THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509070437
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
As bad weather on Wednesday limited NATO airstrikes against Bosnian Serb targets around Sarajevo, Virginia's senior U.S. senator warned that despite the severity and accuracy of those attacks, the chances they will bring peace to the region are limited.
Sen. John W. Warner, a Republican, visited the region two weeks ago as part of a trip that ended Monday. He said he had ``great misgivings'' about the capacity of bombing to force a settlement of the Balkans war and a new partitioning of the former Yugoslavia.
Warner said his doubts are based on experience dating to his service in the Korean War and a stint as secretary of the Navy during the Vietnam era.
In Korea, ``on terrain very similar to what's being fought over in Bosnia,'' extensive bombing did not dislodge an enemy shielded by rugged hills and the limits bad weather places on pilots, he recalled.
More recently, the massive use of air power in the Persian Gulf War, in good weather and against an enemy left exposed in the desert, didn't spare the United States and its allies from having to fight on the ground to win the war.
Warner suggested his concerns were underscored by what he saw in Bosnia and his conversations with American pilots flying there.
``This war revolves around weather,'' he said. ``You've got a window of perhaps another six to eight weeks, maximum, in which if this peace accord is not reached, then (the U.N.) has to decide do they remain through the winter or get out. And if they're going to get out, they've got to move very swiftly before that weather precludes them.''
The fliers he met ``understand militarily what they're being asked to do and the risks they're taking,'' Warner said. ``But it's awfully hard to represent to them that they're on a course of action that will result in success.''
The senator said he's also troubled by the continuing intensity of the hatred between the Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats. On a visit to a village recently retaken by Croats, he said, he was struck repeatedly by the devastation the war has brought to the countryside and its people.
``You could see a house which was completely burned up - destroyed. The house next to it - the laundry still out and the geraniums in full bloom. That house was occupied by a Serb, and with the ethnic cleansing, the Croats burned it to the ground, even though they desperately need housing. It shows the ferocity of the hatred between these peoples.''
KEYWORDS: YUGOSLAVIA CIVIL WAR by CNB