[Presidential Decision Directives - PDD]


                           THE WHITE HOUSE
                    Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                 May 5, 1994

                          PRESS BRIEFING BY
                 NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TONY LAKE
   AND DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC PLANS AND POLICY GENERAL WESLEY CLARK  
             
                          The Briefing Room

3:12 P.M. EDT
             
             MS. MYERS:  One quick announcement.  At 4:00 p.m. we'll 
do a backgrounder on the Roosevelt Room on the subpoena which you are 
all aware of.  We'll make arrangements for that when this is over.   
             First, we will hear from Tony Lake, whom you all know as 
the National Security Advisor; and Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, 
who is the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy for the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff.  They will make opening statements, which will be 
for sound and camera, and then five minutes of questions for sound 
and camera.  Then, the cameras will be shut off, but the entire 
briefing will be ON THE RECORD.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Thank you, Dee Dee.  This week, President 
Clinton signed the first comprehensive U.S. policy on multilateral 
peace operations suited to the post-Cold War era.  This policy has 
the full support of the entire administration.  It benefited very 
greatly from the work that had been done in the previous 
administration on this issue and from very detailed consultations in 
the Congress with dozens of key legislators.  In fact, in drafting 
the final policy, we incorporated many very useful contributions by 
members of Congress.
             
             The central conclusion of the study is that properly 
conceived and well-executed, peacekeeping can be a very important and 
useful tool of American foreign policy.  Our purpose is to use 
peacekeeping selectively and more effectively than has been done in 
the past.  
             
             The post-Cold War era is, as we see every day, a very 
dangerous time.  Its defining characteristic is that conflicts in 
this era take place now more within societies within nations than 
among them.  And this makes it a particularly difficult time, both 
conceptually and practically, for us all in the international 
community to come to grips with questions of when and how and where 
will use force.
             
             Some of these internal conflicts challenge our 
interests, and some of them do not.  But the cumulative effect of all 
of these internal conflicts around the world is significant.  We have 
all, over the last year, you and I and the others in the 
administration, spent a great deal of time working on various 
conflicts of this kind, whether in Somalia, or Rwanda, or Haiti, or 
Bosnia or elsewhere.
             
             The further problem here is that these kinds of 
conflicts are particularly hard to come to grips with and to have an 
effect on from outside because, basically, of course, their origins 
are in political turmoil within these nations.  And that political 
turmoil may not be susceptible to the efforts of the international 
community.  So, neither we nor the international community have 
either the mandate, nor the resources, nor the possibility of 
resolving every conflict of this kind.
             
             When I wake up every morning and look at the headlines 
and the stories and the images on television of these conflicts, I 
want to work to end every conflict.  I want to work to save every 
child out there.  And I know the President does, and I know the 
American people do.
             
             But neither we nor the international community have the 
resources nor the mandate to do so.  So we have to make distinctions.  
We have to ask hard questions about where and when we can intervene.
And the reality is that we cannot often solve other people's 
problems; we can never build their nations for them.  
             
             So the policy review is intended to help us make those 
hard choices about where and when the international community can get 
involved; where and when we can take part with the international 
community in getting involved; and where and when we can make, thus, 
a positive difference.
             
             Let me emphasize again that, even when we do take 
action, the primary responsibility for peace rests with the people 
and the parties to the conflict.  What the international community 
can do is to offer a kind of a breathing space for the people 
involved to make and preserve their own peace.  
             
             That's the principle, for example, that we have employed 
in recent months in Somalia.  And we continue to urge the Somali 
people to take advantage of the breathing space that we helped 
provide for them, and to seize this opportunity to resolve their 
differences peacefully.  While we are hopeful, and there are hopeful 
signs that they can do so, there are also disturbing signs in Somalia 
in recent weeks, and we do not know what the outcome will be.  But we 
did our job, we believe, in providing that breathing space, and we 
believe that the more than 15,000 U.N. personnel there are doing 
theirs today.
             
             So we must be selective, as I have just said, and we 
must also be more effective.  The U.S. is committed to strengthening 
U.N. peacekeeping capabilities, because effective peacekeeping serves 
both American and the world's collective interests.  It can produce 
conflict resolution and prevention, as on the Golan or in El 
Salvador; it can promote democracy as it has in Namibia and in 
Cambodia and, again, in El Salvador; and it can serve our economic 
interests as well, as for example in the Persian Gulf.
             
             And peacekeeping is burden-sharing, which is certainly 
in our interests.  We pay less than one-third of the costs of the 
U.N. troops and U.N. operations, and less than one percent of U.N. 
troops in the field are, in fact, American.
             
             While there are limits to peacekeeping, and even set-
backs, as we have seen in Rwanda in recent days, we have to be 
careful never to overlook the impressive successes and the personal 
courage that has been shown and is being shown today by U.N. 
peacekeepers around the world.
             
             Since 1948, over 650,000 men and women from all over the 
world have served in U.N. missions, and over 1,000 have given their 
lives.  For example, some 200 in Southern Lebanon, over 70 in Bosnia, 
100 in Somalia, over 150 in Cyprus.  In Cambodia, Bulgarians and 
Japanese and Chinese and Bangladeshis and others were victims of the 
Khmer Rouge when they attacked the U.N. peacekeepers trying to 
oversee the elections there and make them possible.  There were 
stories that I'm sure some of you recall of villagers stuffing 
messages into the ballot boxes in Cambodia, thanking the U.N. 
peacekeepers for what they were doing and imploring them to stay on. 
             
             In the Bosnian town of Bakovici, some of you may 
remember that there were 100 patients in a mental hospital that were 
trapped there without heat or electricity over the winter, and U.N. 
peacekeepers were going in, back and forth, bringing in supplies to 
the mental hospital across the lines and getting fired at from both 
sides.
             
             My point is that it is easy for all of us, when there is 
a setback, to dismiss the U.N. and the peackeepers as a whole, and we 
must not do it because it does a disservice to the courage that they 
are showing today and to the sacrifices they have made in the past.  
Even so, because the needs for peacekeeping have outrun the resources 
for peacekeeping, it's important that we ask the tough questions 
about when and where we will support or participate in such 
operations.  And we are the first government, I believe, and this is 
the first time in the history of the U.S. government, I believe, that 
we have cared and dared enough to do so and to ask those questions.
             
             Peacekeeping is a part of our national security policy, 
but it is not the centerpiece.  The primary purpose of our military 
forces is to fight and win wars.  As in our bottom-up review, to 
fight and win two major regional contingencies nearly simultaneously, 
and to do so unilaterally when necessary.
             
             If peacekeeping operations ever conflicted with our 
ability to carry out those operations, we would pull out of the peace 
operations to serve our primary military purposes.  But we will, as 
the President has said many times, seek collective rather than 
unilateral solutions to regional and intrastate conflicts that don't 
touch our core national interests.  And we'll choose between 
unilateral and collective approaches between the U.N. or other 
coalitions depending on what works best and what best serves American 
interests.
             
             The policy review address six major issues.  First, 
ensuring that we support the right operations; second, that we reduce 
the cost of peacekeeping operations; third, that we improve U.N. 
peacekeeping capabilities; fourth, that we ensure effective command 
and control of American forces; fifth, that we improve the way the 
American government manages the issue of peacekeeping; and, sixth, to 
enhance the cooperation between the Congress and the Executive 
Branch.
             
             Let me say just a word about each.  First, ensuring that 
we support or participate only in the right types of peacekeeping 
operations.  Not all such operations obviously make sense.  We, as I 
said, I believe, are the first nation to ask the tough questions now 
at the U.N. before committing to costly new peacekeeping operations.  
The President said that we would do so in his General Assembly speech 
last fall, and we are, indeed, doing just that.
             
             We've developed two sets of questions in the study to 
determine when the United States first should vote for such 
operations, and, secondly, when we should participate in them.  In 
the unclassified document we've handed out, we have a complete list 
of those questions.  They include such questions as:  Does the 
mission advance American interests?  Is there a threat to 
international peace and security?  Does it have a very clear mandate? 
does it have clear objectives? and, Are the forces and the funds 
actually available for such an operation?
             
             Secondly, we believe that we have to reduce the 
peacekeeping costs both to the United States and for the United 
Nations.  Peacekeeping simply costs too much right now.  It can be a 
very good investment for us, but it can be an even better investment 
if it were less costly. So, first, we are working to reduce the 
American costs here.  As the President has said, we are committed to 
reducing our peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent by January, 1996, 
and we believe that other newly rich countries should pay their fair 
share. 
             
             And, secondly, we all save when the costs of U.N. 
peacekeeping operations are reduced generally.  And we proposed in 
the study, have proposed already in a number of cases, numerous 
finance and budget management reforms to make U.N. peacekeeping 
operations more efficient and cost-effective.  For example, we would 
like to see a unified U.N. peacekeeping budget, we would like to see 
better procurement procedures, and as a top priority and something we 
are working on right now, we would like to see a wholly independent 
office of an inspector general with oversight over peacekeeping.
             
             Third, we think we have to improve the U.N.'s 
peacekeeping capabilities, and we are committed to doing this.  So 
we're going to work with the U.N. and member states on steps to 
improve the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations and its field 
missions.  For example, enhancing planning, logistics, procurement, 
command and control, public affairs, intelligence, civilian police 
capabilities.  And we will lead an effort in the U.N. to try to 
redeploy resources within the U.N. system to fund these reforms.
             
             Fourth -- and this is tremendously important -- we have 
to ensure that there is effective command and control of American 
forces when they are engaged in peacekeeping operations.  And I will 
ask General Wes Clark to address this for a moment.
             
             GENERAL CLARK:  There has been a great deal of 
discussion on the issue of command and control, and so let me begin 
by laying out the definitions that are relevant here.  First of all, 
by command what we're speaking of is the constitutional authority to 
establish and deploy forces:  issue orders, separate and move units, 
resupply, provide medical support, discipline.  The President will 
never relinquish command of United States forces; that is inviolable. 
             Operational control is a subset of command.  Operational 
control can be given for a specific time frame, for a specific 
mission in a particular location.  Operational control may be the 
assignment of tasks to already-deployed forces led by U.S. officers.  
We may place the U.S. forces under the operational control of foreign 
commanders.  That's the distinction that's in this peace operations 
document.  
             
             Now the involvement with foreign commanders, I would 
tell you is nothing new.  In fact, that's the news of this document, 
is that from the perspective of command and control, there is nothing 
new.  In World War I, World War II, throughout our experience with 
NATO, in operation Desert Storm, we've always had the ability to task 
organize and place some U.S. units under foreign operational control, 
if it was advantageous to do so.
             
             This PDD policy preserves our option to do that.  We 
will be able to place U.S. forces under foreign op con when it's 
prudent or tactically advantageous.  I would tell you that as we look 
at it, the greater the U.S. military role, the more likely that the 
operations involved entail combat, then the less likely we are to 
place those forces under foreign operational control.
             
             Even were we to do so, fundamental elements would still 
apply.  The chain of command will be inviolate.  All of our 
commanders will have the capability to report to higher U.S. 
authority.  They'll report illegal orders or orders outside the 
mandate that they've been authorized to perform to higher U.S. 
authority if they can't work those out with the foreign commander on 
the ground.
             
             Of course, the President retains the authority to 
terminate participation at any time to protect our forces.  There's 
no intent in this language to subvert an operational chain of 
command.  What we're trying to do is achieve the best balance between 
cohesive, trained, well established U.S. chains of command, and unity 
of command in an operation involving foreign forces in a coalition or 
some other grouping.
             
             So that's the intent behind this.  And as I say, it is 
no change from the way we've operated in the past.  I would also tell 
you that our military has played a major role in defining the command 
and control aspects of this PDD.  It's been thoroughly vetted in the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff system.  It's been reviewed and approved by the 
Chiefs of Staff of our services, and by the commanders and chiefs of 
our forces overseas.
             
             Thank you.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Not done.  More to come.  I have not bored 
you into submission yet.  (Laughter.)
             
             We've done four, we have two to go.
             
             Also, we think it is important that we improve the 
American government's management of peacekeeping.  We think that 
because peacekeeping -- as we have seen, is both important and 
complex and dangerous -- that the perspective of our military and 
defense leaders should be brought more to bear in it.  So we 
concluded that the Department of Defense should join State in the 
State Department in assuming both policy and financial responsibility 
for appropriate peace operations -- what we call shared 
responsibility.  
             
             You will not be surprised to know that each was more 
anxious for the policy responsibility than the financial 
responsibility, but it has been worked out, we think, very well.
             
             The State Department will both manage and pay for 
traditional, non-combat peacekeeping operations, i.e., under Chapter 
Six of the charter -- when there are not American combat units 
involved, and this represents, by far, the greatest number of such 
operations.
             
             The Defense Department will manage and pay for all peace 
enforcement operations under Chapter Seven of the charter.  For 
example, in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Kuwait now, and those 
traditional peacekeeping operations under Chapter Six in which there 
are American combat units.  
             
             We believe that this shared responsibility will not only 
mean better management, but will help us to solve the long-term 
funding problem that we face in peacekeeping.  We still have an 
immediate arrears problem in our peacekeeping debts, and without new 
funding, the American arrearage will be over $1 billion by the end of 
this fiscal year, the end of September.  And the President is very 
committed to paying off this debt, and he and we are working very 
closely with the Congress now to devise means for doing so.
             
             And, finally, in the study, we have worked to recognize 
the need to improve the relationships and the consultations between 
the Executive Branch and the Congress on peacekeeping operations.  
And we're going to take a number of steps to improve the information 
flow between the administration and the Congress on these issues.
             
             In short, the policy is designed to impose more 
discipline on the U.N. and on ourselves so that peacekeeping will be 
a more effective collective security tool for American foreign 
policy.  This is a new era, we are all learning how to come to grips 
with the new problems that it presents to us.  But there is no doubt 
in my mind that peacekeeping offers a very important way of making 
sure that today's problems don't become tomorrow's crises, because 
those crises will cost us a lot more in the long run than the 
peacekeeping does right now.
             
             This is an important -- not the most important, but an 
important part of our national security policy, and it is very, very 
important that the United Nations and that we get it right, and 
that's what this study is about.
             
             Q    Is there a big difference now between the policy 
you've enunciated and one we've been following?  How does it apply to 
Bosnia and Haiti?
             
             MR. LAKE:  The essence of the policy is what we have 
been following since approximately I say last fall, late last summer 
when we began to ask the harder questions at the U.N. and to try to 
work more closely with the Congress, et cetera.  And many of the 
reforms that we're talking about at the U.N. in fact are already 
underway, as in their having established a situation center which 
allows now the U.N. for 24 hours a day to be in touch with its 
peacekeeping operations, which is not the case before. 
             
             So many of these things we've been doing before.  This 
pulls it all together, lays it out in more detail, and I think 
expresses also a philosophy of doing this that we have been talking 
about, but not in as coherent, I think, a fashion before.
             
             Q    How would this apply to Haiti vs. Rwanda, let's 
say?  How do your principles apply in practice?  And can you respond 
to Bob Dole who made a speech about a half-hour ago, arguing very 
forcefully against U.S. military action in Haiti?
             
             MR. LAKE:  The question of American military action in 
Haiti remains a hypothetical one, and I would prefer not to turn this 
into a discussion of that.  Let me, though, use Haiti as an example 
of one distinction here, because I think there's been some confusion 
about it.
             
             When the effort was made last fall to send in a training 
mission into Haiti, it was not a peace enforcement operation.  It was 
not an effort to fight our way into Haiti in order to bring peace to 
Haiti, it was a U.N. peacekeeping operation designed to train the 
Haitian military, which required the consent and, in fact, it had the 
request of the Haitian military to go in.  And then when they changed 
their mind, it was not an invasion for a -- fight its way ashore.
             
             Today we read in the papers of two different kinds, now, 
of possibilities before us.  One is that same U.N. mission, perhaps 
reconfigured in ways to make it relevant to what Haiti could look 
like after we make progress towards a political settlement, and the 
other to what Haiti could look like after we make progress towards a 
political settlement.  And the other would be a military action of 
some kind to bring about the change in Haiti that would allow then 
such a U.N. mission to get on board.
             
             And, as I said, the -- both of them right now are 
hypothetical and certainly the option of a forceful move into Haiti 
has not been ruled out by the President.  But equally, he has not 
made a decision to do so.
             
             Q    But the question was how does this policy help you 
to distinguish between Haiti and Rwanda in terms of U.S. interests?
             
             MR. LAKE:  Well, the policy cannot tell you what 
American interests are in every situation around the world, or this 
would be the Manhattan telephone book.  What the policy can do is to 
tell you very clearly the kinds of questions -- questions, not the 
answers necessarily -- but the questions that we should be asking 
ourselves as we consider whether to take part in a U.N. operation, or 
indeed, in many ways, whether to act unilaterally.  And those 
questions are laid out for you in the document that we have handed 
out, and they are questions that we are asking ourselves as we think 
about the issue, and I have no doubt they are questions that you will 
asking us.
             
             Q    How does this help you to draw a distinction 
between the command and operational control in a situation such as 
you have in Bosnia where a U.N. official on the ground stops the U.N. 
and NATO from acting when they wanted bombing support and couldn't 
get it?  I'd like to have this on camera.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Want to try again?
             
             Q    Just answer.  I'm not worried about the question.
             
             MR. LAKE:  What this document refers to is the question 
of command and operational control of American forces when they are 
under the operational control of a non-American commander.  And that 
is not the case in Bosnia --
             
             Q    We've got NATO forces working for the U.N. --
             
             MR. LAKE:  No, the NATO forces do not work for the U.N.,  
The NATO forces are acting pursuant to U.N. authorities, but the 
chain of both operational control and command of the American forces 
involved -- which are our air forces -- are under NATO command, not 
U.N. command -- or under NATO operational control and under American 
command, and as it happens, the NATO commanders who exercise that 
operational control are, for most of the chain of command, Americans.  
So that is not a case that applies, in answering your question about 
U.N. operational control over American commanders.
             
             Q    The U.N. frustrates the use of force in that 
situation.
             
             MR. LAKE:  The U.N.?
             
             Q    Frustrated the use force in that situation.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Well, we believe that the procedures within 
the U.N. in this peacekeeping operation have improved over the last 
few months.  And I think if you compare the requests for close air 
support that were made last February and March, it took a lot longer 
for the U.N. to decide than it has recently.
             
             There was a case in Gorazde, and there have been some 
tactical cases -- one or two since -- in which NATO said, we are 
prepared to act, and the U.N. said, the local U.N. officials said for 
their own reasons, and they could be good or bad -- we disagreed in 
one case -- that it would better not to use the NATO air strikes now.
             
             As you will recall, then Boutros-Ghali, Secretary 
General Boutros-Ghali made a statement saying that if the Bosnian 
Serbs were to violate in significant ways the Gorazde or other U.N. 
zones, that he would call for the air strikes.  And you may also 
recall that if there is a disagreement now at the local level, then 
that disagreement can be kicked up the chain of command until higher 
authorities can resolve it.
             
             So we believe that this will not be a major problem in 
the future, even when there may be a tactical disagreement.
             
             Q    Could you please tell me, as you mentioned only one 
percent of --
             
             MR. LAKE:  Did you have anything else?
             
             Q    No, I think that's all.
             
             Q       in general as well, only one percent of 
Americans now serve as peacekeepers. 
             
             MR. LAKE:  Well, one percent of peacekeepers that are 
Americans.  
             
             Q       peacekeepers are now Americans.  Is that likely 
to increase as a result of the PDD?
             
             MR. LAKE:  Let me first make another distinction, 
because, in fact, if you look not at the U.N. peacekeeping operations 
per se, but at a range of operations around the world that are 
pursuant to U.N. resolutions, then you have some 65,000,
I believe --is that right -- 69,000 -- okay.  They've got uniforms.  
Anyway, between 65,000 and 69,000 Americans serving in such 
operations and provide comfort or -- around the world.  
             
             So there's already a significant number of -- in 
Korea -- Americans doing this.  As a result of the study, I can 
honestly not give you an answer to that, because I think it depends 
on the operations, on frankly how we do financially in gaining the 
resources from the Congress for such operations, which the President 
feels very strongly about, and in whether the kinds of conflicts we 
look at over the coming years fit or do not fit the kind of criteria 
that we lay out here.
             
             This study is not a crystal ball, it is a roadmap.  It 
tells you how to think about these issues so that you know how we, as 
we release this now, are thinking and what the criteria are that 
we'll be using, and I think that's a significant contribution.
             
             Q    If, indeed, you have laid out these new criteria 
for when the United States will approve the peacekeeping operations, 
could you just tell us of the 18 existing peacekeeping operations 
which, if any of them, would currently qualify under this new U.S. 
criteria?
             
             MR. LAKE:  I think that most of them certainly do.  One 
of the -- and I don't want to decide from here which do and which 
don't -- 
             
             Q    Please do, because it's very germane.
             
             MR. LAKE:  What we have been doing -- what we have been 
doing is to say that -- this is not the intellectual climate -- what 
we have been doing is to say that in new peacekeeping operations or 
when existing peacekeeping operations are rolled over that we want to 
see some sort of sunset provisions in them.  What we are saying is 
that we want to have either terminal points or -- 
             
             Q    What have you done?  (Laughter.)
             
             MR. LAKE:  -- listen, we'll do anything to keep you 
alert -- (laughter) -- terminal points or clear criteria for how to 
decide in the terms of that mention when its end point has been 
reached.  And in terms of taking a hard look at them, there are a 
number of cases already, for example, in which a hard look has led to 
a change in how the operation will be continued, for example, in 
Mozambique when we said, okay, if you want to increase the police 
component in the Mozambique peacekeeping operation, then to keep in 
the same general financial parameters you have to reduce the military 
component. 
             
             So I think it'll tend to be specific to each operation.  
The important thing is that in the terms of each operation in 
reflecting these questions that we have before we go in or before we 
sign up for an extension, that we know when it will end or how we 
will know that it has ended.  And we could go over each one and 
discuss those different ones.
             
             Q    I wanted to ask about the financial aspect of it.  
You talked about moving the budgeting under both departments. Is 
there some thought that you'll have an easier time getting money if 
it's called Defense money than State Department money?  Is that what 
you're saying?
             
             MR. LAKE:  No, this was not designed to find easier ways 
on the Hill, because both kinds of money are pretty hard to come by 
now.  It is designed to have a more rational system, both of managing 
and funding these operations.  It's going to take hard work on the 
Hill, and one of the reasons why the President called in 
congressional leadership a couple of weeks ago was to talk 
specifically about the importance to American foreign policy, 
providing the resources not only for the defense budget generally in 
which he has fought hard, but on peacekeeping specifically.
             
             Q    Do you have any figures on how much of a shift is 
involved here?  How much additional money would the Defense 
Department need into their budget to carry out peacekeeping 
operations that they do not now have to carry out?
             
             MR. LAKE:  Probably run on the order of more than $500 
million a year.
             
             Q    What's your response to Republicans who, in fact, 
say that you're using the Defense Department as -- you're reducing 
defense spending to shift what amounts to State Department spending 
into the defense budget -- this is a charge being made by Dole, 
Gingrich, others, that this is a suspicious ploy by the White House 
to make it look like you really have a decent defense budget when 
you're gutting true defense to put in mushy peacekeeping --
             
             MR. LAKE:  Not exactly the way I was putting it.  Well, 
I think he's wrong.  What this will do in the out years is to have up 
front the creation of a so-called "CIPA," for the Defense Department 
into which peacekeeping money will go.  Everybody will know what it 
is, it will be appropriated by the Congress.  In fact, it will be a 
better way of not slipping money around.
             
             Let me state to you absolutely, clearly, that the 
President of the United States has said that one of his top 
priorities as he fights for no further cuts in the defense budget is 
to preserve the readiness of our forces.  And we will not repeat the 
mistakes of the 1970s and do anything that will lead to a hollow 
army.  That would be a tremendous mistake.
             
             Let me recall for you what I said in my statement, which 
is that the central mission of our Armed Forces is to be prepared and 
able to fight and win wars, and to fight them and win them 
unilaterally when our direct interests are challenged and that is 
required; and we are not going to do anything to change that.
             
             Q    Were you saying in response to Bill's question that 
the latest directive really doesn't apply in the case of Bosnia, that 
-- because of the altered chain of command?
             
             MR. LAKE:  No, no, I was saying not at all that it 
doesn't apply to Bosnia, of course it does.  It applies to all 
current and potential peacekeeping operations.  What I was saying was 
that it didn't give an answer to the specific question of the command 
relationship or the relationship between NATO and the U.N. in Bosnia, 
which is a much larger question than the one addressed here of 
whether Americans participate or we support these things.
             
             Q    Given that, and given what I suppose you might 
argue, but the limited success of the peacekeeping operation in 
Bosnia, would you ask for changes?
             
             MR. LAKE:  In their command and control structures, 
or --
             
             Q    In the peacekeeping operation in Bosnia in general, 
to reflect the new directive.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Well, we have been pleased, for example, 
because Bosnia was one of the cases, Somalia was another, where it 
bothered us that before they had the 24-hour situation center, that 
there were literally times when the local people could not reach the 
U.N. in New York because nobody was answering the phone.  
             
             Now, the phones are answered.  We think that has been an 
improvement.  If you look at the -- and it was a serious problem 
because they needed the authorities from New York often to act.  If 
you look at the behavior of UNPROFOR forces on the ground now, you 
will see, I believe, a more vigorous pattern of action than we --
we're seeing if you compare it, for example, with a year ago.  A 
Danish unit was attacked by Bosnian Serb gunners a few days ago, and 
the Danish tanks responded very vigorously, inflicted casualties on 
the Bosnian Serbs, acquitted themselves well, and protected 
themselves.  And they -- all U.N. peacekeepers, whether under Chapter 
6 or Chapter 7, have the right of self-defense, and they exercised 
it.
             
             Q    Could I please follow?  Are you saying, then, that 
the limited effectiveness of the operation in Bosnia should be judged 
as changing now because of the actions of past few days or weeks, 
sir?
             
             MR. LAKE:  I'm sorry, I don't understand.
             
             Q    The Serbs have run amok in that country.  Are you 
saying that now we should judge it on the basis of the Danish 
peacekeepers having fought back over the past few days or weeks?
             
             MR. LAKE:  I'll make this brief, because you've heard me 
on this subject before.  I would ask you to compare the situation on 
the ground in Bosnia today and the situation on the ground in Bosnia 
five months ago.  And if you look at the situation around Sarajevo, 
around Mostar, around Tuzla, around Maglaj, it is far better than it 
was then.  That is a fact.  There are, as the President said the 
other day, there are people alive today in Sarajevo, in Mostar, in 
Maglaj and elsewhere, who would not be alive today if the situation 
had not improved.  And it improved because the President and the 
United States pushed and led NATO into taking actions that it had not 
previously taken, never before in its history, to push for those 
improvements.
             
             Is it all the improvements that we would like?  No.  But 
it is progress.  And that progress on the ground, we hope, in a very 
-- still a very uncertain, unsettled and dangerous situation.  But 
that progress on the ground, we hope, can then lead to progress in 
diplomacy, which can finally bring a settlement to this terrible 
problem.
             
             Q    Can I ask you a question about the case in 
Singapore?  The President said on three separate occasions that he 
didn't want to see that kid caned.  And, yet, when Singapore went 
ahead and did it, the response from the State Department was to 
express disappointment.  Why the lack of a more robust response to 
what amounts to a rebuff to the President, or is another shoe going 
to fall here?
             
             MR. LAKE:  I'll work hard on the connection to 
peacekeeping here but -- in any case, I think the State Department 
addressed that.  They went, I believe, beyond the issuance of a 
simple statement.
             
             Q    Can you tell me the circumstances under which 
American troops would be under this plan in combat under foreign 
command?
             
             MR. LAKE:  Never under foreign commanders.  I can 
foresee possibilities, certainly, into which they are under foreign 
operational control.  That may sound like a shocking statement, but 
in fact that has happened repeatedly in Desert Storm, in Korea, World 
War II, World War I; and indeed, I'm told, that at Yorktown, 
Americans were under the operational control of French commanders; 
and right now in Macedonia with the Nordics, so --
             
             MS. MYERS:  We have to go, so thank you.
             
             MR. LAKE:  Thanks very much.
             
             THE PRESS:  Thank you. 
                                 END3:55 P.M. EDT
                               -USN-