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U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Explains Bosnia-Iran Arms Deal
ZAGREB, Croatia, May 21 (AP) — The U.S. government had no objections to illegal arms shipments from Iran to Bosnia because they enabled the Muslim-led government to defend itself against the Bosnian Serbs, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia said Monday. Describing his role in the decision to turn a blind eye on the 1994 transfer of Iranian weapons that violated a U.N. arms embargo on the former Yugoslavia, Ambassador Peter Galbraith said he gave no answer when the Croatian government asked him whether the United States would object to the arms route going through Croatia.
“Congress clearly knew, and the public and the Europeans knew, that the weapons were coming in, from Iran among others, that the U.S. government had not objected, nor had any other government,” Galbraith told the Slobodna Dalmacija daily. The comments, obtained in English from the Croatian newspaper, constituted Galbraith’s first public reaction to the clandestine arms shipments first reported in April.
Galbraith and Charles Redman, the U.S. envoy to the Balkans at the time, have testified before a House of Representatives committee investigating the arms transfer. Some U.S. lawmakers charge it violated the Bosnian arms embargo with the tacit approval of the Clinton administration.
Galbraith refused to discuss the hearing. “It was the position of the United States to wish to see the arms embargo lifted, but our administration was not prepared to lift it unilaterally, and we could not persuade the Europeans to lift it multilaterally,” he said. “But we thought that it was important for the Bosnian people to be enabled to defend themselves as they were subjected to the attacks by people who were committing genocide,” Galbraith said.
In that crisis environment in March 1994, just after the Muslim-Croat war ended with a U.S.-sponsored Bosnian federation, “the Bosnians had asked the Croatian government whether they would be prepared to allow its territory to be used for the transport of weapons,” he said. The Croats then asked the U.S. government what the U.S. position would be if they said yes, Galbraith said.
Acting as the “voice of the American government,” Galbraith said, “I related the question to Washington, and I got the answer from Washington which was in fact not to answer the question.” With that tacit approval, the arms shipments went through. |
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