U.S. Could Have Stifled Arms to Bosnia, Envoy Says

A pipeline to smuggle Iranian arms to Bosnia probably would not have been established if the United States had opposed it forcefully, a senior U.S. diplomat acknowledged Thursday.

Once the route was established, it led to a sharp escalation in Iranian arms shipments to the Balkans, far beyond what was already seeping in, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith told the House International Relations Committee.

Galbraith’s testimony appeared to contradict earlier statements by Clinton administration officials defending the president’s secret decision in April 1994 to allow Croatia to set up the smuggling operation.

Administration officials have sought to downplay the significance of Clinton’s action by arguing that the decision to give a green light to the Iranian arms pipeline made little difference in the flow of arms.

Until now, administration officials also have said that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman probably would have gone ahead with the arms shipments regardless of Washington’s response to his question about the arms pipeline. In April 1994, Tudjman asked Galbraith and Charles Redman, then the chief U.S. negotiator in the Balkans, how the United States would respond to the creation of a supply route for Iranian arms to Bosnian Muslims.

Rather than giving a plain yes or no answer, Galbraith and Redman, under orders from Washington, told Tudjman that they had “no instructions” on what the U.S. response would be. The answer meant that the United States would not object.

Galbraith made it clear Thursday that the Croatians, who were then in the process of building closer ties to the United States, were seriously concerned about how the Clinton administration would respond.

“I can say that had we in a very, very forceful way made it clear that we would not tolerate the flow of arms to the Bosnians, that they probably would not have done it,” Galbraith said. “When we did not object, they proceeded to go ahead and do it.”

Galbraith also said that in the year before the U.S. decision, the Iranians had shipped only a “trickle” of arms to Bosnia through neighboring Croatia. During 1993, Croatia and the Bosnian-Muslim government were fighting each other. Croatia had little interest in allowing the Muslims to get many weapons until the U.S. brokered a peace agreement and a federation alliance between the two sides in March 1994.

“Certainly what was being talked about in April 1994 was something very substantially greater” than what had been shipped by the Iranians before, Galbraith said.

Croatia’s cooperation with the pipeline was critical because there was no other route through which Iran could have shipped large quantities of arms.

Galbraith and Redman, now U.S. ambassador to Germany, provided their first public testimony to Congress on Thursday on the secret Iranian arms policy and described a series of crucial meetings that led to the accelerated flow of Iranian arms.

On April 27, 1994, after receiving word from Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic that Tudjman planned to ask him the following day how the United States would respond to arms shipments, Galbraith asked for instructions from Washington, according to the accounts provided by the diplomats and other administration officials.

Clinton then met with National Security Advisor Anthony Lake on Air Force One during a flight back from former President Richard Nixon’s funeral in California. At that meeting, Clinton decided that Galbraith should be told that he had “no instructions,” officials have said.

Galbraith met with Tudjman on April 28 to give him that message. Then he and Redman had dinner with Tudjman on April 29 and clarified the message--after Tudjman said he was confused by the “no instructions” answer.

By early May, Iranian 747s loaded with arms were landing in Croatia.

The two diplomats said that their activities fell well within the boundaries of normal diplomatic activity, that they followed instructions from Washington and that they still believe that the Clinton policy was proper because it helped lead to peace.

“In retrospect, I believe that the decision not to oppose the Croatian initiative was crucial to all that followed in the Balkans,” said Redman. “If we had attempted to block that initiative and succeeded, it very likely would have doomed the federation [between Croatia and Bosnia] and exacerbated an already desperate military situation for the Bosnians.”

Added Galbraith: “I believed then, and even more strongly now, that the administration made the right decision. Because of the arms, the Bosnians were able to survive.”