NATO Approves Air Strikes Plan to Block Serbs

Uniting in a new warning to Serbian forces in Bosnia, the United States and its NATO allies have agreed on a plan to use air strikes to aid the beleaguered defenders of Sarajevo, NATO officials declared Monday.

Under the agreement, U.S. warplanes could be in position to strike Serbian targets by early next week if the Serbian forces continue their attacks on the Bosnian capital, according to a draft statement by allied governments worked out in all-night negotiations at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels.

The 16-nation NATO alliance pledged “stronger measures, including air strikes, against the Bosnian Serbs and others responsible in Bosnia-Herzegovina” if “the strangulation of Sarajevo and other areas continues,” according to the joint declaration. The NATO leaders directed the alliance’s military commanders to draw up options for carrying out air attacks, and officials said those options are expected to be ready for a final decision within a few days.

If the air strikes are carried out, it would mark the first time since the founding of NATO in 1949 that the alliance has taken an offensive military action. Although NATO maintained millions of troops during the Cold War, its forces were never actually used in battle.

The agreement alone marks a victory of sorts for the Clinton Administration, which has been stymied for months by its inability to persuade U.S. allies to agree to use force in Bosnia. Earlier in the day, President Clinton had expressed confidence that this time an agreement would be reached.

“I don’t believe the allies will permit Sarajevo to either fall or to starve. I think we’ll come to a common position,” he said.

But agreement on the declaration does not guarantee that air strikes will actually be used, still less that they would truly be effective in ending the 16-month-long siege of Sarajevo and the attendant suffering. The history of the Bosnian war has seen numerous examples of Western threats to take strong action against the Serbs--threats that to this point have turned out to be hollow.

U.S. officials have said openly that part of the decision to announce the agreement now but not actually launch attacks until next week was the hope that the threat of NATO action will prompt the Serbs to ease their long siege of the Bosnian capital and move toward a peace settlement at the current talks in Geneva.

Under the plan pushed by the Clinton Administration, air strikes could be used in either of two cases: if the Serbs interfere with humanitarian relief shipments to Bosnia or if the Serbian “strangulation” of the city continues.

That decision to back two possible reasons for authorizing bombing met a key Administration objective. U.S. allies generally had agreed to use air power if relief shipments were subject to attack, but several had resisted the idea of also authorizing air power to aid the defense of Sarajevo, fearing that NATO would be drawn into the Bosnian war.

In particular, officials said the draft had been adopted only after last-minute appeals by U.S. officials overcame reservations from the Canadian government that, earlier in the day, had seemed likely to block a NATO consensus. Canada has troops on the ground in Bosnia as part of the U.N. mission there and has worried that those soldiers might be endangered by any U.S. military action against the Serbian forces.

Monday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Council--the NATO deliberative body--was among the longest on record and ended about 2 a.m. this morning in Brussels. A first round of negotiations ended in an apparent stalemate that was broken only after talks recessed to allow representatives to consult with their governments.

Air strikes could also be used, under earlier agreements, to protect the U.N. forces if the U.N. secretary general requested assistance. So far, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has not made such a request.

Some countries have argued that any NATO action in Bosnia must await specific approval from the United Nations. An unidentified official of the Russian Foreign Ministry made that argument Monday, telling the Russian Interfax news agency that there should be no discussion of a “purely NATO operation.”

“Such decisions cannot be made while circumventing the U.N. Security Council, which itself authorized sending U.N. troops to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.

U.S. officials have rejected that argument, saying that existing U.N. resolutions provide sufficient authority for NATO action. The NATO declaration pledges “coordination” with the United Nations but carefully avoids any suggestion of a need for further U.N. authorization.

NATO already has moved dozens of aircraft to Italy and Turkey to carry out the plan, including four AC-130H Spectre gunships with precision-guided munitions, similar to the aircraft the United States used recently to wipe out the headquarters of Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid in Mogadishu.

The allies finished placing air- control spotters in Bosnia on Friday and are now completing arrangements to install command centers in the area. Officials said the attacks could be launched, if necessary, within a few days after a decision to go ahead is made.

Despite the threats from the West, Bosnian Serbs so far have only intensified their siege of Sarajevo, stepping up artillery fire around the city in what appears to be a final push designed to preempt any action by the allies.

The NATO agreement came after a 48-hour period during which the Administration appeared to send conflicting signals on whether the United States would go it alone in Bosnia if the NATO allies did not join up.

On Sunday, in what was widely interpreted as a shift in position, State Department spokesman Mike McCurry had said that the Administration was “determined to act,” although it would prefer to act with NATO support. His statement was interpreted as suggesting that Clinton would order air strikes even if the other NATO nations did not agree to back his action.

U.S. officials privately said Monday that McCurry had gone farther than intended with a statement that had been designed to rattle U.S. sabers at the Serbs but not necessarily to signal a break with the allies.

Through most of the day Monday, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other officials backed away from McCurry’s statement, insisting that the question of whether the United States would act unilaterally was a hypothetical one that would not arise because the United States, in the end, would receive NATO support.

“Both President Clinton and I have made it clear from the outset that we want to approach this multilaterally, that is in dealing with our friends and allies. That is why discussions are taking place at NATO at the present time,” Christopher told reporters as he traveled to Egypt, where he hopes to make progress on Middle East peace negotiations.

Lauter reported from Washington and Pine from Cairo. Times staff writer Sonni Efron, in Moscow, contributed to this story.