House Votes to Lift Bosnia Arms Ban : Congress: Lawmakers reject Clinton plea against unilateral action, 244-178. But a Senate bill is months away, and passage of any measure is seen as unlikely.

In the latest congressional revolt over President Clinton’s handling of foreign policy, the House voted by a large margin Thursday to require the Administration to unilaterally lift an embargo on arms sales to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The vote was 244 to 178; 117 Democrats lined up against the White House, while 132 supported the President.

After the vote, the White House said that, while Clinton favors lifting the U.N. embargo, he opposes acting without the consent of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies who have peacekeeping troops on the ground in the Balkans.

But the House decided that the embargo is unfairly punishing Bosnian Muslims, who are seriously outgunned by the Bosnian Serbs.

“If the President had spoken out loudly and clearly for his principles, we wouldn’t be in this mess . . ,” complained Rep. Frank McCloskey, the Indiana Democrat who led the rebellion over Bosnia. “But we don’t have any sense of resolve, clarity, focus or expertise anywhere” in foreign policy.

McCloskey warned that missteps on foreign policy would “become at some point a domestic political liability for the President,” undercutting his stature on such issues as health reform.

The House-passed measure, attached to the House version of the annual bill authorizing defense spending for the coming year, is unlikely to become law.

Although the Senate adopted similar legislation by a 50-49 vote last month, McCloskey’s measure must still be accepted when the House and Senate Armed Services committees meet later this year to reconcile their versions of the defense authorization bill.

Later Thursday, the House passed its $262.7-billion defense authorization bill by a vote of 260-158, but the Senate bill is at least two months away from clearing the Senate floor. Both the chairman and the ranking Republican of the Senate panel oppose lifting the embargo unilaterally, as does House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland).

“Given the hurdles, it’s very unlikely this will go all the way and, even if it does, it has not been passed by nearly enough votes to be veto-proof,” said a House foreign policy aide.

That seemed small consolation to an Administration smarting from a series of congressional rebukes that reflect a lack of confidence in Clinton’s conduct of foreign affairs.

In a letter circulated to House Democrats before the vote, Clinton argued that “unilateral action now would be particularly damaging” because it would undermine support for economic sanctions that Washington wants to impose on North Korea to punish it for refusing to allow inspections of nuclear facilities. More than that, Clinton said, McCloskey’s amendment would mean the end of the effort to bring peace to Bosnia.

Three of Clinton’s top military and foreign policy advisers--Defense Secretary William J. Perry, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott--underscored those points in greater detail at a closed briefing, attended by more than 100 House members shortly before the vote.

“They argued very strongly that lifting the embargo now would only intensify the war in Bosnia and that lifting it unilaterally would cause a serious rift with the NATO allies,” one participant said. “They even suggested at one point that the future of the NATO alliance could be at stake.”

But several lawmakers who attended the session said they thought that the Administration team had failed to make a compelling case. Others said they were inclined not to take the warnings too seriously because they doubted the mandate to lift the embargo would ever become law.

“Absolutely!” responded Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) when asked if her colleagues regarded the McCloskey amendment as a “free vote” that allowed them to express their displeasure with Clinton’s Bosnia policy without actually forcing him to change it.

In Sarajevo, Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic welcomed the vote. The Associated Press quoted him as saying on Sarajevo radio, “We were not expecting such a significant and great victory. . . . We are dealing with a unilateral lifting of the embargo, which the U.N. Security Council can no longer influence.”

The Security Council, with the support of the United States, imposed the embargo in September, 1991. The idea was to keep weaponry in the region to a minimum and thus reduce the violence. In fact, critics argue, it has aided well-armed Serbian forces by denying Bosnian Muslims the weapons needed to defend themselves.

Thursday’s vote “wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement” for Clinton’s foreign policies, conceded House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), who led the losing fight against McCloskey’s amendment.

“A number of Democrats told me they didn’t really want to lift the embargo unilaterally but did want to send a strong signal of disapproval to the President over his Bosnia policy and knew that it would be cleaned up in conference” with the Senate, Hamilton added.

Hamilton, who said he knew that the Administration could not win, had sponsored an alternative that would have urged Clinton to seek allied support for the lifting of the embargo. His amendment was defeated by a vote of 242 to 181.

“There were just a large number of people who wanted to say as strongly as possible that the President’s policy is unacceptable,” Hamilton said.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) a leader of the embargo-lifting effort, said, “For two years now, we have looked the (Serbian) aggressor in the eye and said, ‘If you go one step further we will take definitive action.’ And they took some steps, and we backed up.

“There is an old, old historical lesson: Tyrants never respond to weakness,” Hoyer said.