BALKAN PEACEKEEPING : Despite Its Own Little War, U.N. OKs Bosnia Mission : Diplomacy: Unanimous vote clearing way for troop dispatch comes after a bitter clash between U.S. ambassador and world body’s secretary-general.

The Security Council cleared the last legal obstacle Friday for President Clinton’s dispatch of American troops to Bosnia, but the U.N. body acted only after a startling and bitter clash between U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright and Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

In the confrontation behind closed doors, Boutros-Ghali denounced Albright’s criticism of his report on Croatia as shocking in its “vulgarity.” An angry Albright replied that that comment was “unacceptable” in the course of U.N. diplomacy, several ambassadors reported.

The verbal battle, reminiscent of the heated exchanges between Soviet ambassadors and Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold more than 30 years ago, took much of the attention away from the main business of the Security Council on Friday.

The council finally turned to this business in early evening and, in a unanimous vote, approved a resolution authorizing a 60,000-member NATO force to take over peacekeeping responsibilities from a U.N. force that has weathered more than three years of incessant criticism for failing to stop the bloody, enervating war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The U.N. resolution was little more than an endorsement of a Balkan peace accord signed in Paris on Thursday.

Albright told ambassadors after the vote that, in the past, the council’s “message to the people of Bosnia was a tragic one”: “We cannot defend you, and we will not let you defend yourselves.”

Now “our message is a new one,” she said. The United Nations can tell the people of Bosnia that “we have helped Bosnia to negotiate a peace agreement, we are authorizing a powerful force to implement that peace, and we will enable Bosnia to ensure that peace when we leave.”

In related developments:

* The North Atlantic Council, the political arm of NATO, approved the dispatch of the 60,000 troops after the Security Council passed its resolution. “NATO tonight took the most solemn decision of its history,” said Robert E. Hunter, U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in Brussels.

The twin votes by the NATO and U.N. bodies gave Clinton the authority to deploy the American troops to Bosnia.

* Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic declared an end to war in the Serb-held half of postwar Bosnia--but not in rebel-controlled sections of the capital, Sarajevo.

* National Security Advisor Anthony Lake told reporters in Washington that the Clinton administration is determined to stay the course in Bosnia regardless of casualties. “We will not withdraw short of a complete collapse of the mission,” he said, but he added that chances of such a collapse are “very, very small.”

Although the squabble between Albright and Boutros-Ghali centered on Croatia, it was fueled by criticisms that the U.N. mission in neighboring Bosnia was ineffectual. Humiliation and resentment among U.N. officials have festered during months of criticism by the Clinton administration.

For this reason, Boutros-Ghali is resisting the authorization of a U.N. peacekeeping mission to police the return of Serb-held Eastern Slavonia to Croatia. The turnover was worked out by the Croatian government and the Croatian Serbs in an agreement brokered by American diplomats.

Boutros-Ghali insists that only an international force of more than 9,000 troops--similar to the NATO force coming into Bosnia--can perform the mission adequately. But the Clinton administration, which has had a difficult time persuading Congress to accept a NATO intervention in Bosnia, does not want to fight another battle over Croatia. So American diplomats have been trying to persuade other governments to contribute troops to a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Croatia.

Despite pressure from Washington, Boutros-Ghali on Wednesday issued a report to the Security Council stating that he still prefers an international force rather than a U.N. mission. Albright then issued an angry statement calling it “a grave mistake for the secretary-general to shy away from legitimate operations . . . that advance the prospects for peace in the Balkans.”

She also called it “misguided and counterproductive” to avoid a mission “because of the risk of exacerbating a negative image of U.N. activities in the former Yugoslavia.”

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It was this statement that aroused the ire of Boutros-Ghali, who reportedly told a closed meeting of the Security Council that he was “shocked by its vulgarity.”

In her reply, Albright, according to diplomats, said that the secretary-general’s report had “pulled the rug from under a U.S. campaign” to build support for a peacekeeping mission in Croatia. She said that Boutros-Ghali, if he disagreed with her statement, had every right to say so. If he had called it “counterproductive,” she said, “it would have been acceptable, but the use of the word ‘vulgarity’ is unacceptable.”

Boutros-Ghali, making no apology, stood his ground, according to diplomats present, and insisted that it makes no sense to try mounting another U.N. peacekeeping mission when a country like the United States still owes hundreds of millions of dollars for its share of the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

The Bosnia resolution, which was no more than an endorsement of decisions made elsewhere, stripped the United Nations of many of its responsibilities in the war-torn land. Not only will NATO take charge of military operations, but a non-U.N. official, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, will take charge of all civilian operations, such as refugee resettlement, elections, human rights monitoring, police training and economic reconstruction.

In Pale, the city outside Sarajevo that has served as the Bosnian Serbs’ headquarters, rebel leader Karadzic made his declaration ending war in territory his forces controlled. But he specifically excluded Serb-held sections of the capital.

Karadzic’s gesture was intended to show world leaders that he is committed to peace, while reminding them that he bitterly opposes their decision to unify Sarajevo under the rule of his enemies.

The man who charted the Bosnian Serbs’ political course throughout the war has been indicted on war crimes charges and faces arrest if caught by anyone willing to turn him over to a U.N. tribunal.

In Croatia, President Franjo Tudjman said judicial authorities under Bosnia’s Muslim-led government issued arrest warrants for 82 Bosnian Croats, including all Croatian political and military officials in central Bosnia. He did not say what crimes they were accused of.

“Such action is contrary to the idea of cooperation between peoples of Bosnia and Croatia, contrary to the idea of the federation and to the agreement we had signed in Dayton,” Tudjman said, referring to the peace accord initialed last month in Dayton, Ohio, and signed Thursday.

In Washington, meanwhile, National Security Advisor Lake said that the Clinton administration plans a campaign in the coming weeks to explain its foreign policies. He said Clinton will probably make a major speech early next month and will deal with foreign policy in his State of the Union speech to Congress.

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Lake also said that the administration believes that television coverage of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission will build public support for the president’s Bosnia policy.

On Friday, Clinton presented Presidential Citizens Medals to the families of three fallen U.S. diplomats, saying that their deaths in Bosnia underscore the need for American leadership “on the ground, at the heart of events” in the troubled region.

The diplomats--Robert Frasure, Joseph Kruzel and Nelson Drew--died in a road accident Aug. 19 during a mission to lay the groundwork for peace in the former Yugoslav federation.

“Bob, Joe and Nelson devoted their lives--and they gave their lives--to achieve that goal,” said Clinton, surrounded by their widows and young children. “Now we must follow the example they set to make sure this peace takes hold.”

The Presidential Citizens Medal, established in 1969, recognizes U.S. citizens who perform exemplary deeds.

Frasure was assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs. Drew was director of European affairs on Clinton’s National Security Council staff. Kruzel was deputy assistant secretary of defense.

Times staff writer Jack Nelson in Washington contributed to this report.