PARIS (AP) — A former NATO chief said Saturday that U.S. troops need to stay in Bosnia longer than planned and the American public should be prepared for that. The comment by retired U.S. general John Galvin came as a new poll indicated that Americans strongly back the mission, but more than half want the troops to leave as scheduled by December.
More than 18,000 American troops are in Bosnia as part of a 60,000-member NATO operation to enforce the U.S.-brokered peace accord. The administration decision late last year to send troops drew a storm of protest, but President Clinton said the troops would be out by the end of 1996. Administration officials have repeatedly affirmed the deadline.
But Galvin, now dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, warned that potential conflicts will remain past the target date. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to pull out in a year.”
“I think we ought to start talking now and explaining to the American public why it is that we cannot do this in a year,” he said. “Why risk losing all the good work that you’ve done by too early a pullout? I don’t think we should have a timeframe.”
Galvin, supreme allied commander of NATO from 1987 to 1992, was interviewed by The Associated Press after addressing a conference on NATO organized by Tufts University of Medford, Mass. He said that among the difficulties was the instability of the Muslim-Croat federation that governs roughly half of Bosnia. Galvin helped organize the federation’s army.
“I don’t know if the federation can hold together. It has a lot of weaknesses, and the Croats are drawing back toward the influence of Croatia,” he said. The opinion poll, released Saturday by Tufts University, found 60 percent of Americans supported the deployment of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Fifty-four percent of respondents, however, opposed extending the U.S. commitment beyond December. The poll said 42 percent favored staying.
The survey was drawn from a national sampling of 613 people conducted by telephone this month by Frederick Schneiders Research. The school didn’t release a margin of error.
Galvin told the forum he saw a positive side to the figures. “You don’t have complete support” to stay more than a year, but “you don’t have a very large percentage that says no.” The poll also indicated 64 percent of Americans believe the United States should keep its commitment to NATO at the present level or increase it. And a solid majority, 62 percent, favored extending NATO membership to Russia.
“You can’t have a security structure in Europe without the Russians,” Galvin told the forum.
To do that, NATO needs to reassure Moscow about former Warsaw Pact nations joining the U.S. alliance, he said. He added Russia needs more help to rebuild its economy to become more stable.
John Galvin Biography
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