Clinton Seeks Support for Bosnia Deployment : Military: President says most U.S. peacekeepers would be there for ‘months, not years’ if accord is signed.

President Clinton on Wednesday began the task of winning public support for a deployment of American troops in Bosnia, contending that most U.S. forces would be assigned to peacekeeping operations there for “months, not years” and are unlikely ever to see combat.

However, Clinton acknowledged in a meeting with a group of newspaper columnists in the Oval Office that “some very minimal force” of American soldiers may have to stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina to keep the peace longer.

The President suggested that this smaller, longer-term deployment would be similar to the operation in which American forces were assigned to keep the peace between Israel and Egypt after the Camp David accords in 1978.

The session marked the President’s first detailed discussion of the prospective American deployment to Bosnia and enabled him to set down some of the themes that he will take to Congress and the American people in coming weeks.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have expressed growing skepticism about, and even direct opposition to, sending any U.S. troops to a Bosnian peacekeeping operation. Earlier this week, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III contended in an interview with The Times that it would not be in the United States’ interest to send troops to Bosnia.

But Clinton made clear Wednesday that he plans to win congressional and public backing by arguing that an American deployment would be relatively short and safe.

“If we were to send a substantial number of troops in there, it would have to be for a limited amount of time, just to deal with all the phaseout that has to be done when people begin to lay down their arms,” the President explained Wednesday.

Clinton sought repeatedly to argue that American soldiers sent to Bosnia would not be in great danger.

“I think the American people have been exposed to such horrible violence in Bosnia . . . that they may assume that if the United States were to go there to be part of implementing the peace process that our troops would automatically be in a conflict,” the President said. “I think that would be a false assumption. . . .

“Of course, whenever you send people into a situation where there has been hatred and violence, there’s always the prospect that something could happen,” he added. “But I think the likelihood is far greater that they will be there to enforce a peace agreement and that they will not be subjected to combat-like circumstances.”

The Administration has agreed to send up to 25,000 U.S. ground troops to Bosnia to bolster North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces if a peace accord is signed. Defense Secretary William J. Perry told reporters this week that, while planning still is incomplete, intentions are for the U.S. force--along with up to 25,000 additional ground troops from other NATO countries--to remain in Bosnia for as much as a year.

Clinton maintained that the American deployment would be as peaceful and uneventful as the peacekeeping operation in the Sinai Desert that followed the Camp David accords. “There’s never been an instance, as far as I know, no American, no foreign soldier has ever been harmed at all in the process of just sort of being there as a symbol of reassurance,” he said.

He said he intends over the next few weeks to make his case in public. “If we can get a peace agreement, I’ll go before the American people and explain it and make my argument, and go before the Congress and explain it and make my argument,” he said.

The President said the American deployment to keep the peace in Bosnia could be “perhaps a little smaller, but more importantly, can be of a more limited duration” than had been envisioned two years ago because of the recent, aggressive NATO bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs and because of the gains on the ground by Croatian and Bosnian forces in recent weeks.

Asked whether he is worried that Croatian forces will at some point try to overwhelm Bosnia’s Muslims, Clinton replied:

“The difference between the Croatians and the Serbs is that the Croatians . . . if they can think to the future, what they want is an economic, a political, a security relationship with the West--which is the point of leverage we never had with the Serbs, because they were always looking eastward.” He was referring to Serbia’s close and longstanding ties with Russia.

The President spoke with President Boris N. Yeltsin on Wednesday, aiming to work out some agreement on how Russia will take part in the Bosnian peacekeeping operations.