Bosnia: The Hunt For Karadzic

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Strong-willed and determined, impetuous and unpredictable, Jacques Chirac is not called "le bulldozer" for nothing. Even Washington admits the French President paved the way for the Dayton, Ohio, peace talks by insisting, shortly after his election in May 1995, on the get-tough military posture that finally led to a cease-fire after 3 1/2 years of bloody fighting by Serbian, Muslim and Croatian forces in Bosnia. While Bill Clinton and U.S. negotiator Richard Holbrooke got the credit for orchestrating the final accord, they applauded Chirac's crucial role and agreed to hold the signing ceremony in Paris on Dec. 14.

On that day, after Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic had affixed their signatures to the document under the crystal chandeliers of the Elysee Palace, Chirac and Clinton huddled alone in Chirac's second-floor office. The crux of their discussion that evening was what to do about Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, General Ratko Mladic. A senior French official who had recently returned from Bosnia had convinced Chirac that Mladic and Karadzic still controlled the situation on the ground and could derail the accords at any time.

Clinton had heard this argument before. On Nov. 22, the day after the Dayton talks ended, the U.S. President had met with his advisers in the White House to assess the agreement. With his characteristic verve, Holbrooke had urged that Karadzic and Mladic be arrested and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague. But the rules of engagement specified that peacekeepers could arrest suspects only if they "happened" upon them. It was an ambiguity that allowed Karadzic to drive unmolested through several NATO checkpoints after Dayton.

Then, with the ink hardly dry on the accords, the French President was calling for bold action. Chirac was especially angry at Karadzic and Mladic that evening because he had just learned that two captive French pilots whom Chirac had got released had been very badly treated during their captivity. Mladic had reportedly told them, "You are my prisoners, and you will be treated as criminals." Clinton too had been concerned for the pilots. According to a senior French military official, there were two secret Franco-American combat search-and-rescue missions to recover them, but the forces were beaten back in fire fights with Mladic's troops, and several Americans were wounded.

Chirac argued forcefully that Mladic and Karadzic must be brought to justice. High-level French sources deny that the two Presidents explicitly discussed the idea of assassinating the two Bosnian Serbs, but they admit the possibility was seriously examined by French and American intelligence services. Indeed, according to a senior NATO military officer, undercover French troops literally had Mladic and Karadzic in their crosshairs on several occasions but did not fire because there was never an official green light.

Chirac, though free of legal constraints that prevent U.S. Presidents from such actions, would not have made that decision alone. But he well knew that any attempt to capture the heavily guarded suspects could result in the killing of Mladic or Karadzic because of the heavy firepower that such an operation would entail.