U.S. Envoy May Have Aided Arms Convoy to Bosnia

A U.S. diplomat intervened with senior Croatian government officials to expedite passage of a convoy carrying supplies that may have included Iranian arms for the Muslim government in Bosnia in the spring of 1994, administration officials said Tuesday.

The convoy had been halted in Croatia, and Bosnian Muslims--desperate for help to fend off the better-equipped Serbs--were eager for it to arrive. Officials say Charles E. Redman, then chief U.S. negotiator in the Balkans, asked Croatia’s foreign minister to allow the convoy to pass through his country, administration sources say.

Only about 10 days earlier, Redman, as the result of a secret policy decision by President Clinton, had told the Croatians that the United States would not object to creation of a covert Iranian arms pipeline to help the Muslims.

The sequence of events suggests that administration officials may have taken a more active--if possibly unwitting--role than they have acknowledged in facilitating secret Iranian aid to flow to the Bosnian Muslims despite a United Nations arms embargo that the United States had pledged to uphold. Administration officials have confirmed that they chose not to obstruct the Iranian smuggling but said they did not actively assist it.

The U.S. role in permitting increased Iranian involvement in Bosnia has been a focal point of criticism as details of the secret policy have emerged.

Officials said it appeared that Redman did not know whether the convoy carried arms or not. He has told associates that he never asked, but assumed that the convoy carried humanitarian supplies.

The U.S. government still does not know for certain whether the convoy in question carried Iranian arms, administration officials said Tuesday. Yet there were press reports at the time that Iran Air cargo jets were seen at the Zagreb airport unloading what Bosnian officials said were military supplies.

Redman’s intervention on behalf of the convoy became a key issue in a six-month inquiry of the Clinton Iranian arms policy by the Intelligence Oversight Board, a small White House agency that sought to determine whether the administration had engaged in an illegal covert action. In May 1995, the board concluded that the Iranian arms policy did not constitute a covert action and that no U.S. laws had been broken.

The administration’s acquiescence in Iranian arms shipments was defined by the Intelligence Oversight Board as “traditional diplomatic activity” that did not require congressional notification or a written “presidential finding” that would have been required of covert action.

But U.S. officials now acknowledge that Redman’s intervention with the Croatians about the convoy could raise questions about whether the administration had taken a step beyond acquiescence toward a more active role. Some officials who testified before the intelligence board said they believed that the convoy, which crossed the Croatian border into Bosnia in early May, did carry arms. But they also stressed that they did not think that Redman knew this.

“The bottom line was that even though he raised the issue of the convoy [with the Croats], there is no basis to believe that he knew it carried arms,” a senior administration official said Tuesday. Redman’s actions “did not constitute a covert action,” the official added.

“There is no question that this was not covert action,” agreed former Sen. Warren B. Rudman, a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board who has read the IOB report. Still, the IOB determined that even if Redman had known there were arms in the convoy, it still would not have been illegal for him to intervene. Redman’s actions “did not constitute a covert action,” an administration official said.

The administration did not tell congressional leaders about its decision to give a green light to Iranian arms shipments. Intelligence Oversight Board Chairman Tony Harrington briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the panel’s investigation in closed session for the first time Tuesday. But invoking executive privilege, Harrington refused to testify under oath and threatened to walk out if committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) demanded that he give sworn testimony. Specter backed down and Harrington briefed the committee.

U.S. sources said Tuesday that Clinton decided to give a green light to Iranian arms shipments during a meeting with National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on Air Force One on April 27, 1994, while they were on a trip to California for former President Richard Nixon’s funeral.

Already, the Croatian defense minister had broadly hinted to Peter Galbraith, U.S. ambassador to Croatia, that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman was preparing to ask how Washington would respond to the idea of an Iranian arms smuggling operation to help the embattled Muslims. The Croatians were interested in the smuggling because they would take a large cut of the shipments.

On April 28, administration officials said, Galbraith met with Tudjman and told him he had “no instructions” about a U.S. response--diplomatic code that the United States would not object.

Not sure he understood the U.S. message, Tudjman asked Redman the next day what “no instructions” meant. Redman told Tudjman: “We [the United States] don’t want to be the ones that say no to this,” according to a senior State Department official.

Tudjman now understood and the Iranian pipeline was apparently launched almost immediately. On May 3 or 4, according to press reports, an Iran Air 747 unloaded cargo in Zagreb, ringed by Croatian Interior Ministry troops, despite a manifest citing “humanitarian goods.” The Washington Post and London Observer reported at the time that the plane carried 60 tons of explosives and other raw materials for weapons production.

Part of this cargo was obstructed by radical Croat gunmen demanding a share of the goods. It was not known whether this was the convoy that brought the request for Redman’s help.

But a senior State Department official said that Redman’s intervention with the Croatians was simply part of an ongoing effort by the United States to free up relief supplies for the Bosnians. He was also eager to promote cooperation between the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims to further cement the military alliance that they had recently forged.

“We [the U.S.] dealt with convoys all the time,” the official said. “We had a winter relief operation set up all winter and spring. The Bosnians raised the issue whenever they had problems, the Croatians raised it whenever they had problems. . . . Convoys were an everyday occurrence.”

The Bosnian request for Redman’s help was made in Vienna in early May, while he was negotiating with then-Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic and Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic on the terms of the new Bosnian-Croatian federation.

Redman told associates that he recalled Silajdzic raising the issue.

“We always weighed in with the Croatians” when the Bosnians complained about convoys, the official said. “It had absolutely nothing to do on our end with arms. . . . It was strictly on the basis of this being a humanitarian shipment.

“The Bosnians would never raise something regarding arms shipments with us; they were afraid we would deep-six it,” he added.

The official said that a Bush Administration action in 1992 to block an Iranian arms shipment had made the Bosnians mistrustful of the United States ever since. Other U.S. officials say that the Clinton Administration never told the Bosnian government that it had secretly approved of Iranian arms shipments through Croatia.

Sources who have read the Intelligence Oversight Board report said Tuesday that there are “discrepancies” concerning Redman’s intervention with the convoy.

The report says that Redman told the investigating board that he took no action to help the convoy move, the sources said.

But other officials told the board that they believed Redman did intervene. And he has subsequently told associates that he may have raised the issue with Granic, the Croatian foreign minister who was at the talks in Vienna, although he did not specifically recall the conversation.

Redman has told associates that he was truthful to the intelligence board, and if there is any conflict between his testimony and that of others, it must be “a misunderstanding.”