![[Imagemap]](/US/images/nav_us.gif){kind=small}
December 7, 1995
Web posted at: 11:15 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary William Perry refuted the idea that the United States is neutral on the political conflict in Bosnia, but said U.S. peacekeeping forces will strive to be even-handed.
"I don't believe we are neutral," Perry said Thursday while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We believe that the Bosnian government and people have suffered atrocities and killings, and we don't approach this as psychologically neutral. What we say we are, and what we will be, is even-handed."
Snuffing out fears that American soldiers would provide military help to Bosnian government, Perry said it would be inconsistent with this even-handed posture for American troops themselves to train or arm Bosnian government forces.
In an attempt to once again clarify the administration's exit strategy, Perry said troops not return in exactly in 365 days, but would be out of the region "within weeks of a year." "Pulling 20,000 troops out is not done to that degree of precision," he said. (160K AIFF sound or 160K WAV sound)
Perry said the military tasks envisaged in the Dayton peace accord will be completed "well before" a year is up.
The administration has dispatched a key negotiator in the Balkans peace accord, Richard Holbrooke, to Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia for final meetings with leaders in preparation for the December 14 peace treaty signing in Paris.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Holbrooke will stress "the absolutely critical need" for the Bosnian government to remove from the country Iranian and other Mujahideen combatants who had joined the fight against rebel Serbs.
"We believe they do represent, possibly in the future, a threat to the American and other forces there, and we want that threat removed," Burns said. "We don't believe that their presence there is at all helpful and we won't tolerate it."
Nearly half of the House of Representatives have signed a letter opposing the peacekeeping mission and urging President Clinton not to send U.S. troops to Bosnia. A brief letter stating "we urge you not to send ground troops to Bosnia" was signed by 184 members, just 34 short of a 218 majority in the 435-member House. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has remained non-committal on the mission, did not sign the letter.
"I don't buy the conventional wisdom that this (deployment) can't be stopped. It can," said Rep. Bob Inglis, R-South Carolina, one of the organizers of the letter to Clinton.
Lawmakers are keen to vote on the Bosnia deployment before next Thursday, when the signing of the Paris treaty is expected to send the green light for the dispatch of 20,000 U.S. soldiers. U.S. advance units comprising about 1,500 troops are already in Bosnia to lay out the groundwork for the mission.
Gingrich said he was certain the House would take a vote on whether to support the mission. The vote is expected to come next Wednesday or Thursday, House members said.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has said he will schedule a Senate vote next week on a resolution giving conditional support to the deployment.
Clinton has expressed his determination to send troops with or without Congressional support. The White House has said the Constitution gives the president the authority he needs to send troops in the national interest.
The Americans will be part of a 60,000-strong NATO force that will guard buffer zones separating the formerly warring factions in the nearly four-year Balkan war.
Copyright © 1995 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.