Clinton Hails U.S. Troops in Bosnia as ‘Warriors for Peace’

With a backdrop of battle-ready attack helicopters and armored vehicles, President Clinton on Saturday praised American forces in Bosnia as “warriors for peace” and commiserated with them about the local weather conditions, calling them “veterans of the Tuzla mud.”

Although his trip was mainly to show solidarity with the American troops he has ordered to the Balkans, Clinton also used the visit for some high-level political lobbying to strengthen elements of a peace accord that have shown ominous signs of unraveling.

“I come with a simple message: Your country is proud of you,” Clinton told 850 troops dressed in full combat gear on the tarmac of the main air base for U.S. forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The troops, a mixture of enlisted men and women from the Army, Navy and Air Force, responded by raising their voices in unanimous shouts of “Hooah!”

They represented a little more than a tenth of the 8,200 U.S. troops already deployed in Bosnia as part of the multinational Operation Joint Endeavor charged with implementing the peace accord brokered last fall in Dayton, Ohio, that has brought a fragile calm to this country after 3 1/2 years of war.

When deployment reaches its peak, 20,000 Americans will be in Bosnia as part of a 60,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization force. A symbolic number of troops representing other countries in the mission joined the Tuzla ceremonies.

“Here our nation, through you, can make a difference between a war that starts again and a peace that takes hold,” the president, who wore a leather bomber jacket with “President Clinton, Commander in Chief” printed on it, told the Americans.

“The Bosnian people are exhausted by war. You can give them the strength they need for peace.”

Clinton endeavored to impress upon the troops--some of whom are bored by the mundane routine of setting up a massive camp and patrolling it--the historic significance of their deployment. He called Task Force Eagle, the American part of the multinational force in Bosnia, “a mission for heroes” and stressed that their participation in the NATO effort is crucial not only to Bosnia but also to their own country’s national interests.

He also told the troops that he had just created a new medal for noncombat service, which they will all receive.

“He came here to tell us we’re doing a good job. We needed this uplifting,” Sgt. Kenneth Fletcher, 35, from West Palm Beach, Fla., said as Clinton shook hands with the troops after his speech. “It was right on time. Right on time.”

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Before speaking to the crowd of troops, Clinton stopped to talk with some paratroopers at an old MIG-21 hangar at the far end of the runway that the 325th Airborne combat team is using as its quarters. He joked with them about the trouble he had trying to get to Tuzla.

The president and his entourage--which included a 10-member bipartisan congressional delegation and senior Administration officials--were scheduled to visit Tuzla before going to Hungary, but the order of the visit was switched because a thick fog prevented his plane from landing in the northeast Bosnian town Saturday morning.

“But I’m glad to be here,” he told the paratroopers.

Clinton arrived on the tarmac for his speech in a Humvee and strode past row after row of saluting troops while a military band played “Hail to the Chief.”

Security was very tight. As the president spoke, an Apache attack helicopter flew nearby and armored vehicles--including a multiple rocket launcher system--and more helicopters were parked behind him. Even the color guard wore M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders.

To ensure the safety of the president’s landing at Tuzla, the C-17 transport plane he flew in was escorted by several Apache helicopters. Clinton appeared to be wearing body armor under his jacket.

The stop at the muddy Tuzla air base was the high point of a hectic day, during which Clinton also visited U.S. troops before dawn at Aviano Air Base in Italy, where the primary air support for the mission in Bosnia is headquartered, and others in Taszar, Hungary, the main staging area for American soldiers headed to Bosnia.

Along the way, the president engaged in some power diplomacy on the run.

During a 2 1/2-hour stop in the Croatian capital, Zagreb--the last on his tour--Clinton pressed Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to do more to ensure the region’s present uneasy peace by reining in militant Bosnian Croats threatening the unity of the U.S.-brokered Muslim-Croat federation and by continuing the peaceful integration into Croatia of Serb-held Eastern Slavonia.

Clinton also agreed to dispatch a special mediator to the divided Bosnian city of Mostar, where explosive tensions between Muslims and Croats threaten to undermine the peace plan.

The diplomatic initiative came amid reports of renewed fighting between the Muslims and Croats that constituted the most serious cease-fire violation to date. NATO spokesmen reported artillery duels in Bosnia’s Usora Valley, 35 miles west of Tuzla, while each side accused the other of provoking the attacks.

Following two rounds of short talks with Tudjman, Clinton said he will send his mediator, Roberts Owen, to Mostar to attempt to defuse the crisis that has been fueled by several shootings of police officers in the last two weeks.

In Tuzla, Clinton brought together a highly unusual meeting of leaders from all three of Bosnia’s ethnic factions to discuss ways of rebuilding bridges to one another.

The session--which included such individuals as the Muslim mayor of Sarajevo, Tarik Kupusovic, and his counterpart from the Serb-held Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza, Nedzeljko Prstojevic--was described by one White House official as “fairly extraordinary” and “the single most encouraging [political] thing the president saw.”

“We began what we hope were some conversations that will be central to the process of reconciliation,” the official said.

For many of those present, it was their first meeting in four years. Nowhere has the level of tension that coexists with Bosnia’s uncertain peace been more visible than in the Sarajevo area.

Earlier, in talks with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Clinton drew attention to the provision in the Dayton agreement requiring all armed combatants from other countries to leave Bosnia by Friday. This includes an undetermined number of Islamic moujahedeen volunteer units who fought on behalf of the government.

Izetbegovic expressed gratitude for the American role in bringing peace to Bosnia: “In President Clinton, we see a great friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

The implementation of the peace accord, which was brokered largely by the tenacious efforts of the Clinton administration and signed in Paris a month ago, has emerged as a crucial trial for NATO and for the United States as the world’s only superpower.

“It’s the great test of where we go in the post-Cold War period,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter told reporters during the transatlantic flight Friday evening.

Reflecting the international composition of the deployment--which includes troops from non-NATO as well as NATO countries--Turkish, Pakistani, Norwegian, French, Swedish, British and Russian troops traveled from various points in Bosnia to attend the presidential ceremony in Tuzla.

While in Taszar earlier in the day, Clinton met Hungarian President Arpad Goncz and thanked him for allowing U.S. troops to set up their staging base on land that a few years ago was enemy territory.

He remarked that collaboration between the United States and Hungary that would have been “unthinkable” during the Cold War now “seems perfectly normal.”

Many of the 7,000 U.S. troops based in Hungary are on their way to Bosnia, and the others will remain in Hungary to support the deployment.

Addressing more than 1,000 of the troops in a rough temporary structure that serves as a mess Taszar, Clinton said: “When your mission is completed, all of you will be able to look back at this partnership with former adversaries and say, ‘We made history,’ ” “And you will be able to be proud of it as long as you live.”

Clinton joked with the Bosnia-bound troops, saying that he would have liked to tell them about the “deluxe accommodations” awaiting them in Tuzla but that “even for a political leader, that’s stretching the truth.”

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At the bases in Taszar and Tuzla, most of the troops live in tents with wood floors, heat and lights. But the conditions for those deployed in other parts of Bosnia are tougher. Some have to sleep in their Humvees or in tents pitched on the muddy ground.

On a serious note, Clinton thanked the troops for their sacrifice.

“I know you and your families carry the heaviest burden of our leadership,” he said.

While most of the troops appeared buoyed by his visit, some were so disgruntled over the hardships of the mission that they were nonchalant about seeing the president.

“I don’t even understand why we’re going there. I don’t think we have a purpose there,” said Tammy Liddell, 26, who is normally based at Germany’s Bad Kreuznach base and had to leave her 4-month-old and 4-year-old children behind when she was called up.

Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), one of the members of Congress traveling with Clinton, said Liddell’s views are common in Congress and across the country.

“The whole country is very skeptical about this mission and rightly so, given the mines and snipers and potential terrorist activities,” he said.

But Livingston said that visiting the troops a month ago had changed his mind about the potential for a successful mission.

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Although American officials have warned there may be casualties, so far only one American has been wounded. He was hurt when the Humvee he was driving hit a mine.

Despite the doubts about the mission felt by some of the troops and shared by much of the American public and many Republicans in Congress, Clinton persisted in presenting a positive view about the mission, saying that he is more optimistic now than he was before the troops were dispatched.

During his flight from Aviano to Hungary early Saturday, Clinton told reporters: “Given the level of animosity which has existed among these folks, I think the climate has been quite good.”

“I’m not trying to minimize the problems. They’re significant. But on balance, I’m more hopeful now.”

In his parting words as he prepared to leave the region en route to Washington, Clinton told a crowd of about 500 Croats who had come to greet him at Zagreb airport that the conflict in Bosnia--like those in the Middle East and Northern Ireland--is not between Arab and Jew, Catholic and Protestant or Muslim, Croat and Serb, but between those who want peace and those who want war, those trapped in the past and those who look to a better future.

“I ask you . . . to choose peace, choose the future, open your arms,” he said.

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall in Zagreb and Tracy Wilkinson in Sarajevo contributed to this report.