Christopher Tells Clinton’s Bosnia Views : Hearings: New Administration will be more willing than Bush’s to consider use of force in Balkans, nominee says.

Secretary of State-designate Warren Christopher said Wednesday that the incoming Clinton Administration will be more willing to consider the use of force in Bosnia than the Bush Administration has been but that it is not contemplating the use of U.S. ground troops.

“This (Clinton) Administration will vigorously pursue concerted action with our European allies and international bodies to end the slaughter in Bosnia--a slaughter that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and that threatens to spread throughout the Balkans,” Christopher told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in hearings on his nomination.

Asked by Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.) whether he would consider using military force, if negotiations fail to end Serbian attacks on Bosnian civilians, Christopher agreed, but cautiously. “This is what you can read into my statement,” he said.

But he refused to discuss specific options for the use of force, except to say that President-elect Bill Clinton has already endorsed the use of U.S. warplanes to enforce a “no-fly zone” over Bosnia and to rule out the use of American troops on the ground.

“Ground troops are not contemplated--not within the current range of options,” he said.

Several senators, including Biden and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), urged the new Administration to use air power to destroy Serbian forces’ heavy artillery and armored vehicles.

Christopher told them that he considers Serbian forces’ conduct in the war “outrageous” and “sickening” but said that Clinton and his new Cabinet need more time to study the issue before deciding on a course of action.

The Los Angeles lawyer said that his most important task as secretary of state will be to devise an overall U.S. strategy for dealing with post-Cold War turmoil. He said that he hopes to use “preventive diplomacy” to head off future problems. “We cannot afford to careen from crisis to crisis,” he said.

Responding to critics who have charged that he has seemed reluctant to support the use of military power in the past, Christopher said: “I do believe that the discreet and careful use of force in certain circumstances, and its credible threat in general, will be essential to the success of our diplomacy.”

But he added: “We cannot respond ourselves to every alarm. I want to assure the American people that we will not turn their blood and treasure into an open account for use by the rest of the world.”

The answer was characteristic of both Christopher and the slowly emerging Clinton foreign policy: assertive in tone but moderate in substance and cautious on the details.

Most members of the Senate committee said that they were pleased with the testimony. They said Christopher’s confirmation should win easy approval.

In a hearing that lasted nearly nine hours, Christopher covered a wide range of issues:

* He endorsed the U.S. military action against Iraq and said that Clinton wants to be “just as firm and just as tough as President Bush’s Administration has been.”

* He said that he hopes most U.S. forces can be withdrawn from Somalia soon but that the U.N. force that replaces them will have to be “more robust (and) more muscular” than most U.N. forces because of continuing security dangers.

* He called for increased Western aid for Russia’s economic reforms, as long as the government of President Boris N. Yeltsin keeps moving toward a free-market system.

* He said that he plans to “reinvigorate” the Arab-Israeli peace talks launched by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III last year but that he has not yet decided whether he should handle the issue himself or appoint a special envoy.

The hearing’s only hostile questions came from conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who accused Christopher of bearing responsibility for some of Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy failings.