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UNPROFOR units on the ground, and has caused immense civilian casualties in the Bihać
pocket. Because of all this the US administration believes that such an aggression also calls
for an appropriate military response by NATO.
242
US INVOLVEMENT IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE
CRISIS AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
WASHINGTON TALKS IN NOVEMBER 1994
In order to prevent further escalation of the confl ict at Bihać, which threatened to result
in many refugees, huge civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis of unforeseeable
scale, the US administration began to be involved in the solution of that global crisis.
Since the UN intelligence system simply did not function and more oft en than not provided
disinformation rather than reliable information, confusing the representatives of
the international community and thwarting the search for acceptable political solutions,
the American administration fi rst endeavoured to establish its own intelligence system
in order to gain a better and fuller insight of the actual balance of forces on the ground.
Th e harmonization of political solutions with the actual balance of forces on the ground
was almost impossible without the availability of reliable and timely information in real
time.
In early 1994 I visited Washington again, this time together with General Janko Bobetko,
Chief of the HV General Staff . In the State Department we talked with Ambassador
Holbrooke and then, in the Pentagon, with General Shalikashivili, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of his staff , General Sullivan and General Wesley
Clark. I still remember quite well Holbrooke’s reaction: he began to fi dget nervously
in his chair aft er General Bobetko’s determined statement: We will attack on all fronts!
I believe that was truly one of the most critical moments during the Homeland War.
General Bobetko made the following point: Croatia will not be on the sidelines and just
look on at what is happening at Bihać. We will be forced to react. We simply have to do
it so that, if Bihać falls, we can prevent the penetration of the Bosnian Serb army into the
temporarily occupied Croatian areas and prevent the massacre of the civil population in
Bihać by the Serbs. Holbrooke retorted: You cannot go ahead. In such a large scale operation
one could not avoid huge victims and a new large refugee wave. I still remember quite
well the reaction of General Bobetko. Vividly surprised by Holbrooke’s answer, he said:
Th at is your position. We are now going to the Pentagon and there I shall talk to General
Shalikashvili. He certainly understands the seriousness and the complexity of the situation
from the military standpoint. Half an hour later General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff , met us with the same words: Th e Croatian Army must not mount
a large scale military operation. Having said that, he did not accept Bobetko’s explanation
that it was the only way to prevent genocide in Bihać. As it turned out, Holbrooke had
called Shalikashvili and “prepared” him for the talk with the Croatian delegation.
Th at was the fi rst in a series of talks that followed, focused on identifying acceptable
solutions for the Bihać crisis. Th e Croatian offi cial position was clear and determined:
if the Serbs from the temporarily occupied territories of the Republic of Croatia should