Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506060063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short
Clinton has offered to deploy American ground troops to help reposition U.N. peacekeepers to safer locations in Bosnia but has said U.S. troops will not take part in the peacekeeping mission.
``I have urged the greatest of caution in terms of getting America further involved in this conflict, which seems almost hopeless,'' Warner, the second-ranking member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, told reporters.
Warner, who has visited Bosnia five times, said the war there is rooted in a thousand years of regional tensions that outsiders find hard to comprehend.
``I don't want to see American lives expended in trying to solve a conflict which none of us can understand or in any way justify,'' Warner said. ``So I'm hoping the president will not further involve the United States militarily.''
Warner said there is no military solution to the fighting in Bosnia. ``It has to be through negotiation and diplomatic means,'' he said.
NATO forces, led by France and Great Britain, are trying to end the war that began in April 1992 when Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia. About 200,000 people have died in fighting or disappeared.
Warner also said he would caution against U.S. retaliation for Friday's downing of the American jet.
by CNB