To Bomb Or Not To Bomb?

By J.F.O. MCALLISTER WASHINGTON

By 8:30 Saturday morning, 10 advisers in coats and ties and one in a skirt were seated around the table in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, awaiting their Commander in Chief. This was the moment of truth, when Bill Clinton -- breezing in wearing a golf shirt -- would wrestle with the options for action in Bosnia one more time. For more than four hours, the advisers went over the pros, but mainly the cons, of military intervention in Bosnia. "The President listened and everyone talked," said one participant. "It was not a session called to ratify his ready-made decisions." Only one thing, everyone agreed, could be firmly ruled out: any deployment of American ground troops. Moreover, there was little support in European capitals or among the American public for military action. So, pondered the President, what should the U.S. do?

When the meeting was over, Clinton had settled on a new, tougher approach toward Serbian aggression. But the long-awaited decision was less a firm policy than a work in progress, "a direction the U.S. and its allies should now take, including military steps," as Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it after the session, subject to further consultations with Congress and the Europeans.

After more than two weeks of highly public debate and his own repeated promises to get tough, the President narrowed the possibilities to a two-step strategy. It centered on an effort to exempt the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government from the U.N. arms embargo, which requires Security Council approval, combined with limited air strikes in the interim, if necessary, to protect the Bosnian forces while they await arms, and to prod the Serbs toward serious negotiations. Along with stepped-up sanctions on Serbia, Washington hoped, a credible threat of force would obviate the need to use it.

Emphatic about winning a skeptical Europe's support for military action, Clinton sent Christopher speeding across the Atlantic to solicit agreement or amendment before making his plan fully public. Meanwhile, the Bosnian Serbs moved to parry the building offensive. They agreed to attend a weekend peace conference in Athens with the other parties to the Vance-Owen peace plan and said their so-called parliament would meet on May 5 to reconsider a proposed settlement. "They must do more than simply sign a peace plan," Christopher warned at his Saturday briefing. "It will take actions on the ground to convince the international community of their good faith." Yet he acknowledged privately that "if the negotiations make headway, the chance of military action will all but disappear."

Clinton has had a devil of a time making up his mind on this one. When he allowed himself to dream in his Oxford digs that someday he might be President, his vision did not include having his first 100 days disrupted by a Balkan quagmire with no good options. He considers Bosnia a thoroughly impossible situation that has forced its way to the top of his agenda by its urgency and growing outrage. He has discovered, says a close adviser, that "each path is fraught with peril." His agonizing has been acute and highly visible, sparking murmurs even among Democrats that his grasp of diplomacy was unsure. He seemed to be searching for a magic bullet: a policy that would at once unite his fractious advisers, please go-slow European allies, satisfy a mostly skeptical Congress, halt the killing and "ethnic cleansing," and keep his presidency out of an expensive foreign mess.

The White House promised a decision "in a few days," which stretched to a few weeks, in part to avoid provoking a pre-referendum Russian veto. Subordinates leaked their contending plans to the press. Generals publicly tussled about whether air strikes could bring the Serbs to heel. "He should put Hillary in charge of Bosnia," joshed a former ambassador. European officials waiting for a lead from Washington began to despair. "What we face with the Clinton people is confusion," said a British diplomat.

But the President would not be rushed. His aim was to balance the moral and political responsibility of the U.S. to end the horror in Bosnia against a fear of losing support from Europe and Russia and the possibility of derailing his domestic program. He pulled his top aides aside for frequent informal talks and peppered them with late-night phone calls. "He wants to make sure we have an escape," said a top aide. "He doesn't want a solution that's O.K. for the next few weeks but then leaves you so inherently unstable that you're there a year or more from now."

In his final deliberations, Clinton focused on the goals of U.S. involvement. Was the aim of any action just to stop the killing? Roll back Serbian gains? Restart the Vance-Owen peace process that provides for Bosnia's dissolution into 10 ethnically based provinces? Give the Bosnians a shot at defending themselves? At a two-hour White House meeting on April 21, he asked all his chief advisers to state their preferred goals, then to write memos marrying their goals to the available means. The President studiously avoided tipping his own hand. "Often," said a participant, "he was trying to force people to answer: Suppose your option doesn't work -- what's the worst thing that could happen?"

Some advisers hated their own recommendations but backed them as the least undesirable options. By the end of the review, the main players all favored some form of limited, graduated escalation intended to encourage diplomacy.

--The Pentagon. Originally Defense Secretary Les Aspin leaned toward air strikes to punish the Serbs, while Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, counseled against any involvement unless the U.S. used overwhelming force to win complete victory. But eventually they came to Clinton united. Neither wanted to commit American ground forces. Both were willing to exempt the Bosnian Muslims from the arms embargo. They agreed that air strikes would be unlikely to accomplish ambitious goals like rolling back Serbian territorial gains. Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak testified that his bombers could "put out of business" most Serbian artillery in Bosnia at "virtually no risk" to U.S. pilots. True enough, Aspin and Powell told Clinton, but that would accomplish little if the Serbs just moved their artillery. Strategically, they advised, even a far-ranging bombing campaign in Bosnia might not make much of a dent in the thinking of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, deemed the ogre behind the war. "The pain has to extend to Belgrade to have much effect," said a military planner, a step Clinton is not now inclined to take.

--The State Department and the National Security Council. Christopher began the week articulating a set of requirements for military action that seemed to rule it out. He and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake eventually concurred on lifting the arms embargo and launching limited air strikes if required to protect the Bosnians in the meantime. They do not expect to roll back all Serbian gains, and they think the U.S. should endorse any solution adopted by all the Bosnian factions -- as long as it inflicts some penalty for ethnic cleansing. In practice, that means accepting the current Vance-Owen plan, even if it gives the Serbs nearly everything they want.

--The Europeans. Britain and France, with 6,500 lightly armed troops employed in humanitarian assistance in Bosnia, are reluctant to take any steps that might invite Serbian retaliation or close down their relief effort. They believe that sending more arms to the Muslims will only fuel a deadlier and possibly wider war. Lifting the embargo, said Britain's Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, "would salve consciences without saving lives." France is highly skeptical about the ability of air strikes to force the Serbs into concessions, Britain only slightly less so. While both want to stay in step with Washington, they remain adamantly opposed to the embargo exemption. Moscow, after considerable massaging, has not blocked U.S. steps against Serbia, but is far from ready to support military action.

If Clinton is to act boldly, he will first have to make everyone, friend and foe, understand exactly what he is trying to do. In a meeting with Congressmen, the President asked what would happen if limited intervention failed to end the war. Would there be an acceptable way to withdraw? The answer was a resounding no, reminding Clinton that once into Bosnia, there will be no easy way out.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Graphic by Joe Lertola, Paul J. Pugliese and Steve Hart

CAPTION: WHAT AIR STRIKES CAN DO

Since the Serbs have almost no air defenses, attacking planes could easily bomb bridges, rail lines or supply depots. Taking out mobile heavy artillery around besieged enclaves would be far more difficult. The main problem: What if air strikes alone don't stop Serb aggression?

With reporting by Ann Blackman and Bruce van Voorst/Washington and William Mader/London