TURMOIL IN THE BALKANS : Bush Still Balking at Balkans Force : Bosnia: As strife becomes campaign issue, he demands access to camps but is wary of sending combat troops.

President Bush demanded Friday that international inspectors be allowed into detention camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but drawing a contrast with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s call for U.S.-backed air strikes to halt the warfare, he said he remains reluctant to involve the U.S. armed forces in the conflict.

“There are a lot of voices out there in the United States today that say use force, but they don’t have the responsibility for sending somebody else’s son or somebody else’s daughter into harm’s way. And I do,” Bush said in his second hastily called meeting with reporters in two days.

As for Clinton’s call for the use of air strikes by the United Nations with U.S. support, Bush said: “I have no problem with his offering advice on these matters, but I am not going to get engaged in the political arena when we are trying to do something that really has a tremendous humanitarian aspect.”

On Wednesday, Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, said the United Nations, “with United States support, needs to consider doing whatever it takes to stop the slaughter of civilians. . . . And we may have to use military force. I would begin with air power against the Serbs to try to restore the basic conditions of humanity.”

On Thursday, Bush said he was pushing for a Security Council resolution “authorizing the use of all necessary measures to establish conditions necessary for . . . the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

But Britain and France appeared to back off in their support for such a resolution, the New York Times reported Friday. Some diplomats reportedly called the Bush effort an ill-prepared reaction to political concerns in the United States.

Also on Friday, the Pentagon reversed its earlier assurances that there would be no U.S. military presence in the former Yugoslav republics, announcing that as many as a dozen Air Force cargo specialists will be flown from Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany to Zagreb, the Croatian capital, to load and unload airplanes carrying humanitarian aid.

Pentagon officials said the team, the first U.S. military contingent to stay in the war-torn region, will not include combat troops or specialists in airfield security.

Bush’s news conference at the White House presented him in a presidential setting, focusing on issues of war and peace.

He used the occasion to maintain pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying that “he is going to comply with the U.N. resolutions, and that is just going to happen.”

A new U.N. weapons inspection team arrived in Iraq on Friday, and its leader affirmed his right to inspect any site in the country.

Commenting about reports of Serbian atrocities in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the President said: “The world cannot shed its horror of concentration camps. The shocking brutality of genocide in World War II, in those concentration camps, are burning memories for all of us, and that can’t happen again. We will not rest until the international community has gained access to any and all detention camps.

“I do not want to see the United States bogged down in any way into some guerrilla warfare--we lived through that once--and yet I have a lot of options available to me, and I will contemplate every one very seriously,” Bush said. Whatever steps he took, he added, would be carried out “in conjunction with the United Nations.”

In what remains of Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Milan Panic said he would order Serbian officials in Bosnia to close the detention camps within 30 days--although he has no direct control over the Serbian militias there. Bush called Panic’s plan “a move in the right direction.”

The potential impact of the war on the presidential race was raised at the morning meeting of the Bush campaign’s senior staff Friday, one campaign source said, with some officials suggesting that Bush portray Clinton as too ready to take a hawkish position. But, another source insisted, Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft have put the brakes on efforts to exploit the conflict for political purposes.

With military tensions rising, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney pointed to Bush’s wartime service as he introduced the President at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the World War II battle for Guadalcanal.

“He knows what it was like to serve his nation far from home, to take enemy fire, to see shipmates die,” Cheney said.

For his part, Bush insisted at the news conference that his recently toughened approach to the tragedy in Bosnia had not been spurred by Clinton’s call for more aggressive action.

“Absolutely no,” he said. “This is not a political matter. This is a matter of humanitarian concern. I will not engage the other (side) on this particular issue. We’re trying to handle it in a sound way with sound foreign policy as a backbone to it, so that’s the end of that one.

“I’m going to keep on these foreign policy issues and try to keep them out of the political arena, the jockeying, the instant statement,” Bush said before leaving for his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me., where he will meet Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this story.

LOCAL RESPONSE: Los Angeles Jews call for intervention in Bosnia. B1

The Candidates on the Balkans

The rhetoric on the Balkans heated up this week amid reports of brutality in detention centers and pictures of civilians under fire. Here are statements by President Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee:

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, June 4, 1992--”I would be guided (in the Balkans) . . . by what our European allies think and what kind of consensus we could get through the United Nations. I wouldn’t rule out (committing U.S. troops) if it were part of the United Nations peacekeeping force and if it were to enforce a cease-fire.”

President Bush, June 4--”I’m not prepared to give up on the sanctions at all. They’ve only been in effect for a few days.”

Bush, July 10--”I think people are reluctant to get bogged down in a kind of a warfare like guerrilla warfare. And I also think that the main objective, now, of humanitarian relief is . . . the key thing. And that will mean there’s some forces involved in seeing that that happens.”

Clinton, July 15--”If we are going to risk the lives of Americans to save hundreds of thousands of people in Central Europe, we have to have some clear notion of what we are doing and whether we can succeed. We don’t want to just put a bunch of people into a quagmire and risk their getting killed for nothing. . . . We have to know we have achievable objectives and that other nations closer to the scene of action are doing their part too.”

Clinton, Aug. 4--”I am outraged by the revelations of concentration camps in Bosnia and urge immediate action to stop this slaughter. . . . The United States should take the lead in calling on the United Nations Security Council to convene immediately in emergency session. The United Nations demands should be backed up by collective action, including the use of force, if necessary.”

Clinton, Aug. 5--”The United Nations, with United States support, needs to consider doing whatever it takes to stop the slaughter of civilians. . . . And we may have to use military force. I would begin with air power against the Serbs to try to restore the basic conditions of humanity.”

Bush, Aug. 6--”I am outraged and horrified at the terrible violence shattering the lives of innocent men, women and children in Bosnia. We must continue to work to see that food and medicine get to the people of Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia, no matter what it takes. And to this end, I have directed the secretary of state to press hard for quick passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of all necessary measures to establish conditions necessary for . . . the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

Bush, Aug. 7--”We will not rest until the international community has gained access to any and all detention camps.”

Compiled by D’Jamila Salem