Perils Assessed in U.S. Airdrop of Supplies to Bosnians

With President Clinton expected to announce a humanitarian relief program for Bosnia-Herzegovina this week--perhaps as early as today--Administration discussions are focusing on the dangers that a potential airdrop of supplies would pose to American air crews, as well as to the beleaguered recipients of goods on the ground, officials said Monday.

These problems have led some U.S. military planners to propose the early introduction of specially trained combat troops to survey needs and plan for the safe delivery of goods to designated “drop zones.”

If these “combat controllers” are deployed, they would be among the first American troops on the ground in areas outside of those secured by the United Nations in Bosnia. Some U.S. controllers are already in Sarajevo.

Details of the timetable for such a deployment remained unclear on Monday. The New York Times reported that Clinton invited U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to meet with him today in an effort to enlist support for an airdrop.

Some details of the proposed airdrop plan emerged on Monday. Pentagon planners said that Navy planes, patrolling from aircraft carriers off the Bosnian coast, would stand by for orders to retaliate against groundfire units or to rescue air crews if groundfire brought them down. The warplanes are not expected to escort the cargo planes to their targets but to remain out of harm’s way until needed.

As American C-130 transport planes pass slowly over drop zones at altitudes as low as 400 feet, military planners say, they would be unusually vulnerable to Serbian gunfire from the ground and to Serbian aircraft that might take to the air over Bosnia.

“It’s not a milk run, no doubt about it,” said one Pentagon official.

Airdrops, even those conducted at low altitude, also can pose a danger for desperate populations concentrated near delivery areas. In northern Iraq, where American troops conducted a massive airdrop of pallets to Kurds under Operation Provide Comfort, some Kurds were fatally crushed when gusts of wind blew the one-ton packages off course.

Pentagon planners warned that given those dangers, an airdrop operation could deliver only a fraction of the aid that besieged Muslim populations in eastern Bosnia urgently need. Most of their needs must continue to be met by U.N. convoys traveling overland--a process that requires the political cooperation of Serbian-backed forces in Bosnia.

“This is, at best, a Band-Aid,” said one Pentagon planner. “We cannot possibly provide all the needs of these communities: That has to be done on the ground. And there is a real question as to whether this will assist that process or hinder it. If you challenge the Bosnians on the airdrops, it may impede the convoys, and that doesn’t help those populations at all in the long run.”

As a result, Pentagon officials on Monday sought to present the President’s airdrop plan as a short-term program. “This is not going to go on forever,” said one senior Pentagon official.

Military air cargo experts said that fleets of C-130 transport planes, operating from bases in Italy, would carry as many as 16 one-ton pallets apiece into the skies over eastern Bosnia and drop the loads off the planes’ back decks.

Using a computer system that takes account of wind conditions, the C-130 air crews would hope to deliver their cargoes to within 200 yards of the designated drop zones. But weather and threatening groundfire can wreak havoc with the delivery of goods.

If groundfire in the area threatened the planes, they might deliver their cargoes from high altitudes. But such high-altitude drops can significantly erode the accuracy of cargo deliveries.