U.S. Considering Evacuation in Bosnia : Balkans: Heavy helicopters would be sent to fetch wounded civilians. But mission would endanger U.S. air crews.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Friday the U.S. government is seriously considering a U.N. request to send heavy helicopters to evacuate seriously wounded civilians from a besieged Bosnian town, a step that would bring American air crews into range of Serbian artillery.

The urgent request by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata forces the Clinton Administration to confront head-on the Pentagon’s reluctance to commit U.S. forces even for humanitarian missions until the shooting stops in the brutal ethnic war.

“We’ll study that very carefully,” Christopher told reporters as he posed for pictures with South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha.

Christopher’s public acknowledgment of the request to relieve the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica increases the pressure on the Administration either to provide the armored helicopters or to suggest some other way to save the wounded Muslims who otherwise face death.

Unlike the high-altitude airlift parachuting food and medicine to Srebrenica and other besieged towns, the helicopter mission would require U.S. crews to operate within range of antiaircraft rockets and to land at least briefly in a city under a relentless artillery barrage.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin, reflecting the view of Gen. Colin L. Powell and other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this week that U.S. forces should not be sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina until a durable cease-fire is in place.

By contrast, Christopher has kept the issue of U.S. participation intentionally vague as a way to increase pressure on the warring factions to reach agreement in the off-and-on peace talks at the United Nations.

It was not clear when a decision on Ogata’s request would be made.

While the Administration pondered her plea for helicopters, it approved her request to double the nightly shipments of relief supplies being dropped into Srebrenica. State Department spokesman Joe Snyder said about 60 metric tons of food and medicine were scheduled to be dropped Friday night, up from 30 tons Thursday.

Although Snyder declined to say if the increase in tonnage was permanent, he said it was “not a one-shot deal.”

Meanwhile, the Administration searched for additional ways to bring pressure on Serbia and its Bosnian Serb allies without directly overruling the Pentagon’s objections to injecting U.S. forces into the brutal European land war.

Christopher said the chances are improving rapidly for U.N. Security Council approval of a U.S.-backed resolution authorizing enforcement of a ban on the use of military aircraft over Bosnia.

The council adopted the “no-fly zone” last year but did not authorize the use of force to prevent violations.

U.S. officials said that a Serbian bombing raid last weekend tipped the balance of opinion in favor of enforcement. Although the United Nations has reported hundreds of technical violations of the ban, there had been no previous attacks on ground targets.

“The United States has long been in favor of enforcement of the no-fly zone,” Christopher said. “I think it’s an indication of the activity we’ve shown in this area.”

Security Council members discussed the issue informally Friday. Snyder said that a vote was expected “in the near future.”

The State Department also announced that six 27-foot Boston Whaler boats will be donated to the navies of Bulgaria and Romania to help them patrol the Danube River to enforce the embargo against Serbia. The river has long been used to evade the embargo.

Snyder confirmed that a ship evaded a European naval blockade and delivered as much as 50,000 tons of gasoline to the Adriatic port of Bar in Montenegro, Serbia’s ally and the only other republic still part of the state of Yugoslavia. Despite what he said was a “serious violation” of the embargo, Snyder said the blockade by European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was “a very successful operation” overall.

U.S. Ambulance Run?

The United States is considering a plan to dispatch helicopters to evacuate wounded civilians from Srebrenica, an eastern Bosnian town under siege by Serbian rebels. If approved, the U.N.-requested action would bring American air crews into range of Serbian artillery.