From: edin@cse.fau.edu (Edin Muharemmagic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Bush knew of atrocities months ago, officials say
Date: 15 Aug 92 22:36:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: cybernet.1992Aug15.223636.12186
Organization: Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, USA



Copied without permission from Sun-Sentinel, Saturday, August 15,
1992, Page 12A. For "fair use" only. 

Edin Muharemagic

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Bush Knew of atrocities months ago, officials say

WASHINGTON -- President Bush ordered U.S. intelligence agencies in
May to take an intense look at conditions in Bosnia, and by June
those agencies had uncovered widespread atrocities by Serbian
forces, including summary executions and beatings that caused
thousands of Muslim deaths, U.S. officials say.
     But the administration has withheld details of its findings,
portraying its reports from the Balkan conflict as anecdotal and
inconclusive, often no more complete than news reports from the
region.
     Interviews show a comprehensive effort by the Central
Intelligence Agency and its Pentagon arm, the Defense Intelligence
Agency, involving U.S. agents on the ground in Bosnia, the
maneuvering of U.S. spy satellites to better see the area and
extensive interception of radio and telephone communications.
     U.S.intelligence reports have concluded that thousands Muslims
and Croats throughout Bosnia were being summarily executed or dying
from beatings and other atrocities by Serbian forces, the U.S.
officials say.
     "There is no question there have been horrible atrocities,
thousands of deaths", a U.S. official said.
     These conclusions were passed on to Bush in his daily
intelligence briefings, an official said.
     Marlin Fitzwater, the White House press secretary, could not
be reached to explain why Bush did not speak out on Serb atrocities
reported by the intelligence community.
     Early U.S. intelligence reports centered on conditions in
towns and villages where Serb forces overwhelmed Muslim defenders.
Since June, officials say that U.S. intelligence provided Bush and
U.N. officials with detailed accounts of an organized effort to
displace and terrorize an estimated 500,000 Muslim Slavs in Bosnia.
     While Secretary of State James A. Baker III at one point had
referred to the "humanitarian nightmare" in Bosnia, neither he nor
other administration officials in public had turned the world
spotlight on Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and the extent of
atrocities.
     One administration official said U.S. policy was aimed at
pressuring Milosevic through diplomatic channels in concert with
its European allies.
     But behind the scenes, the U.S. intelligence effort
established a direct link between the terror campaign and
Milosevic, Western diplomats said.
     "It's pretty good evidence," one diplomat said.
     Milosevic's staff offices were presumably targets for U.S.
satellites that can intercept communications.
     The administration has provided few details of its
intelligence effort to the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed
Services Committees. 


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