June 22, 1996

NATO Said to Be Willing to Take More Risks in Bosnia

By JANE PERLEZ

ARSAW, Poland -- Trying to deflect criticism that NATO forces have not been aggressive enough in Bosnia, their commander said Friday that he is willing to assume some risk in order to arrest the two major Bosnian Serb leaders accused of war crimes, if that is what Western politicans want done.

"What bothers me are people who accuse us, saying the military is not willing to risk themselves and take risks," the commander, Adm. Leighton Smith, said in an interview while he was in Warsaw for a NATO meeting.

With his comments on Friday, Smith was not proposing a more aggressive policy but simply explaining that the orders to NATO troops in Bosnia -- and the limits on the troops -- are set by political leaders, not by NATO officers.

Smith, an American, has been criticized by some Western diplomats for declining to seek out and arrest Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb civilian leader, and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serbs' military commander.

In previous statements he and other NATO military officers have stressed that they saw their mission in Bosnia as limited to military functions, not policing, and they have taken great pains to avoid provoking any former warring party.

Under current policy, NATO forces will detain the men only if they encounter them, but will not go looking for them. Karadzic, for example, lives and works in Pale, a town only a few miles from NATO headquarters in Sarajevo.

Smith said he knew there were risks involved in going after the two men but he was willing to take them if he was ordered to do so. "That's what we're paid to do, take risk, personal risks."

The NATO forces in Bosnia, particularly the Americans, have been accused by many of wanting a "risk-free operation." The Clinton administration, haunted by the death of 18 Army Rangers in an unsuccessful attempt to capture a Somali clan leader in October 1993 -- and now in the middle of a presidential campaign -- appears determined to keep U.S. troops safe from harm.

Smith said that he had provided the civilians with a military assessment of the risks involved in going after the two men, but he declined to discuss what they were. He said his assessment outlined the risks of military and civilian casualties as well as the risks to the peace effort.

Many diplomats involved in carrying out the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia have argued that the political maneuverings of Karadzic posed more danger to peace than attempting to arrest him would.

On Thursday the Pale branch of the Serbian Democratic Party announced that they had nominated Karadzic as their presidential candidate for the Bosnian region set aside for Serbian control.

But people indicted on war crimes charges are forbidden under the Dayton peace accords to run for office. The German foreign minister, Klaus Kinkel, attacked Karadzic's election efforts Friday, saying that he belonged in The Hague, headquarters of the international war crimes tribunal.

The French foreign ministry also criticized his candidacy, calling it a "flagrant violation of the peace accords."

The chief architect of the Dayton accords, Richard Holbrooke, former assistant secretary of state, has also said in the last few weeks that for the elections, which are scheduled for fall, to proceed smoothly, Karadzic must be arrested and sent to The Hague.