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Thursday, May 7, 1998

Hutchison seeks to bring troops back from Bosnia

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT / Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fresh from a tour of Bosnia, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Wednesday introduced legislation that would draw down the number of U.S. troops taking part in a NATO peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslav republic.

At a news conference with other senators who made a three-day trip to Bosnia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and NATO headquarters in Brussels, Mrs. Hutchison said the legislation she has introduced with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., would set the stage for an "honorable exit" from Bosnia.

Currently, some 8,500 American soldiers are stationed in Bosnia, down from a top strength of about 20,000. Under the Hutchison-Byrd measure, that troop strength would be gradually reduced over the next two years, dropping to 2,500 by early 2000.

Pressure has been mounting in Congress to reduce the deployments in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. Lawmakers are pointing to the operations' huge costs, strain on military readiness, and the severe morale problems among troops tired of lengthy overseas deployments.

"The biggest picture that we saw is that we've got to take care of our troops, we've got to address the issue of the readiness and the quality of life as it is affected by the deployments to operations other than war," Mrs. Hutchison said. "And speaking only for myself, I believe we're going to have to be more capable and more sure that when we send our troops out, it is for United States security interest or a commitment that we have to our allies."

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., agreed.

"I see this as a problem in long-term retention for an all-volunteer army if we don't make more sense out of our deployment as it pertains to family life, as it pertains to just these military men and women having a better opportunity to know how long they're going to be overseas and how long they're going to be able to spend in their hometowns and communities where their families are," he said.

When President Clinton decided in 1995 to dispatch American troops to help enforce peace accords in war-torn Bosnia, Mrs. Hutchison led the Senate fight against the deployment, narrowly failing in her bid to place the Senate on record in opposition to the mission. She predicted then that the administration wouldn't abide by its commitment that the deployment would last only one year.

Last month, the Pentagon announced that as many as 6,000 troops from Fort Hood, Texas, will head to Bosnia this fall to relieve soldiers already there.