GOP Lawmakers Question Extending Bosnia Mission

House Republicans expressed apprehension Thursday about hints that President Clinton may deploy some U.S. troops in the Balkans after the current peacekeeping mission there ends in early 1997, but they stopped short of threatening to block him from doing so.

At a news conference, six key GOP leaders--including House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia--warned that any such move would violate Clinton’s pledge to bring U.S. troops home by year’s end and would call into question the administration’s credibility.

However, the Republicans avoided threatening to try to stop such a move--a sign some analysts said suggests the GOP leaders are not yet willing to take on the administration over its Balkans policy at a time when the Bosnia peacekeeping mission has gone reasonably well, with no deaths attributed to hostile fire.

Arnold R. Kanter, a former State Department official during the Bush administration, said that “what is interesting” about the hints of a new force is that they do not seem to have touched a nerve.

Although administration officials have stressed that no decisions have been made, Defense Secretary William J. Perry has said that some kind of “follow-on” force may be needed to prevent the Balkan war from reigniting after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingent leaves later this year.

Perry said that if America’s European allies want such a force, as many of them have suggested, he would recommend that the administration send U.S. soldiers to participate in it, even if that meant deploying some U.S. ground troops.

The administration has sent mixed signals about its intentions in Bosnia--partly, Clinton campaign aides have acknowledged, to avoid touching off a nationwide debate on the issue before one is necessary.

As a result, while Perry has been hinting at the possibility that a “follow-on” force may be needed, Clinton has emphasized that the U.S. troops now serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be pulled out in December or January as scheduled.

“We should stick with our timetable,” he told reporters last week.

The House Republicans seized on these and other inconsistencies, calling on Clinton to send a team of top officials to Capitol Hill to “review the status” of the Bosnia deployment “and the prospects for timely withdrawal.”

“Mr. President, we are now asking the question: When will our American servicemen and women come home?” the Republicans said in a letter to Clinton. “The safety of U.S. forces in Bosnia and the likely continuation of their deployment remain matters of grave concern.”

GOP strategists cautioned that while the statement was muted, the Republicans could intensify their opposition to a new force if the Bosnian situation changes or if public support of the effort turns sour.

Besides Gingrich, the Republicans at the news conference were Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas and Reps. Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, Floyd Spence of South Carolina, Bob Livingston of Louisiana and C. W. Bill Young of Florida.