together.
    I think when President Yeltsin understands that the action taken by 
NATO today applies to anyone who violates the safe zone around Sarajevo, 
and not only to Serbs, and understands that the United States is going 
to put new energy into its own efforts to bring about a negotiated 
settlement and that we would welcome the Russians' involvement in 
bringing about a negotiated settlement, that he will, if not agree with 
our action, at least understand it more.
    Q. Mr. President, now that this warning has been given, what's your 
understanding of exactly what it takes to trigger an air strike?
    The President. Well, keep in mind now, I have not seen the language; 
I was just informed that the agreement was finally reached. But if the 
position presented to NATO this morning is, in fact, what emerges--and I 
believe it was--then you have the same situation here that we had last 
August when the first NATO out-of-area action was proposed, which is 
that the first air strike must be approved by the Secretary-General.
    He has asked us, by the way, to do this, so that we now have no 
reason to believe that he would ask NATO to take a meaningless action. 
In fact, we think he's clearly in sync with us on this. After which all 
subsequent air strikes would be the result of coordinated decisions by

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the commander of the United Nations troops on the ground there and the 
NATO commander in that area, Admiral Boorda, the American admiral.
    Q. Given the difficulty of the terrain, can you give us some sense 
of what you think the risk is for the pilots involved, for the other 
personnel involved, what the level of American involvement will be in 
this NATO action?
    The President. Well, the level of American involvement in this NATO 
action, I again will say, there is no expectation--in fact, we have made 
it quite clear that this will not involve American ground forces. From 
the beginning of the administration, we have said that the American 
forces could only be used, if at all, in the implementation of an 
agreement that had been freely reached as a part of a broader united 
force in which, since the problem is in Europe, the American forces 
would be in the minority. So there will be no American ground troops 
involved in this action.
    I can only say to you what General Shalikashvili has said to me and 
to the leaders of Congress, which is, there is no such thing as a risk-
free air operation. I don't want to mislead the American people on that. 
We have, regrettably, fine young American pilots who die every year in 
training operations. So there is no such thing as a risk-free operation. 
However, we believe that the air defenses are sufficiently rudimentary 
that the risks are minimal. That is the conclusion of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff.
    Q. Don't they have to fly very low, given this terrain?
    The President. Well, I don't want to reveal what we would do and how 
we would do it. All I can tell you is that the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff has told me he considers the risks to be small. But you 
can never tell anybody, when you get in a high-speed airplane with 
weapons and when people can at least shoot rockets on shoulder weapons 
against you, that there is absolutely no risk. I can't say that to the 
American people. But the risks are small.
    Q. Mr. President, can you tell us more about the diplomatic track? 
Do you have any new initiatives going into the Geneva meetings tomorrow? 
There have also been reports that you are going to pressure the Bosnian 
Moslems to back off some of their demands in order to make peace easier.
    The President. No--well, that's not exactly true. First of all, I 
don't think we or anybody else can impose a peace. What the United 
States has agreed to do as a result of the new energy brought to this 
whole matter by our European allies is to talk again to the Bosnian 
Moslems--as you know, I have been very sympathetic with their position 
and have made no secret of it--to ascertain what their legitimate 
bedrock requirements are and to share with them as clearly and honestly 
as we can what we think both the political and the military situation is 
and then, using that as a basis, to go back to do what we can to 
facilitate an end to this conflict and an agreement. I think that we 
have a lot of interest in doing the same thing by the Germans, by the 
French, by the British, really new interest in making a committed effort 
to persuade these parties that the time has come to quit killing each 
other. But ultimately, they will have to decide that.
    I think we all believe, those of us who have been following this 
closely, that there is an awful lot of fighting and an awful lot of 
dying going on now over relatively small patches of land and issues, 
like a path to the sea for the Moslems and where would it be, that ought 
to be able to be resolved without a huge amount of further bloodshed. 
And we hope that they too have been sufficiently affected by the carnage 
involving innocent civilians in the last few days that they will see 
that as well.
    And as I said to you, I wish that I could report to you on my 
conversation with President Yeltsin. There were just problems that it 
didn't work out because of where he was and where I was. But I think I 
will talk to him soon, and I hope that he will also want to weigh in on 
the peace process. He has expressed a willingness to do that before and 
has encouraged me in that regard before, so I'm hopeful.
    Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your conversations with some 
of the other leaders who were reluctant to do this? Did you convince 
them to come along, or did you say, ``This is what we're going to do''?
    The President. I wouldn't say they were reluctant. Let me say again, 
look at the position of the Canadians with their soldiers in Srebrenica 
surrounded by Serbs. They're in a different position. The French, the 
British, the Spaniards, the Dutch--there are Europeans who have soldiers 
on the ground in relatively small numbers for the purpose of carrying 
out the United Nations missions. They are all legitimately concerned 
with the prospect of retaliation against

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their armed forces. And one of the things that we have really given a 
lot of thought to is what we can do to provide maximum protection to 
those people. They have bravely carried on in very difficult 
circumstances, as you know, for some time. And so we have talked about 
that.
    I think it's a real tribute to those who have forces there that they 
were so determined finally to try to stop the deterioration of 
conditions. I think they began to be worried that their forces would be 
perhaps at more risk if nothing was done. So I am grateful to them for 
their agreement for this position. And we're going to do the very best 
we can to make it work.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:05 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Adm. J.M. Boorda, USN, commander 
in chief, U.S Naval Forces Europe.