Cohen Committed To Bosnia Deadline

Incoming Defense Secretary William Cohen made his first pledge to Congress on Wednesday: that U.S. peacekeeping troops will leave Bosnia by the previously set deadline of June 1998. “We are not going to be there” after that, he said. “This is going to end at this point.”

Cohen said one of his first tasks would be to inform European allies that “it’s time for them to assume responsibility in Bosnia.”

Senate Armed Services Committee members were skeptical, as the administration’s previous Dec. 20, 1996, deadline for ending the Bosnia mission was broken shortly after President Clinton was re-elected in November.

At the time, Cohen sharply criticized Clinton, alleging the president had political motives when he delayed discussing an extended Bosnia troop deployment until after the election.