Excerpt from Situation in Bosnia: Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session, June 7, 8, 14, 15; September 29; October 17; November 28; December 6, 1995

First of all, let me describe in some more detail this first policy. I want to talk about the first policy, which is not being engaged as a combatant in the war. When we say that, that is not to say that we do not have any point of view about this war. We do. We believe that the Bosnian Serbs are the aggressors and that the Bosnian Government and the people are the victims.

Many people who have that same point of view have argued that we, the American Government, therefore have an obligation to see that justice is done in Bosnia, and that we should put in the nec essary combat forces to achieve that justice. That first policy state ment says we reject that argument. And the reason we reject it is, first of all, in our professional judgment, that of myself and of our military leaders, the decision to do that would entail the commit ment of several hundred thousand American troops on the ground involved in a long war with many thousands of casualties. Second, it is a value judgment, and the value judgment is that as great a tragedy as Bosnia is, it is not sufficiently vital to the us. National interest to warrant taking those kind of losses with our troops. And third, there is a political judgment, and that is that there is no support, either in the public or in the Congress, for taking sides in this war as a combatant. So we will not, and there is no wavering on that policy. There has never been any wavering on that policy. There is no intention of taking that step.

Now, having said that, we have three different contingencies by which - well, first of all, as you know, we are using us. Air power as part of nato to support the un. Forces, and I will talk more about that later. But there are also contingencies under which the United States might put ground forces in Bosnia. There has been much confusion in the media reporting on that in the last few weeks in particular, so let me see if I can clarify that issue as well as can.

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