Clinton to Unilaterally Fund Bosnia Force : Military: President backs rapid-reaction plan with $95 million from emergency account.

WASHINGTON â€”  President Clinton, unable to persuade Congress to help finance a European rapid-reaction force being assembled to protect U.N. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said Thursday that he will unilaterally use $95 million in emergency funds to support the allied effort.

Apparently giving up on efforts to overcome Republican opposition, Clinton notified lawmakers that he is drawing down $15 million from the emergency fund to provide airlift capability and equipment and may use up to $35 million more, plus a further $10 million for intelligence and air support.

He also said he plans to contribute another $35 million in cash over the next six months to cover the U.S. share of the cost of providing the 15,000 troops that the allies plan to deploy. The figure amounts to about 31% of the total tab for the rapid-reaction contingent.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the money--which will come from funds that Congress already appropriated as part of last year’s Foreign Assistance Act--would make good on a pledge Clinton made at the June 17 summit of industrialized nations in Halifax, Canada, to join in supporting the allied force.

Burns said the Administration believes that the President will be able to tap the funds without new authorization from Congress.

But the announcement, which followed two weeks of unsuccessful efforts by the White House to persuade Republicans to back the deal, provoked an angry response from GOP congressional leaders, along with warnings of a possible backlash.

In a joint letter, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) vowed that, if Clinton goes along with his plan to “circumvent the will of Congress,� lawmakers will restrict his authority to use the fund in future years.

They also protested what they said was Clinton’s “apparent decision to subject U.S. military personnel to greater risks than are necessary� by agreeing to restrict the use of NATO air power in attacking targets when defending the rapid-reaction force.

The force is designed to come to the defense of any regular U.N. peacekeeping troops that find themselves in danger because of attack by Bosnian Serb or Bosnian government troops. The force would be dispatched by U.N. ground commanders.

Administration officials described the President’s move as a decision born of frustration because negotiations with the Republicans had proven fruitless.

They said Clinton was honor-bound to follow through on his earlier pledge of U.S. help.

Even so, the $95-million total fell far short of the $270 million or so that officials had hinted the United States would provide the allies, and it amounted to an embarrassing demonstration of the President’s limited power.

Reaction by U.S. allies was measured. Although European diplomats asserted publicly that their governments welcomed the pared-back U.S. action, it was clear that there was some disappointment.

Pentagon officials said Thursday that they still had not calculated whether the United States would be able to provide the entire list of equipment and services that the Administration had promised to contribute toward the rapid-reaction force. Officials said the final U.S. contribution might not be known for several weeks.

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In Bosnia on Thursday, government troops pressed their offensive to lift the Serb siege of Sarajevo.

Officials said three civilians were killed and five wounded in Serb-controlled areas, while two civilians died and 21 were hurt in government-held Sarajevo.

One French peacekeeper was killed and two comrades were injured when their armored vehicle ran over a mine in western Sarajevo, a U.N. spokeswoman said. He was the 41st French soldier to die in the former Yugoslav federation.