‘BALKANGATE’: WILL CLINTON KNOWINGLY REWARD MILOSEVIC FOR SHOOTING DOWN CAPT. O’GRADY?

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration is
reportedly prepared to vote today in the United Nations Security
Council to extend for another seventy-five days the relief from
UN-imposed sanctions originally granted Slobodan Milosevic’s
Serbia in October 1994. At that time, some believed Milosevic
deserved to be rewarded for suspending shipments of arms, fuel
and other militarily-relevant support to Serbian forces in Bosnia
and Croatia.

Smoking Guns

Today, however, there is unmistakable evidence that the
Serbian dictator is cynically continuing to provide life-support
to his Bosnian and Croatian proxies even as he — and his
supporters in Moscow and Paris — insist that all international
sanctions against Belgrade be removed. According to a damning
report in yesterday’s Washington Post, this evidence
includes the following:

• An integrated air defense system connecting Belgrade
  to Serbian units in Bosnia and Croatia via coaxial cable
  was directly involved in the recent shoot-down of U.S.
  Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady as he performed a
  UN-authorized overflight mission in Bosnia. According
  to the Post, the use of radar data provided by the
  Yugoslav military enabled O’Grady’s plane to be
  illuminated by the SA-6 anti-aircraft system just seconds
  before the latter launched its missile — thereby denying
  the pilot time to take evasive action or other
  countermeasures. In short, Milosevic and troops under his
  command were responsible for the destruction of an
  aircraft American taxpayers paid some $20 million to
  purchase, endangering the life of one U.S. servicemen and
  exposing to hostile fire dozens more and the enormously
  expensive equipment involved in his subsequent rescue.
• Shipments of supplies essential to Bosnian Serb
  military operations — including heavy weapons, fuel and
  ammunition — continue to be made available by Belgrade,
  despite Milosevic’s claim last August to have cut off
  such aid last August and notwithstanding a report by UN
  monitors issued on 28 June asserting that the Bosnian
  border with Serbia has been effectively closed. One
  senior NATO officer quoted by the Washington Post
  observed that “if Milosevic had really cut the
  supply lines, within six months the Bosnian Serb army
  would have suffered ‘a drastic reduction of capabilities.
  We’re not seeing drastic reductions. We’re seeing
  inconveniences.'” Similar shipments are evidently
  reaching the Croatian Serb forces, as well.
• The new leader of the Croatian Serb army in Krajina,
  Gen. Mile Mrksic, was installed at Milosevic’s orders.
  Until recently, he was the Deputy Chief of Staff of
  Belgrade’s Yugoslav Army. As the Post put it,
  “Mrksic’s resume [since November 1991] in these
  Balkan wars illustrates the degree to which the Yugoslav
  army, which falls under Milosevic’s control, has managed
  the conflict.”
• Serbian press gangs are rounding up military-age Serbs
  from Bosnia and Croatia who have sought refuge in rump
  Yugoslavia, sending them back to fight on the
  battlefields of their native countries.
• Belgrade is also providing payroll and promotions to
  Serb officers fighting in Croatia and Bosnia. Records
  captured by Croatian government forces during their
  recent move against Serbian forces in Western Slavonia
  confirm that as many as 300 Serb officers received
  salaries directly from Belgrade.

‘Atta Boy’ for Milosevic & Co.

Against this backdrop, it is obscene to consider
continuing the present, modest relief from international
sanctions on Milosevic’s regime — to say nothing of any more
general easing of such sanctions. Milosevic can only
interpret such a step as further evidence of the international
community’s general fecklessness and its willingness, in the face
of Serbian defiance, to reward rather than punish the
Serbs. This message would be the more palpable coming as it would
on the heels of the assaults by Milosevic’s Bosnian allies on
Sarajevo and other UN-declared safe-havens and on UN personnel
themselves, assaults that have gone unchecked and unpunished.

The issue is not, as one Administration official put it to
the Post, whether Milosevic’s “closure of the borders
has been perfect.” The issue is, rather: Has there been any
appreciable implementation of the commitments that served as the
pretext for the easing of UN sanctions? As the evidence now
strongly indicates that there has not been such an
implementation, the United States cannot responsibly vote for
further relief for Belgrade.

Congress appears not to have been promptly informed about
the evidence of the complicity of the Belgrade Serbs in the
attack on Capt. O’Grady and other indications that Milosevic’s
regime persists in its efforts to carve a “Greater
Serbia” out of Bosnia and Croatia — information the
Clinton Administration has had for as many as ten days. ⁽¹⁾ But for an apparent
leak to the Washington Post, Congress may well have
learned of these important developments only after the Clinton
Administration had voted for the extension.

Welcome to ‘Balkangate’

The lack of coherence, strategic thought and transparency
evident in this latest, odious incident is symptomatic of what
passes for the Clinton Balkans policy. It is also, unfortunately,
all too reminiscent of the Bush-Baker approach to Iraq prior to
Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait. Congress properly — if briefly and
inconclusively — examined the particulars and implications of
“Iraqgate.” It should do no less as
“Balkangate” begins to unfold.

Were the need to halt the immoral appeasement of war
criminals — like Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadjiz — and
to restore a measure of integrity to government not compelling
enough reason for such a congressional investigation, the
Administration’s conclusion that fully 110,000 troops and
heavy armor will probably be required to extricate the UN
peacekeepers from Bosnia should do the trick. After all, under
current planning assumptions, that would require the
commitment of over 50,000 U.S. personnel to ground operations in
Bosnia and perhaps a third of the newly estimated $3.5 billion
cost. While that may seem trivial compared to the 500,000
troops and many billions that the U.S. had to throw into the
breach when Iraqgate spawned Desert Storm, de facto if not
de jure UN command and rules of engagement for this
operation virtually assure that it will be a debacle. Before the
associated, immense costs — both physical and strategic — are
incurred, Congress had better get to the bottom of ‘Balkangate,’ now.

(1) The Center for Security Policy has
learned that this information was the subject of more than one
meeting involving senior interagency representatives. The delay
in the official disclosure of such data — and the expected
“yes” vote in the Security Council despite it —
indicate a Clinton Administration effort to finesse, if not
outright deceive, the Congress.