Clinton Aides, GOP Clash Over Bosnia : Balkans: Gingrich and Dole call for pullout of peacekeepers and bombing of rebel Serbs. Perry and Christopher argue moves would widen conflict.

The Clinton Administration clashed sharply with top GOP lawmakers Sunday over U.S. policy in Bosnia, with the Republicans calling for the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers and the bombing of the Serbian nationalists, and key Cabinet members countering that such moves would mean a wider war.

In a day of cross-fire on the Sunday television talk shows, incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said that the Administration’s push for a diplomatic solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina is unworkable and urged a more aggressive stance.

But Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Defense Secretary William J. Perry insisted that pulling peacekeeping troops out and lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims, as the Republicans proposed, would only lead to increased killing in the Balkans.

“Essentially, it’s a war strategy,” Christopher said on the ABC program “This Week With David Brinkley” in an interview from Hungary, where he is attending a conference on European security. The others spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

Perry also said that evacuating the more than 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers now in Bosnia would require at least 10,000 allied ground troops and would be a risky and “very difficult” operation. He said U.S. troops “would participate” in any evacuation but insisted that the size of any U.S. force is still to be determined.

But he warned that if the U.N. forces leave, their departure would “give up the advantage” that the peacekeeping troops have provided--that is, reducing the intensity of the conflict and in the process saving the lives of thousands of civilians who otherwise might have been killed.

The Administration and the GOP leadership have been at odds over the Bosnia question for several months, but their war of words has intensified since the situation there began deteriorating a few weeks ago and since Republicans won control of the next Congress.

The Republicans’ call for lifting the arms embargo and increasing the allied bombing of the Bosnian Serbs has drawn far more attention recently since it became clear that they could have the power in January to force the Administration to follow some of their prescriptions.

Dole just returned from a series of consultations in Europe that included briefings at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels and talks in London with leaders of the British government.

Dole charged Sunday that the U.N. peacemaking effort in Bosnia has been ineffective and that the British, Canadian, French, Dutch and other peacekeeping troops there have “become hostages for the Serbs.”

Gingrich echoed Dole’s assertions that the U.N. troops should be withdrawn, calling the United Nations incompetent in dealing with any serious dispute. “It’s fine as long as it’s there . . . doing good things,” he said. “When you get to a serious problem . . . (it) is literally incompetent, and it kills people by its behavior.”

Both Dole and Gingrich urged lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims and then bombing Serbian emplacements all around Bosnia, not just near the six designated U.N. “safe areas.”

“Everybody is in full retreat now,” Dole said, “. . . trying to accommodate the Serbs. And I assume if you accommodate the Serbs enough, they’ll say, ‘Well, we have peace,’ but peace at what price?”

But Christopher contended that Dole’s proposals for ending the conflict are “essentially . . . a war strategy” that ultimately would force the Administration to send in ground troops and “would mean war for the United States.”

Christopher said the Administration’s current hope is to “reinvigorate” the peace process by prodding the nationalist Serbs to accept a negotiated peace settlement. “Our main aim in this, at the present time, is to prevent the spread of the war,” he said.

Perry warned that if the allies were to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims, that would prompt Britain, Canada and other allies to withdraw their U.N. peacekeepers, forcing the United States to help evacuate them.

He also denied that the United States has abandoned hopes of using NATO air power once again to help pressure the Bosnian Serbs into agreeing to a brokered settlement. “We will continue to propose that when appropriate,” he said.

* SUMMIT IN HUNGARY: President Clinton is attending a European conference today. A4