In Bosnia, U.S. Creeps Deeper

To find the Americans here in this hard-line Bosnian Serb town, just ask.

Any Serb can offer precise directions to the two-story beige house where 10 or so Americans live, gather intelligence and generally tap into the mood of a restive population that has been instructed to despise foreigners as an occupation force.

These American soldiers, free of the battle dress most U.S. troops wear, chat up the locals, eat in restaurants and read Yugoslav Nobel laureate Ivo Andric in their spare time.

“We try to have a lot of contact,” said a towheaded GI who is part of a team of U.S. Army Special Forces and Navy SEALS known as joint commission observers. Americans took control of this program late last year, tripled its size and now have deployed a dozen teams around the country.

Living relatively unprotected in Bosnian neighborhoods, the soldiers are just one element in an exploding American presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina. From scarred villages to the near-bustling capital, Sarajevo, U.S. numbers and influence, both public and covert, military and civilian, have mushroomed.

The American dominance is part of a more aggressive, hands-on interventionism led by the United States and aimed at achieving concrete results in the execution of the Dayton, Ohio, peace accords that ended Bosnia’s war 23 months ago.

It goes well beyond having U.S. troops in Bosnia. Most of the principal civilian international agencies making and keeping peace in Bosnia are now controlled by Americans. The CIA station in Bosnia is now reputed to be one of the largest in the region. No fewer than five special envoys cover Bosnia for the Clinton administration.

American advisors are training armies in Bosnia, tabulating government budgets and reshaping local television stations. American troops scatter leaflets telling Bosnians how to vote in elections. Directors of both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency paid unusual, secret visits to Bosnia in the last month, according to diplomatic sources.

The U.S. Embassy, whose American staff has tripled in the last year and is for the first time allowed to bring adult dependents, is opening branch offices in the Bosnian Serb city of Banja Luka and the Bosnian Croat city of Mostar. A first contingent of U.S. Marines to guard the Sarajevo embassy is arriving any day.

In Banja Luka, once a fearful place off limits to most Westerners, a U.S. Embassy car is routinely parked in front of the Bosna Hotel in a space previously reserved for Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president now accused of war crimes. A local Serb recently became the Voice of America correspondent, an occupation that once would have been suicidal. U.S. aid offices are scattered throughout Banja Luka.

For Serbs and a few others, the American presence is nothing short of occupation--Bosnia as a protectorate. But for American policymakers--alarmed that this fractured country could disintegrate into renewed warfare during a congressional election year--this is a critical effort to show progress in Bosnia between now and next summer’s expiration of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mandate for international peacekeeping.

Safety Issues

The strategy may already have been influential: Last week, American congressional leaders voiced unusual consensus on the need for the U.S. military to remain in Bosnia beyond June. One administration official said the ability to point to successes was a persuasive argument.

U.S. officials, who once cried “mission creep” and sought to limit their operations here, are increasingly calling the shots in Bosnia, with dramatic gains but also a bull-in-the-china-shop approach that has alienated allies and may not consider long-term consequences.

As the number and visibility of Americans increase, so does their exposure. Safety remains a sensitive topic. Those determined to torpedo the peace process are well aware that the quickest way to do so is to draw American blood.

At the house occupied by Americans in Vlasenica, a U.S. soldier was stabbed in July by a Serb wielding a garden sickle. Although he was not hurt badly, the soldier was one of only four American servicemen wounded in anger since NATO deployed in Bosnia in December 1995. No arrests were made in the sickle attack.

A potentially greater threat to Americans, diplomats say, is the continued presence in the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia of Iranian and other Islamic fundamentalists, including some Egyptians and Saudis, who have become well entrenched here despite U.S. demands that the Sarajevo government expel them.

The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo issued a warning to Americans last year after death threats made to NATO soldiers by Iranian-trained moujahedeen living in north-central Bosnia. Separately, a CIA operative was shot and wounded while driving about 30 miles outside Sarajevo.

In Sarajevo, Iran has an unusually large embassy, several cultural centers and a program that sends Bosnians to Iran for “training.” There are numerous Islamic humanitarian groups that Western diplomats believe serve as cover for spies and both government and nongovernmental agents.

Iranians “do not like what the United States is doing here. I am sure they are watching very closely,” said a senior Western diplomat. “They consider Bosnia an Islamic country. . . . They don’t want the West to be perceived as succeeding in an Islamic setting.”

Senior Clinton administration officials say they are monitoring fundamentalist activities in Bosnia and are not concerned.

One of the most controversial American efforts in Bosnia is the “train-and-equip” program that supplies Bosnian Muslim and Croat armies with more than $100 million in heavy artillery, tanks, helicopters and other materiel. The United States is a partner in the program with Egypt, Turkey and other friendly Islamic countries, who are providing an additional $300 million in equipment.

About 200 advisors--retired U.S. Army officers working for a Virginia-based firm--are training the Muslims and Croats in modern warfare at newly refurbished schools and instruction centers scattered through Bosnia’s rugged central valleys. Except for the climate, it looks a lot like Central America in the 1980s, when U.S. forces built armies in the name of peace and democracy.

More Weapons

The United States maintains “train-and-equip” will wean Bosnian Muslims away from traditional arms-supplier Iran and pump the Muslim-Croat forces up to par with the enemy Serb army.

But Washington’s NATO allies, most of whom are outraged by the very idea of introducing more weaponry into this volatile region, say the program encourages more war. They believe the Muslim-Croat armies already have a fighting edge over the neglected Bosnian Serb army.

Last month, international officials took a swipe at the American effort, ordering a halt to U.S.-financed construction of a $30-million state-of-the-art firing range in western Bosnia. Once completed, it would be the largest NATO-standard range outside Germany. But it is precariously close to the homes of war refugees whom international officials want to resettle.

The newest, stickiest twist to U.S. policy in Bosnia is the decision to back Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic in her challenge to Karadzic, as a way to push him to the margins and destabilize Bosnian Serb hard-liners. But this too carries serious political risks for the Americans, especially when it backfires.

A recent failed operation showed the dangers of American interventionism; not only did U.S. troops come under direct attack for the first time, but the very policy was endangered.

Secret Mission

About 2 a.m. on Aug. 28, U.S. troops launched a secret mission, moving on five Bosnian Serb cities and two television transmission towers. They arrested four pro-Karadzic police on the outskirts of the city of Brcko and laid barbed wire around the main police station there.

The official objective was to separate Serbian factions that might come into conflict. But the operation was, in fact, designed to help install police loyal to Plavsic and take broadcasting equipment away from Karadzic forces, Western officials say.

Police and media are the two most important tools sustaining Karadzic and his hard-line supporters in power. A similar mission one week earlier, conducted by British troops, had succeeded in turning the entire police apparatus of Banja Luka over to Plavsic.

But in the predawn darkness of Aug. 28, some of the American platoons could not find their targets. When the Americans hesitated, Karadzic supporters had time to figure out what was happening and organize mobs to challenge the U.S. troops.

Under the direction of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Grange, the operation stalled awaiting political support from the United Nations. But U.N. officials, seeing no legal justification for it, had declined to participate, according to sources.

Air-raid sirens rang out in Brcko, the most pivotal city involved in the operation, and daylight saw angry crowds attacking American soldiers, who were eventually forced to retreat in messy chaos.

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There is evidence to suggest that Grange was in direct contact that day with U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the supreme commander of NATO, who, with the Clinton administration’s special envoy, Robert Gelbard, has been responsible for unusually hands-on and forceful actions in Bosnia.

And there are indications that the Sarajevo-based NATO command was less than enthusiastic about that day’s confused operation.

The violence in Brcko, Bijeljina and other cities involved clearly spooked the Americans, angered nervous allies and, it would later emerge, endangered Bosnian Serbs who had been part of the U.S. effort. Several pro-Plavsic police had to go into hiding, and international officials had to give haven to others and their families.

Gelbard, speaking to The Times a few days later, said he did not see the failed operation as a setback. “The overall trend,” he said, “is quite favorable.”

Warning Signs

What went wrong that day, and who is to blame, has become a topic of angry debate among foreign officials in Bosnia. Some argue that the Americans’ overt siding with a Bosnian faction has led to some heavy-handed and less than democratic actions, such as taking over television transmitters and police stations.

Eagerness to get things done leads to ignoring certain warning signs, they say. But others see the U.S.-led efforts as a necessary and ultimately successful strategy in a region where conventional diplomacy gets nowhere.

“There have been times in the past we really needed more forceful U.S. action, like in refugee returns, freedom of movement, restructuring police . . . and the Americans were not there,” said an international official. “And now the Americans have not only come on board, they’ve gone way beyond the rest of us.”

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Next: How Clinton’s tough-minded new foreign policy team has intensified the Americans’ role in Bosnia.

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U.S. Duties in Bosnia

The United States has a growing presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Agency: State Department

Task: Operates embassy in Sarajevo, the capitol (more than 100 staff members).

Robert Gelbard appointed special representative of president and secretary of state for implementation of the Dayton accords. Established Office of War Crimes Issues. Provides one-tenth of the 2,000-member international police force in Bosnia.

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Agency: National Security Council

Task: Established a separate directorate for Bosnia.

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Agency: Defense Department

Task: Deploys 8,500 SFOR (Stabilization Force) troops. Deploys specialty units, such as the Joint Commission Observers.

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Agency: CIA

Task: Operates one of agency’s largest stations in Bosnia.

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Agency: Treasury Department

Task: Deploys six technical advisors, the Treasury advisor (attached to embassy staff).

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Agency: United States Information Agency

Task: Spends $2.4 million to increase Voice of America broadcasting in Serb-controlled areas.

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Agency: USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)

Task: Spends $200 million in reconstruction finance credits and $37 million in technical assistance for private-sector development.

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Agency: Federal Aviation Administration

Task: Conducts airport safety inspections, assists in restarting civil aviation system.

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Agency: Commerce Department

Task: Operates business development missions, assists in completion of contracts (worth $2.7 million in Bosnia this year).