ACCESSION
NUMBER:326050
FILE ID:POL203
DATE:02/08/94
TITLE:CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 (02/08/94)
TEXT:*94020803.POL
CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8
1
(Bosnia) (610)
LAWMAKERS DIFFER ON HOW TO RESPOND TO SARAJEVO KILLINGS
U.S. lawmakers continue to condemn the mortar attack on Sarajevo's
marketplace over the weekend which killed scores of people and wounded
hundreds others, but they differ on how the United States should respond.
Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
told NBC-TV he thinks that air strikes, while "clearly necessary," should
be for "limited purposes" -- to prevent the siege of Sarajevo, to stop
mortar and artillery shelling of the city, to help move the humanitarian
aid forward, and to protect the U.N. troops.
Broader air strikes "to roll back Serbian aggression" are unlikely, he said,
and he sees "no support" in the United States, or among North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, to put combat troops on the ground
there.
But Senator Richard Lugar, a leading Republican on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said on the same program that he supports broader air
strikes.
"If we're serious about making our point, we're going to have to think about
air strikes on Serbian targets, military targets," he maintained.
The most basic thing that needs to be done, Lugar asserted, is for President
Clinton "to take leadership." And this is "a tough thing to do," Lugar
said, because "allies are balking" and "the U.N. situation is difficult."
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, in a prepared statement, called for
"immediate and firm action to implement air strikes" and an end to the U.S.
arms embargo on the Bosnian government.
"What is at stake here," Dole maintained, "is not only the future of Bosnia,
but the credibility of NATO, the United Nations, and United States global
leadership."
Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee
on Europe, in a prepared statement, charged that the West has held back
from lifting a U.N. arms embargo on the Muslims and ordering air strikes
"in the mistaken belief that silence would bring peace." He urged
immediate NATO air strikes against Serbian military targets and an end to
the arms embargo against Bosnia. "Failure to act now," he said, "dooms us
to see this weekend's scene of slaughter repeated in Bosnia and throughout
the Balkans."
Democratic Senator Dennis DeConcini, chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, also urged airstrikes because, "There is only one way to stop
the aggressor, and that is by force."
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told ABC News that "We can't allow this
aggression by the Serbs to continue." But he cautioned that air strikes
alone "are not going to do it, so you have to lift the embargo and you have
to allow these people to defend themselves."
"It's time we take a punitive strike against the Serbians," said
Congresswoman Susan Molinari on CNN TV. What is happening to the Muslims
in Bosnia, she said, "is not unlike" what happened to the Jews during World
War Two.
But Democratic Senator James Exon, in a Senate floor speech, cautioned
against a military response "unless we have a clear, thought-through
policy" that has the support of "our NATO allies" and has a chance of
stopping the shelling.
Republican Senator Phil Gramm also warned on CBS TV that for him to support
1merican military intervention there must be "a clear plan as to how, by
intervening, we're going to stop the killing, which is our objective; how
we're going to not only get into the conflict, but how we're going to get
out. I have seen no such plan. Nobody in the military has told me that
bombing would be decisive."
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