European Allies Favor a Limited Role for U.S.

On the eve of a meeting of Western defense ministers, France, Britain and other contributors to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Friday were weighing President Clinton’s strings-attached offer of logistic help and even ground troops.

But they remained convinced that a heavily armed European “rapid reaction force,” and not a U.S.-led effort to consolidate peacekeepers, is the best way to shore up the faltering U.N. operation.

France and Britain seemed determined to ask for as little U.S. help as possible when they meet today with Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“This force will need some German and American logistical support, to be sure,” said Hans Stark, a Balkans specialist with the French Institute of International Relations. “But the importance of the Americans is mainly psychological. And the U.S. presence in the Adriatic Sea is already a step forward, showing the Serbs that the Western alliance is still alive.”

French officials say they would like to persuade the Americans to provide logistics support for the quick-strike force.

But U.S. officials have insisted that they would only provide support for an operation to redeploy U.N. peacekeepers into safer areas.

In any case, such a mission would likely be an effort of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That would mean that the United States would be in charge, something the Europeans are unlikely to accept.

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In calling together defense chiefs and other military officials from 14 NATO and European Union countries just five days before a regularly scheduled meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, France bypassed both the United Nations and the Atlantic Alliance, becoming the leader in the drive to win greater strength for U.N. troops in Bosnia.

Charles Millon, the new French defense minister, said a rapid reaction force would be made up of 4,000 to 5,000 troops, including 1,500 British soldiers now being sent to the area and 500 French troops aboard the aircraft carrier Foch in the Adriatic.

Other European Union allies, including the Italians and Dutch, are expected to be asked today to contribute troops.

The force’s chief mission, as seen by France, would be to safeguard the 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers and prevent more hostage-taking by Bosnian Serbs, to open up a land corridor through Bosnia to Sarajevo and to protect strategic sites.

The force also might be called upon to help consolidate the U.N. peacekeeping operation, which analysts say is particularly vulnerable because so many small units are operating in isolated areas.

But, from the French point of view, the force’s main appeal is its flexibility.

The two U.N. Protection Force commanders on the ground, French Gen. Bernard Janvier in Zagreb and British Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith in Sarajevo, would be able to order the force into action without going through the U.N. civilian chain of command.

French Prime Minister Alain Juppe said Friday that a rapid reaction force would “not be an aggressive force but a protective force. We can no longer tolerate being scorned and humiliated without reacting.”

That anger at the taking of about 370 U.N. hostages, 170 of them French troops, by Bosnian Serbs last week has been pervasive in Europe as well as in Canada, which has one of the largest contingents of foreign troops in the Balkans.

Political leaders have blamed the hostage-taking on an ill-advised NATO air strike and, more broadly, on the United Nations for refusing to give peacekeepers the means to protect themselves.

But many leaders are also embarrassed by their inability to work together to resolve what they believe is a European problem.

France, which has lost 39 soldiers in the past three years in Bosnia, has argued strenuously for stronger rules of engagement for U.N. troops in Bosnia.

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It was reported Friday that Adm. Jacques Lanxade, the French armed forces chief, tendered his resignation to President Jacques Chirac last week in a meeting in which the president accused his military leaders in Bosnia of “cowardice.”

Chirac did not accept the resignation, and Lanxade said Friday that “there is now consensus between all of France’s leaders on what to do.”

But Chirac has given his troops orders to deal more firmly with Bosnian Serb aggression.

The Canadians, for their part, support the French idea of a mobile reaction force. But they oppose the aggressive form of NATO bombing promoted by the United States and, in particular, the air strike that led to the hostage-taking.

David M. Collenette, Canada’s defense minister, said this week that he wanted to hear “directly from Perry and get his assessment” of Clinton’s offer of assistance.

So far, 10 Canadians have been killed in Bosnia operations.

While France and Britain would welcome access to U.S. firepower, intelligence gathering and even ground troops, they do not want to hand control of any part of the mission over to the United States.

Nevertheless, Clinton’s offer of ground troops surprised the Europeans. Until now, the United States has said only that it would provide half of the 50,000 troops that would be needed to safely withdraw the U.N. mission from the Balkans.

Although France and some other countries have threatened to withdraw their peacekeepers, they agree that, in the absence of a U.N. presence in Bosnia, the Muslim-led Bosnian government would be quickly--and probably brutally--overrun by the Bosnian Serbs, who now control about 70% of the country.

Times staff writers Kenneth Freed in Toronto and Art Pine in Washington contributed to this report.

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