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A DAY OF PEACE: Only hours after Congress expressed its mild approval, President Clinton committed "our most precious resource" to keeping peace in the Balkans. Clinton watched as presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia signed documents that formalize the November 21 agreement in Dayton and clear the way for 60,000 NATO troops to enter the region. "Everyone here is exhaling deeply," TIME's Bruce Crumley reports from Paris. "But they all know that the real hard part is to come. Can the peace hold? There are many unknowns, chief among them, what will the Americans do? Will it be another Mogadishu? How will the Americans react if they suffer casualties?" At least 200,000 people died in the four-year war, and as many as 3 million are now homeless. "I know the losses have been staggering, the scars are deep," said Clinton told the assembly at Les Invalides in Paris. "But Bosnia must find a way, with God's grace, to lay down the hatreds, to give up the revenge, to go forward together." Of the three chief signatories, Izetbegovic was frankest: "My government is taking part in this agreement without any enthusiasm but as someone taking a bitter yet useful potion or medication. That being said, may I add that the signing of this agreement is being done with full sincerity on our part, and the agreement will be duly respected."

President Clintons's Full Remarks

RELUCTANT SUPPORT: Senators ended an impassioned debate about the wisdom of sending American soldiers to Bosnia with a 69-30 vote late Wednesday on a resolution supporting the U.S. deployment. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who noted his former position as American Ambassador to the United Nations, advanced the winning argument: "I had not known I would live to see as fine an hour as this." In the end, the Senate passed a measure that reflected the profound ambivalence that the mission has caused throughout the country. (It allows the President to "fulfill his commitment" to send the troops.) "We don't like all the wording in it," said Vice President Al Gore, who presided over the vote. The measure would commit the Administration to help arm and train the Bosnian Muslims.

PURSE-STRINGS INTACT: With Bob Dole urging them on, Senators rejected a resolution, 77-22, that would have cut off funds to send U.S. troops to Bosnia. The outcome, though foreseen, was expected to give President Clinton a boost in his efforts to gain public support for the peacekeeping efforts on the eve of the treaty signing. "I believe that action to cut off funds for this deployment is wrong," said Dole. "It is wrong because it makes our young men and women bear the brunt of a decision that was made not by them but by the President, who is the Commander-in-Chief."

MARCHING ORDERS: "The troop deployment will pick up really quickly," reports TIME Defense correspondent Mark Thompson. "Within 96 hours of the inking of the accord, the United Nations hands off command to NATO. And NATO hopes to have 5,000 troops there within that time. Counting the thousand already there, that's about a thousand troops arriving per day, assuming the weather is okay." Thompson says most of the 20,000 Americans going to Bosnia will be in place within two months. "They will be based in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla and a place called Kiseljak, a town that's due west of Sarajevo. In fact, it's a lot closer to Sarajevo than to Tuzla." Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, who will command the NATO operation in Bosnia, is due to arrive in Sarajevo today.

LIVE WITH IT: Thompson reports that the congressional vote does not make the Pentagon feel any better about the mission. "The lukewarm support is tough for them," says Thompson. "A Marine General told me this morning he didn't like it. If they get casualties, with this kind of support, they worry about the political fallout. They will soldier on with the mission and they hope it will be like Haiti, which was a military success. But here the ball is not in their court. They basically have to rely on the kindness of strangers and the military never likes doing it that way."

READY TO GO: Soldiers at Ramstein Air base in Germany were relieved when the Balkan agreement was signed, according to Bonn bureau chief Bruce Van Voorst. "Everyone here was focused on the signing because they are all ready to go," he says. "Now they can." Ramstein, where the Air Force's 86th Airlift Wing is headquartered, is one of the major shipping points for equipment bound for Bosnia. "They have 16 Hercules C-130s stationed here and have brought in 12 more for this operation." Despite lousy weather in Bosnia, the Air Force has managed to average three to five flights a day into Tuzla, ferrying in equipment and supplies. "And that number will go to more than 20 a day when the operation gets rolling." Most of the 20,000 American ground troops deploying to the area will get there by truck or train.

THE FRENCH SAVOR THE MOMENT: "This rampage of horror will leave a deep wound in the heart of Europe. We must prove ourselves to be worthy of their memory, worthy of their suffering." With those words President Jacques Chirac of France made it clear that his country would play a significant role in the peacekeeping process. "This ceremony, which France hosted, was really a recognition of the role France has played throughout the war," says TIME's Bruce Crumley. "And as they take over the Sarajevo sector of the NATO peacekeeping operation, clearly the most sensitive of all the areas, that importance is only reinforced. Many people in France were surprised that America got so much credit for this accord when, in fact, the United States did nothing up until last August. But the French plan to work very hard to make this a wider peace. They think its important to go beyond Dayton and to get these countries to actually recognize each other diplomatically to avoid conflicts before they happen. I think the French know very well that the bad feelings aren't going away. They want to to enforce a peace that is long enough and sure enough for Bosnians to forget."

ANOTHER DAY IN SARAJEVO: "This is the third time peace has broken out in Sarajevo," International Rescue Committee field officer Chris Fay told TIME Daily. "There is still a great deal of skepticism about the treaty and the future." But what takes up most of Fay's time these days is trying to get heat to a city that has been pummelled by the worst snow storm in a decade. Half of the 23 gas-fired central heating plants in the city are not working. "A foot and a half of snow fell in the city in the last day," he says. "And there isn't enough fuel to power the trucks to plow it away. Last night there was no electricity in the city. At least 12,000 people have electric heat -- so they had nothing last night -- and thousands of others must constantly improvise. You see old people digging through garbage cans for paper to burn, houses being stripped of wood to burn, people burn books for heat, they burn nylon bags, they burn their shoes. Just to stay warm. It's better than '93, when everyone was freezing," says Fay, who has lived in Bosnia since November of 1992. "But it's still a pretty screwed-up place."

SNOWED IN: A state of emergency was declared in Sarajevo, the first in four years caused by snow, not snipers. The day did not end without incident, however. A Bosnian military patrol fired on a United Nations helicopter while shots slammed into the Holiday Inn, the hotel that has served as an unofficial outpost for much of the international press corps. There were no injuries reported in either attack.

Photos: Kiss: HERIBERT PROEPPER-AP; Pilots: EMIL VASS-REUTERS; Voter: PETER ANDREWS-REUTERS; Mines: KAI PFAFFENBACH-REUTERS.

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