Against a background of outrage over the Bosnian war, the Clinton administration and its Senate allies crafted a policy Friday designed to head off a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo in the Balkans.
The proposal by Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., George Mitchell, D-Maine, and John Warner, R-Va., would urge the administration to work with the United Nations to lift the embargo and provide Bosnia with up to $200 million in U.S. military aid.Those steps would be taken if Bosnian Serb forces attacked U.N. safe areas in Bosnia or failed to "respond constructively" to a proposed peace settlement.
Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warner, the second-ranking Republican on that committee, and Mitchell, the majority leader, offered the proposal hoping to cut off a move to unilaterally lift the embargo on Bosnia.
The Clinton administration lobbied intensely against the U.S. acting alone saying it would disrupt the NATO alliance, scuttle peace negotiations between Bosnia and Serbian forces, and widen the war. Defense Secretary William Perry and Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote Mitchell endorsing the Nunn-Warner-Mitchell alternative.
The emotional debate found senators groping for the best way to stop the horrors of the Bosnian war.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who recently visited the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and visited war victims, described how Serb "terrorist" snipers deliberately targeted children.
"None of these people we saw were hit as a consequence of a spray of bullets. They were all hit by a single shot," Biden said.