Security Council Approves Special Armed Force of 12,500 for Bosnia : Balkans: Republican misgivings delay OK of European-led contingent, embarrass Clinton.

The Security Council authorized a European-led, heavily armed special U.N. force for Bosnia-Herzegovina in a vote before dawn Friday after days of delay caused by the misgivings of Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress.

The influence of the Republicans on such a key foreign policy issue clearly embarrassed the Clinton Administration, which had to stand back at one point and watch Senate Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) attempt to reach an agreement on the issue with French President Jacques Chirac.

The final resolution, however, left unsettled the Republicans’ main demand--that the new rapid-reaction force of 12,500 troops, designed to put muscle into U.N. peacekeeping in Bosnia, not cost the United States a cent.

One possible avenue for funding was opened by President Clinton, Chirac and British Prime Minister John Major while they met in Halifax, Canada, at the annual summit of the world’s most industrialized countries. The three leaders announced that they will appeal to rich governments in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere to help finance the force. That was how much of the 1991 Persian Gulf War was financed.

Clinton said the United States, despite the objections of the Republicans, would pay “a share” of the costs, though not the usual 31% that it is assessed for U.N. peacekeeping missions. “I will do my dead-level best to argue that case in Congress,” the President told reporters.

Dole, in Washington, stuck to his refusal to support any U.S. funding for the force, saying he even questioned the need for it.

In Nova Scotia, however, the President said that the force would enable the U.N. peacekeeping mission “to fulfill its mandates, including the opening of Sarajevo.”

“The Serbs,” Clinton went on, “will have to think about the blue helmets [peacekeepers] in a different way before they say, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t cross this road. I’m sorry, we are going to take you prisoner. I’m sorry that we are going to treat you like dirt.’ ”

During the early morning debate at the United Nations, the United States and Britain appeared headed for a collision on the issue of funding. British Ambassador David Hannay insisted that his government expected the $414 million budgeted for the force during the next six months to be financed “in the normal way.” Under the normal U.S. assessment of 31% of the cost of a peacekeeping operation, the United States would be billed $128 million.

But U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told the Security Council: “To put the matter simply, in a time of serious budgetary cutbacks, we are not now prepared to pay the lion’s share of the cost.”

The Security Council passed the resolution 13 to 0, with China and Russia abstaining. China usually abstains when the council votes to intervene in a conflict. Russian Ambassador Sergei V. Lavrov insisted that the reason Russia abstained was because the resolution implied that the force would be used only against the Bosnian Serbs; Russia has longstanding cultural and religious ties with the Serbs.

Sponsors of the rapid-reaction force maintain that it will give the United Nations a weapon somewhere between ineffectual protests and self-defeating air strikes. The protests have had scant success in changing Bosnian Serb behavior, and the most recent air strikes were met by the Serb seizure of more than 300 vulnerable U.N. peacekeepers as hostages in retaliation.

The force would contain a multinational brigade made up of a French battalion, a British battalion, a company of Dutch marines, a British airmobile brigade equipped with artillery and aircraft and a French brigade on standby in France in case reinforcements are needed.

Although the United Nations has the responsibility, according to scores of council resolutions, to escort humanitarian convoys, keep the Sarajevo airport and relief routes open, and protect Sarajevo and five other “safe areas” from Serb attack, the rapid-reaction force will evidently be used mainly to protect the peacekeepers themselves.

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The resolution approving the rapid-reaction force invoked Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter--the main legal authority under which U.N. peacekeepers may use force. The charter states peacekeepers may use force only “to ensure the security of the United Nations Peace Force and its freedom of movement for the accomplishment of all its missions.”

The delays over the resolution shocked many diplomats at the United Nations who have long looked on the U.S. delegation as the world body’s dominating force. Instead, they saw a delegation in confusion, evidently waiting for signals from Republicans in Congress before deciding what to do.

The problem arose more than a week ago, when Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense William J. Perry assured Congress that the rapid-reaction force would be separated from the regular U.N. mission and would be financed by the countries putting it together, mainly France and Britain.

But last week, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali sent a report to the Security Council making it clear that the proposed force would be part of the U.N. mission paid for in the usual way. This was set down in the resolution introduced by Britain and France on Monday.

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A vote was planned for Tuesday or Wednesday, but three powerful Republican House committee chairmen sent a letter to Clinton protesting that the force was not going to be paid for by Britain and France as expected. Albright then asked for a delay in the vote.

On Wednesday, during a visit to Washington, French President Chirac met with Dole and Gingrich, who sent a letter to Clinton saying they had been assured by Chirac that he sought only political support for the force from the United States, not money.

Since the French-sponsored resolution did not state that at all, a U.S. official said, “the assurances that they [Dole and Gingrich] received from President Chirac have complicated the process.”

The matter was swiftly passed on to Halifax, where leaders agreed to accept a U.S. amendment to the resolution stating that “the modalities of financing [were] to be determined later.”

Times staff writers Doyle McManus and Carol J. Williams in Halifax contributed to this report.