Clinton Barely Averts Rebuke on Bosnia

The Clinton Administration, under continuing congressional criticism for its handling of foreign policy, narrowly averted a major rebuke in the Senate on Friday when it defeated legislation that would have required the lifting of the Yugoslav arms embargo.

The Senate split 50-50 over a Republican measure that would have directed President Clinton to ignore the United Nations and end U.S. participation in the almost 3-year-old embargo, which many have criticized, saying it has hamstrung the Muslim-led government from defending Bosnia-Herzegovina from Serbian nationalist aggression.

Although the tie defeated the measure--a majority was required for approval--its near success underscored the persistent unease among lawmakers over Clinton’s handling of Bosnia and other foreign policy trouble spots.

A tie vote on an issue “of such importance is a ‘no’ vote-of-confidence,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who voted to end the embargo.

“The message here,” added Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who opposed the measure, “is that the Senate does not agree by a very large majority with the Bosnian arms embargo” and remains split only over “the consequences of lifting it unilaterally.”

With Clinton personally working the phones to sway wavering senators and his Senate allies delaying the vote until one Democrat could rush back from his home state, the arms embargo dominated debate over a $263.3-billion defense bill that the Senate was struggling to complete before adjourning for its July 4 recess.

In other votes, the Senate decided by a margin of 55-45 to retain the option of building more B-2 Stealth bombers and agreed by an overwhelming margin, 88-12, to move up by six months the date on which military retirees receive cost-of-living increases in their pensions.

But it was the Bosnia issue that provided the drama as the Administration worked feverishly to avert a highly embarrassing foreign policy setback just days before Clinton embarks on an overseas trip for economic talks with European leaders.

The House, by a decisive 244-178 margin, attached an almost identical Bosnia amendment to the version of the defense bill that it passed earlier this month. A similar move by the Senate could have sent the measure to the President’s desk--forcing him either to lift the embargo or cast the first veto of his presidency.

Vetoing the defense bill, several Democrats noted privately, would have been especially embarrassing for Clinton, given his record of avoiding military service in the Vietnam War.

With the stakes so high, Clinton personally spoke with several Democrats who were leaning toward supporting the Bosnia amendment, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Other senior officials, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher, joined the effort, working the phones and offices of wavering Democrats as Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) maneuvered to postpone the vote to give them more time.

In the end, three Democrats who had been expected to vote with Dole--Sens. Richard H. Bryan and Harry Reid of Nevada and Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado--switched sides.

In all, 37 Republicans and 13 Democrats voted to lift the embargo, while 43 Democrats and seven Republicans voted against it. California Democrat Barbara Boxer voted with Dole; Democrat Dianne Feinstein sided with the President.

“We really went to the brink this time and almost didn’t make it,” a Democratic aide involved in the behind-the-scenes machinations confided. “There is a lot of disaffection, among Democrats as well as Republicans, with Clinton’s foreign policy and with Bosnia in particular, and a lot of them kept saying they wanted to vote with Dole to communicate that disaffection to the White House.”

It was not the first time that the Senate has been at this particular brink, however. Last May, it voted, 50-49, to pass a similar Dole amendment. But still deeply divided over what course to follow in Bosnia, the Senate mixed its message then by also voting, by an identical 50-49 margin, to urge Clinton to lift the embargo only in consultation with U.S. allies.

In the end, that earlier, self-contradicting resolution--which had no companion in the House--went nowhere.

But this time the stakes were higher, both because the House had since passed its own legislation and because senators were expressing increasing frustration with the embargo.

Imposed in September, 1991, the embargo was adopted by the U.N. Security Council in a bid to contain the bitter fighting among Muslims, Serbs and Croats in the Balkans.

But it has been widely criticized for preserving the advantage enjoyed at the outset of the conflict by the better-armed Serbs as they pressed their campaign of “ethnic cleansing,” especially against Bosnia’s beleaguered Muslim-dominated government.

While the Administration agrees with that assessment, it has resisted growing congressional calls to lift the Balkans embargo without the consent of its European allies and Russia, saying such unilateral action might imperil other, key international efforts, such as the Iraqi sanctions.

Christopher, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the eve of the Bosnia vote, said that lifting the embargo at this time would also have a devastating effect on the efforts now under way to find a peaceful solution to the Bosnian crisis.

In Geneva next week, Christopher and the foreign ministers of Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are to complete a new plan for the partition of Bosnia and present it to the warring factions. The Senate debate showed that Bosnia’s supporters in Congress remain highly skeptical of the still sketchy plan.