[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 16 (Monday, April 25, 1994)]
[Pages 825-826]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks on Bosnia and an Exchange With Reporters Prior to Departure for
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
April 18, 1994
The President. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to say a
word or two about the situation in Bosnia. First of all, as all of you
know, the situation in and around Gorazde remains grim and uncertain. I
think it is important to point out why this happened. It happened
because the Serbs violated the understandings of a cease-fire that
they--agreement they made with both the United Nations and with the
Russians. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the
Russians, working through Mr. Churkin's able leadership, have reached an
agreement with the Serbs which they have not honored.
The United Nations commander on the ground, General Rose, made the
judgment at several points over the last couple of days that NATO close-
air support was either not practically feasible or would not be helpful
under the circumstances. In Gorazde, we have--we, the United States
working through NATO--basically are empowered only to provide close-air
support to U.N. troops when they are under siege or under threat of
attack on request of the U.N. commander.
I have monitored this situation very closely all weekend; I have
spent a good deal of time on it on Saturday. I had lots of conversations
yesterday about it and have met this morning with Mr. Lake. Our national
security principals will be meeting today to consider what else we can
and should do in this circumstance.
The main thing I want to point out is that we have to find a way to
get the momentum back. The big successes in the last couple of months in
Bosnia have been, obviously, preserving Sarajevo and achieving the
agreement between the Croatians and the Government--the Bosnian
Government. They are very important; those things still hold, and I'm
convinced we can find a way to build on them and go forward.
But this has not been a great weekend for the peace effort in
Bosnia. I do think that the big things are still working in the long-
term favor of peace. And we'll just have to see where we are, and we'll
be reporting more as the day goes on and through the rest of the week.
Q. Mr. President, you wanted to lift the arms embargo a year ago,
would you still like to do it? You would lead an effort to do that? It
would take American leadership, many in Congress say, to do this.
The President. The Americans tried to lead it before. We will be
discussing now what our other options are. As you know, at the time
there was a clear specific reason we couldn't succeed in lifting the
arms embargo, which was that not just the Russians but the French and
British did not want to do it because they had soldiers on the ground.
Now their soldiers on the ground are in danger. The real question we
would have to work through there is how many countries would go along,
and could we get it through the U.N.? But I've always favored doing it.
I just want to say, though--I want to ask you all to think about--
those who say, there are many who say, ``Well, we can do it
unilaterally, and we ought to do it unilaterally.'' But remember, if we
do that, first of all, there are substantial questions about whether
under international law we can do it, but secondly, if you resolved all
those--what about the embargo that we have led against Iraq that others
would like to back off of but they don't because they gave their
agreement that they wouldn't? What if we needed embargoes in the future?
What about the trade sanctions on Serbia themselves? What about any
possible future economic action in other countries where we have
difficulties today that we'd want other countries to honor?
So we have to think long and hard about whether we can do this
unilaterally. But certainly, as you know, I have always thought that the
arms embargo operated in an en-
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tirely one-sided fashion, and it still does. That's the reason we're in
this fix today because of the accumulated losses of the Bosnian
Government as a direct result of the overwhelming superiority of heavy
artillery by the Serbs.
But again, I would say we have been making good progress at the
negotiating table. I don't want to have a wider war. I think even if you
lifted the arms embargo and you had a lot of other people fighting and
killing, in the end there would not be a decisive victory for either
side in a war. There's going to have to be a negotiated settlement. And
the real problem now is that the Serbs agreed to a cease-fire with both
the U.N. and the Russians, and they didn't keep their end of the deal.
We're going to have to see where we are today, and we'll have more to
say.
Q. Why do you say you're making progress, and couldn't you have
moved a little faster? This has been coming on for a couple weeks.
The President. I disagree with that. What do you mean? Keep in mind,
the role of the United States and NATO is to respond when the United
Nations asks for close-air support when its troops are in danger. This
is not Sarajevo; Sarajevo was a special case. And the no-fly zone--if
planes violate the no-fly zone they can be shot down. That was done by
NATO and the United States. This is a different case. We can only do
what we have the authority to do.
And frankly, I think it is a little too easy to Monday-morning-
quarterback General Rose who has been very aggressive, very strong, and
very much supported in this country and throughout the world for his
aggressive actions. It's easy to say now he should have been more
aggressive in Gorazde. I think he did the best he could with the
resources he had under the facts as they existed. And so I don't know
that General Rose had any other options. I just know that we have a
disappointing and difficult situation there today, and we'll be working
on it.
Note: The President spoke at 9:12 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of these
remarks.