Sense of Foreboding Settles Over Bosnia Peace Mission

The Clinton administration’s effort to bring peace to the Balkans has reached its first major benchmark without serious setbacks, but there are growing fears in Washington that the remainder of the yearlong mission may prove more perilous than originally thought.

A month after the peace pact took effect, the NATO-led military force has entered Bosnian territory with hardly a hitch. A cease-fire seems to be holding. And the three warring factions generally have complied with requirements--and a Friday deadline--that they separate their armies.

But some senior U.S. officials, as well as private foreign policy experts here, now see danger signs that they fear could lead to an unraveling of the peace effort and stymie President Clinton’s plan for withdrawing U.S. troops in a year.

Despite U.S. pressure, they say, the European-led effort to rebuild the civilian institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina--organizing a police force, guaranteeing freedom of movement and holding elections--is seriously lagging, making the peace much too dependent on military occupation.

While the three major factions generally have been cooperative, recent disputes between Croats and Muslims have heightened doubts about prospects of real solidity for the new Bosnian federation, which is being counted on to address future frictions with conciliation.

And there are major uncertainties over how to resolve the politically sensitive Bosnian territorial disputes that were swept under the table when representatives of the three sides signed November’s treaty in Dayton, Ohio.

Even Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. diplomat who helped broker the peace treaty, privately laments that weak spots in the agreement are already causing problems, associates say.

All this is prone to make analysts in Washington--particularly in the Clinton administration, which has put its prestige on the line with the accord--increasingly nervous, especially as the presidential election looms.

“The military part has gone very well, but we’re beginning to see problem areas at the political level,” said Don M. Snider, a former national security analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These have to be fixed--and fast.”

Even critics acknowledge that the administration can be justly satisfied about the way the mission has gone so far.

But even the most upbeat U.S. strategists acknowledge concerns about the mission’s “challenges”--perhaps foremost, the slow start in rebuilding Bosnia’s civilian institutions. These agencies must be ready when foreign troops begin leaving.

Publicly, Washington is trying to be sympathetic. Deputy National Security Advisor Samuel Berger pointed out that, unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led military force, which had been mapping out and refining its entry plans for months, the civilian effort had virtually no such lead time.

“I think that they’re now moving forward quite steadily,” he said.

But privately, officials fret that, unless the civilian side starts gelling fast, there will be increasing pressure on the military forces to take over some of its role, risking the “mission creep” that led to the 1993 debacle in Somalia in which 18 U.S. troops died in an ambush.

Officials are resigned to the reality that restoring peace to Bosnia will require long, hands-on attention by higher-level U.S. policymakers and diplomats.

Over the past week alone, for example, senior U.S. policymakers got involved in disputes, from Croat-Muslim conflicts in Mostar to the Muslims’ initial refusal to complete a prisoner exchange until the Serbs provided information on massacre victims.

But the day-to-day emergencies are not the only problem.

Washington had hoped that Carl Bildt, the Swede overseeing the nation-building process, would have been further along by now in training a new Bosnian police force. He is just now assembling the trainers.

Without the police, Bosnians have little real freedom of movement. Refugee repatriation has only just begun. The warring factions have yet to begin seriously creating a new national government. And the schedule for elections seems impossible to meet.

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Still, the structures of the future Bosnian state must begin emerging soon.

To step up the tempo, Washington is proceeding with a plan to have private contractors train and later arm Bosnian Muslims to establish a post-occupation “military balance” with the other factions.

Two experienced U.S. policymakers--Robert L. Gallucci and Robert S. Gelbard--are now pushing the civilian side more forcefully. And Washington has installed John Covey, a diplomat with a reputation as a problem solver, as Bildt’s deputy.

Some analysts are nevertheless suggesting that, despite Clinton’s assurances, the administration may have to buy time by stretching out the withdrawal of U.S. troops two or three months. The same sort of gradual withdrawal is taking place in Haiti.