U.S. Outlines Plan to Train Bosnia Army

The Clinton administration has embarked on a plan to begin training soldiers of the Muslim-led Bosnian government, starting as early as February, and later arming them so they could defend themselves after the NATO-led peacekeeping force leaves Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The effort, outlined to leaders of all three formerly warring factions by administration officials last week, would be overseen by private U.S. contractors, who would hire retired U.S. military officers to provide the predominantly Muslim soldiers with training in key military skills.

At the same time, the United States has begun passing the hat among U.S. allies and some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, for money--and in some cases, military equipment--to help finance the effort and provide heavy weapons for the Bosnian army.

U.S. officials stressed that no U.S. troops would be involved in the training. Even the private U.S. contracting firms would not actually train rank-and-file soldiers. Rather, they would school senior officers and enlisted personnel on how to conduct such training.

The plan, designed partly to satisfy congressional demands that the administration arm and train the Bosnian government army, is intended to help “balance” the military capabilities of the Bosnian federation and Bosnian Serbs to discourage further warring after forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization leave.

U.S. officials said the two factions that make up the Bosnian federation--Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats--agreed last week to combine their forces under a single chain of command, with a common defense minister and military chief of staff.

The U.S. effort is intended to help close the wide gap between the military capability of the Bosnian government army and that of the Bosnian Serbs. While the government soldiers outnumber the Serbs, they lack training and heavy weapons.

A classified assessment for the Pentagon conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a government-financed research group, has concluded that the Bosnian federation’s military leaders are competent but that its troops lack serious training in military operations.

The assessment also says that the Bosnian army needs a wide array of heavy weapons and other equipment, from artillery and tanks to armored personnel carriers, air-defense weapons, communications gear and basic infantry equipment, and from small arms to tents and sleeping bags.

U.S. officials say they are still calculating how much it would take to equip and train the Bosnian government army, but current estimates suggest the training could cost as much as $50 million, and the weapons several hundred million more.

The reason for using private contractors rather than active-duty U.S. troops would be to avoid fostering the perception that U.S. soldiers participating in the NATO-led peacekeeping operation are taking the government side and thus are not treating the Serbs fairly.

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U.S. officials fear that any perception that U.S. forces are not evenhanded could provoke Serbian retaliation against U.S. troops and seriously endanger the peacekeeping mission.

Indeed, some European officials have expressed fears that arming the Bosnian army could jeopardize the success of the peacekeeping force. Even American generals and admirals commanding the NATO-led force are said to be wary.

Pentagon and State Department officials said the arm-and-train effort would be coordinated with broader arms-reduction talks among the three former combatants. Those talks began in December under the auspices of Germany and the European Union.

While officials are hopeful that some of the military imbalance can be reduced as a result of the talks, they say it is unlikely the negotiations will leave the Bosnians able to defend themselves adequately without at least some additional training and equipment.

James Pardew, a former Pentagon policymaker who heads an interagency task force headquartered in the State Department, says officials hope to alleviate the Serbs’ fears of the arming and training of their erstwhile enemy by keeping them fully informed.

Pardew said he told Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic last week that it would be better for the Bosnian Serbs if the United States managed the arm-and-train program than if the Bosnian government went out on its own to procure training and weapons.

Pardew said that while Milosevic did not actually endorse the program, he appeared to understand why it was being planned.

“I told him everything would be transparent,” Pardew said, “that we’d be happy to tell him, his people, what was going on.”

The arm-and-train effort would be limited, at least at the outset, by restrictions in the Dayton peace accord, which prohibits any shipments of military equipment to any of the warring factions for at least 90 days and bars heavy weapons for the first six months.

U.S. officials say this means that between early February and March 14, they would have to limit the effort to training only, and that from March through mid-June they would be unable to send anything more than communications gear, trucks and medical equipment.

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Under the terms of the U.S. plan, after mid-June those participating in the U.S.-led effort would be able to send heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery larger than 75-millimeter guns and air-defense batteries to Bosnia.

Despite the agreement by the Bosnian Muslims and Croats to combine their armies under a single chain of command, U.S. officials said most of the training and weapons initially would go to the Muslims.

Officials said they still have not decided which private U.S. contractors would be given the job of training--and later arming--the Bosnians, but they hope to have a decision made by early next month in hopes of beginning the training soon after that.