NATO May Bolster U.N. Mission in Bosnia : Military: Defense chiefs of 19 nations will meet next week to consider options. But withdrawal plans are likely to proceed.

Following a week of intensive hand-wringing about how to rescue the 23,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force from Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO on Wednesday swung its focus instead toward bolstering the beleaguered U.N. contingent so it can stay and be more effective.

“The first priority is looking at how to strengthen UNPROFOR,” said a senior alliance official here, using the acronym for the peacekeepers formally known as the U.N. Protection Force. “The second priority is planning for a withdrawal.”

Officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said an emergency meeting of defense chiefs from 19 nations involved directly or indirectly in the Bosnia peacekeeping operation will convene Monday at The Hague to discuss the military feasibility of proposals for strengthening the U.N. force.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, is expected to represent the United States, while the U.N. commander for operations in the former Yugoslav federation, French Gen. Bernard de Lapresle, is also expected to be present.

According to U.S. and NATO officials, the generals will probably concentrate, at least initially, on the practicality of a joint U.S.-French proposal first aired earlier this week in Washington following a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry and his French counterpart, Francois Leotard.

That plan would create a secure corridor for humanitarian aid to flow between the Adriatic port of Split and the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, reorganize forces to give better protection to Sarajevo’s airport and bring in groups of 10 to 20 peacekeepers from isolated areas to reduce the potential for hostage-taking.

“We’re looking at ways they can carry out their mission better,” said British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind.

The developments came during a meeting here of NATO defense ministers. One of the main agenda items was to discuss planning operations for a withdrawal of the U.N. forces if conditions in Bosnia deteriorate further.

While planning for such a pullout was discussed and preparations for such an operation are expected to continue on an urgent basis, the ministers of those NATO nations directly involved in the Bosnia mission, and also the United States, clearly were concentrating on how the U.N. force might be rescued.

“All ministers agreed withdrawal would be a major defeat for the international community and lead to more violence,” explained a senior alliance official.

One U.S. official talked of a “dramatic turnaround in attitudes” within the alliance, which for months has been critical of the U.N. mission and at odds with its senior commanders for refusing to sanction NATO air strikes against increasingly bold Bosnian Serb forces.

The Bosnian Serbs, who now control roughly 70% of Bosnia, have repeatedly violated U.N.-declared “safe areas” and weapons-exclusion zones, taken hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers hostage and killed a Bangladeshi soldier earlier this week.

While alliance sources did not rule out the possibility of additional troops for the U.N. force, they did stress that there will be no pressure to change the peacekeepers’ present mandate, which is primarily to escort humanitarian aid deliveries and patrol the six U.N.-designated safe areas and two weapons-exclusion zones.

Any specific recommendations emerging from the Hague meeting would have to be endorsed by the United Nations before being implemented, alliance officials said.

There seemed to be several reasons for the NATO about-face:

* Only as they began to face the cold reality of a U.N. force withdrawal did the alliance countries realize both what a humiliating defeat that would be for the international community and what a potentially disastrous television spectacle it would provide if a withdrawal became disorderly or if a desperate civilian population, facing starvation, tried to stop it.

* Nations not directly involved in Bosnia, including the United States, understood more clearly that, despite their glaring shortcomings and the barrage of criticism leveled against them, the U.N. peacekeepers were delivering humanitarian aid successfully in many areas of Bosnia--areas where people might not survive without it. The U.N. mission is also credited with helping prevent the war from spreading elsewhere in the volatile Balkans.

* For NATO, a push to strengthen the U.N. force offers a way to rekindle its present chilly relations with the world body and prove it can engage constructively in peacekeeping.

“It’s a chance for the United Nations and NATO to work together positively,” a senior U.S. official commented. It is also an opportunity to ease tensions within the alliance itself between countries contributing to the U.N. mission such as France and Britain and those, such as the United States, that have consistently pressed for greater use of NATO air power.

Perhaps even more important, the U.S.-French proposal aimed at improving the efficiency of the U.N. force would also be ideal if a withdrawal became inevitable. It would provide an air and land escape route out of Sarajevo and reposition small, remote units closer to command centers.

“It is useful because it can be used for both scenarios, even if the second (withdrawal) is more remote,” commented Italy’s defense minister, Cesare Previti.

While the United States has no ground troops in Bosnia currently, President Clinton has agreed to provide more than 20,000, or about half the NATO forces expected to be needed to carry out a successful rescue of the U.N. peacekeepers.

Perry has stressed that U.S. participation would depend on three conditions: American troops must be under NATO command, with no U.N. control; the force must be large enough to “intimidate” any Bosnian Serb attempt to stop it, and Congress must support it.

More on Bosnia

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