ACCESSION NUMBER:326050 FILE ID:POL203 DATE:02/08/94 TITLE:CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 (02/08/94) TEXT:*94020803.POL CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 1 (Bosnia) (610) LAWMAKERS DIFFER ON HOW TO RESPOND TO SARAJEVO KILLINGS U.S. lawmakers continue to condemn the mortar attack on Sarajevo's marketplace over the weekend which killed scores of people and wounded hundreds others, but they differ on how the United States should respond. Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told NBC-TV he thinks that air strikes, while "clearly necessary," should be for "limited purposes" -- to prevent the siege of Sarajevo, to stop mortar and artillery shelling of the city, to help move the humanitarian aid forward, and to protect the U.N. troops. Broader air strikes "to roll back Serbian aggression" are unlikely, he said, and he sees "no support" in the United States, or among North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, to put combat troops on the ground there. But Senator Richard Lugar, a leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on the same program that he supports broader air strikes. "If we're serious about making our point, we're going to have to think about air strikes on Serbian targets, military targets," he maintained. The most basic thing that needs to be done, Lugar asserted, is for President Clinton "to take leadership." And this is "a tough thing to do," Lugar said, because "allies are balking" and "the U.N. situation is difficult." Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, in a prepared statement, called for "immediate and firm action to implement air strikes" and an end to the U.S. arms embargo on the Bosnian government. "What is at stake here," Dole maintained, "is not only the future of Bosnia, but the credibility of NATO, the United Nations, and United States global leadership." Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe, in a prepared statement, charged that the West has held back from lifting a U.N. arms embargo on the Muslims and ordering air strikes "in the mistaken belief that silence would bring peace." He urged immediate NATO air strikes against Serbian military targets and an end to the arms embargo against Bosnia. "Failure to act now," he said, "dooms us to see this weekend's scene of slaughter repeated in Bosnia and throughout the Balkans." Democratic Senator Dennis DeConcini, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also urged airstrikes because, "There is only one way to stop the aggressor, and that is by force." Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told ABC News that "We can't allow this aggression by the Serbs to continue." But he cautioned that air strikes alone "are not going to do it, so you have to lift the embargo and you have to allow these people to defend themselves." "It's time we take a punitive strike against the Serbians," said Congresswoman Susan Molinari on CNN TV. What is happening to the Muslims in Bosnia, she said, "is not unlike" what happened to the Jews during World War Two. But Democratic Senator James Exon, in a Senate floor speech, cautioned against a military response "unless we have a clear, thought-through policy" that has the support of "our NATO allies" and has a chance of stopping the shelling. Republican Senator Phil Gramm also warned on CBS TV that for him to support 1merican military intervention there must be "a clear plan as to how, by intervening, we're going to stop the killing, which is our objective; how we're going to not only get into the conflict, but how we're going to get out. I have seen no such plan. Nobody in the military has told me that bombing would be decisive." NNNN .