

	     



			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary

____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 April 18, 1994 

		       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
			    UPON DEPARTURE
	     
	     
			    The South Lawn



9:12 P.M. EDT



	     THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  I'd 
like to say a word or two about the situation in Bosnia.  First of 
all, as all of you know, the situation in and around Gorazde remains 
grim and uncertain.  I think it is important to point out why this 
happened.  It happened because the Serbs violated the understandings 
of a cease-fire that they -- agreement they made with both the United 
Nations and with the Russians.  To the best of our knowledge, this is 
the first time that the Russians, working through Mr. Churkin's able 
leadership, have reached an agreement with the Serbs which they have 
not honored.
	     
	     The United Nations commander on the ground, General 
Rose, made the judgement at several points over the last couple of 
days that NATO close-air support was either not practically feasible 
or would not be helpful under the circumstances.  In Gorazde, we have 
-- we, the United States working through NATO -- basically, are 
empowered only to provide close-air support to U.N. troops when they 
are under siege or under threat of attack on request of the U.N. 
commander.
	     
	     I have monitored this situation very closely all 
weekend; I have a good deal of time on it on Saturday; I had lots of 
conversations yesterday about it; and have met this morning with Mr. 
Lake.  Our national security principals will be meeting today to 
consider what else we can and should do in this circumstance.  
	     
	     The main thing I want to point out is that we have to 
find a way to get the momentum back.  The big successes in the last 
couple of months in Bosnia have been, obviously, preserving Sarajevo 
and achieving the agreement between the Croatians and the government 
-- the Bosnian government.  They are very important; those things 
still hold, and I'm convinced we can find a way to build on them and 
go forward.  
	     
	     But this has not been a great weekend for the peace 
effort in Bosnia.  I do think that the big things are still working 
in the long-term favor of peace.  And we'll just have to see where we 
are, and we'll be reporting more as the day goes on and through the 
rest of the week.
	     
	     Q    Mr. President, you wanted to lift the arms embargo 
a year ago -- would you still like to do it?  You would lead an 
effort to do that?  It would take American leadership, many in 
Congress say, to do this.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  The Americans tried to lead it before.  
We will be discussing now what our other options are.  As you know, 
at the time there was a clear specific reason we couldn't succeed in 
lifting the arms embargo, which was that not just the Russians, but 
the French and British did not want to do it because they had 
soldiers on the ground.  Now their soldiers on the ground are in 
danger.
	     
	     The real question we would have to work through there is 
how many countries would go along, and could we get it through the 
U.N.?  But I've always favored doing it.  
	     
	     I just want to say, though -- I want to ask you all to 
think about -- those who say, there are many who say, well, we can do 
it unilaterally and we ought to do it unilaterally.  But remember, if 
we do that, first of all, there are substantial questions about 
whether under international law we can do it, but secondly, if you 
resolved all those -- what about the embargo that we have lead 
against Iraq that others would like to back off of but they don't 
because they gave their agreement that they wouldn't?  What if we 
needed embargoes in the future?  What about the trade sanctions on 
Serbia themselves?  What about any possible future economic action in 
other countries where we have difficulties today that we'd want other 
countries to honor?  
	     
	     So we have to think long and hard about whether we can 
do this unilaterally.  But certainly, as you know, I have always 
thought that the arms embargo operated in an entirely one-sided 
fashion; and it still does.  That's the reason we're in this fix 
today because of the accumulated losses of the Bosnian government as 
a direct result of the overwhelming superiority of heavy artillery by 
the Serbs.
	     
	     But again, I would say we have been making good progress 
at the negotiating table.  I don't want to have a wider war.  I think 
even if you lifted the arms embargo and you had a lot of other people 
fighting and killing, in the end there would not be a decisive 
victory for either side in a war; there's going to have to be a 
negotiated settlement.  And the real problem now is that the Serbs 
agreed to a cease-fire with both the U.N. and the Russians, and they 
didn't keep their end of the deal.  We're going to have to see where 
we are today, and we'll have more to say.
	     
	     Q    Why do you say you're making progress, and couldn't 
you have moved a little faster?  This has been coming on for a couple 
weeks.
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  I disagree with that.  What do you mean?  
Keep in mind, the role of the United States and NATO is to respond 
when the United Nations asks for close-air support when its troops 
are in danger.  This is not Sarajevo; Sarajevo was a special case.  
And the no-fly zone -- if planes violate the no-fly zone they can be 
shot down; that was done by NATO and the United States.  This is a 
different case.  We can only do what we have the authority to do.  
	     
	     And frankly, I think it is a little too easy to Monday 
morning quarterback General Rose who has been very aggressive, very 
strong, and very much supported in this country and throughout the 
world for his aggressive actions.  It's easy to say now he should 
have been more aggressive in Gorazde.  I think he did the best he 
could with the resources he had under the facts as they existed.   
	     
	     And so I don't know that General Rose had any other 
options.  I just know that we have a disappointing and difficult 
situation there today, and we'll be working on it.
	     
	     THE PRESS:  Thank you.
		  

				 END9:18 A.M. EDT

