The Americans were ready to fight, if need be, but only with air and naval power–no U.S. ground troops were to be sent in–and only to protect the relief effort, not to defeat the Serbian aggressors. Though he pointedly kept all of his options open, George Bush made it clear that this operation would be no Balkan Storm. Nor would the United States “go ramming in as the sole perpetrator of force,” he promised. “There is quagmire potential here,” said his secretary of state, James Baker. “We cannot be the world’s policeman.” Still, the administration clearly intended to join an international police force protecting the relief operation and bailing out the long-suffering Bosnians. Baker said “we cannot just stand back and not participate” in the effort to end a “humanitarian nightmare” in the former Yugoslavian republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
There were serious risks in participating. “Everyone had better understand that a relief operation doesn’t solve the fundamental problem,” said a senior administration official. “It isn’t clear when, if ever, you can leave. The minute we leave, [the civil war] starts again.” The administration restricted itself to sending in supplies aboard air force C-130 transport planes and threatening air and naval action if the Serbs interfered. Even that limited role could cause U.S. casualties-and political damage to Bush. “I don’t know how much public support there is for risking young American lives, and losing them, for a place most Americans have never heard of,” said a State Department official.
Perhaps to minimize the risks, Washington sent conflicting signals last week. First it ordered a naval task force, including 2,200 marines, into the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Yugoslavia. Then, apparently satisfied that the Serbs took the point, Washington sent the ships to liberty ports in Italy and Greece for the Fourth of July weekend. A stronger task force, including the aircraft carrier Saratoga, was kept in the northern Mediterranean, also scheduled for port calls. By holding back its gunboats, Washington may have meant to signal that it wanted to avoid military’ intervention. But that meant that the first two U.S. C-130s had to fly into Sarajevo without naval air cover. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told reporters air cover wasn’t needed; the United Nations had assured Washington that Sarajevo’s airport was secure. That seemed a dubious proposition, given the weak U.N. grip on the airport and the countless previous cease-fire violations by all sides, notably the Serbs.
Privately, the Pentagon was anxious about sending in the C-130s unescorted. But after reviewing their intelligence on the airport and after seeing that French transports encountered only harmless small-arms fire as they landed, officials grudgingly concluded that “the risk to the C-130s was moderate to low,” as one of them put it. The first two flights were completed safely, and there were contingency plans for retaliation if something went wrong later on. Air force warplanes based in Germany or Italy could respond quickly, and the Saratoga could quickly be moved into position to launch its planes. Still, a Pentagon official conceded: “That airport is extremely vulnerable, and people in this building are nervous about it.”
The Pentagon had been nervous all along about getting into Yugoslavia. “This has all the factors that lead us not to want to get involved,” says one U.S. military analyst. “There’s no clear-cut objective and no end date. It’s a quagmire waiting to happen.” Baker began to anticipate the need for a relief effort backed by military force as long ago as April, when Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, a Muslim, described for him in moving detail the genocidal nature of the Serbian offensive. Convinced that his European allies were paralyzed by internal divisions, Baker jawboned them into economic sanctions against the remaining, Serbian-dominated portion of Yugoslavia. The sanctions were later adopted by the U.N. Security Council. Pentagon officials, including Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were reluctant to insert U.S. forces into the ancient blood feuds of the Balkans. Powell and Cheney fended off suggestions for U.S. forces to take a relatively aggressive role in the relief effort.
In anticipation of having to do something, the Pentagon entered into delicate negotiations with the United Nations. At one point, it offered to provide U-2 overflights to gather intelligence on Serbian military moves. U.N. officials declined, for fear of alienating the Serbs. The Pentagon also offered to send in air-traffic controllers to direct relief flights, but after the Serbs complained, U.N. officials rejected that offer, too. The Serbs did the Pentagon, and Bush, one favor. They insisted that U.S. ground troops not be included in the peacekeeping forces. Under U.N. rules, the parties to a conflict have to approve the nationality of the peacekeepers.
Finally, at a crucial meeting in the White House on June 26, Baker and Brent Scowcroft, the president’s nationalsecurity adviser, argued that the United States had to step up its involvement in Yugoslavia. They feared starvation among besieged Bosnians, and they concluded that the Sarajevo airport would never become completely secure, particularly if the United States did not demonstrate its willingness to use force. Bush agreed.
The president was prodded from other quarters. Two weeks ago, Bill Clinton issued a statement declaring that “Serbian aggression … must end.” In an interview with The New York Times, the Democratic presidential candidate said Bush “may have been a little slow on the uptake” in dealing with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Then Bush was upstaged by a foreign friend. On June 28, French President Francois Mitterrand unexpectedly flew into Sarajevo with “a message of hope” for the Bosnians. Mitterrand, 75, complained about the difficulty of getting action from world leaders-“an enormously heavy thing to move,” he said.
Mitterrand had supported the Serbs previously, and his grandstanding may have been motivated in part by political problems at home. But his brave visit sent a meaningful signal to the Serbs, and it helped to break the logjam. The Serbs, who had left the airport, promised to redeploy their artillery. Soon French and British supply planes were landing in Sarajevo. A Canadian battalion, keeping the peace in neighboring Croatia, drove to Sarajevo, joining small Canadian and French contingents that already were struggling to secure the airport. Even so, there were outbursts of fierce gunfire from Serbs in the hills surrounding Sarajevo.
If the Serbs attack the peacekeepers, the Security Council will quickly authorize the use of military force. " It will be a matter of hours, not days," says a top State Department official. In that case, U.S. warplanes would attack Serbian gun emplacements and try to protect the relief operation in other ways. So far, the Serbs apparently were trying not to provoke the West. “If they hadn’t withdrawn from the airport, there would have been intervention,” said Bosnian Defense Minister Jerko Doko. “The Serbs saw that and withdrew.”
They kept the pressure on the Bosnians elsewhere. In Gorazde, a city 30 miles southeast of Sarajevo, 60,000 people, mostly Muslims, were besieged by the Serbs, and there were reports of thirst and epidemics. Even in Sarajevo, atrocities were still being committed. In a Jewish cemetery two weeks ago, seven people were shot and wounded by Serbian snipers. They lay there for days, their rescuers driven back by gunfire until all of the victims died. Last week U.N. personnel made it into the cemetery but were able to recover only four bodies before sniper fire forced them out.
The Bosnian Serbs are still supported at least with supplies and encouragement -by the rump government of Yugoslavia and by the pugnacious leader of the Serbian republic, Slobodan Milosevic. The newly independent Bosnian state thinks it deserves military support and arms from the West. “We need only limited air action to even out the odds,” says Mohammed Sacirbey, the Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations. “Just imagine what we could do if their air force was prevented from flying over our territory, if their supply lines were cut off, if their artillery and heavy weapons were knocked out, and we had some weapons to fight with ourselves.”
The relief effort alone is some help to the Bosnians, but the United States does not want to side with them more forcefully than that. The economic sanctions are beginning to bite, and rallies in the streets o Belgrade reflect persistent political opposition to Milosevic. Yugoslavia has designated as its new prime minister a naturalized U.S. citizen who promises to work for peace. “I know I am going on a pirate ship,” Yugoslav-born Milan Panic told a reporter in Washington. “But if I become captain, the pirate ship will be turned into a ship of peace.” That won’t happen easily; Yugoslavia’s ethnic pot has been boiling furiously for centuries. But now that the outside world has intervened-if only with relief supplies and punchless peacekeeping troops-Serbia finally may be compelled to pull in its horns.
