................................................................................ ON THE RECORD PADDY ASHDOWN INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.4.94 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Mr. Ashdown, NATO issued an ultimatum. The ultimatum has been ignored, or at least it has not been followed through. What should now happen? PADDY ASHDOWN: Whatever the Commander on the ground believes should happen. The catastrophe that's happened and the humiliation of NATO and the UN over the last two or three weeks in Gorazde has been precisely brought about because the Commander on the ground has not been given the room for manoeuvre or been backed in the decisions he wants to take. An ultimatum is the point at which you can but don't necessarily have to take military action, after which that military action is both justified and can be taken in accordance with the decisions of the Commander on the ground. And John, there is no good, there's no point trying to second guess from a thousand miles away or five thousand miles away in New York what is best to be done on the ground. If you've taken your decision, and the politicians have now taken it, about the wider use of air power, you must leave your Commander on the ground to decide when it is appropriate to use the force available that has been sanctioned. HUMPHRYS: But if you not only have an ultimatum but have a very clear deadline, a specific deadline - "do this by midnight or else".. ASHDOWN: Well, "do this by midnight" after which you should be prepared to receive the force which is the sanction attached at the end of that. It doesn't mean to say that on one second after midnight you have to take that action. That action has to be taken when the Commander on the ground believes it's appropriate to be taken, when he's made his dispositions appropriately and indeed at a point when he chooses, not one which is broadcast by the UN from New York. So let's have a look and see what the situation is. I mean, General Rose is a past-master at this. He's done extremely well. He needs to be backed. One of the reasons why the Serbs have believed that they could play fast and loose with NATO, with the United Nations,is precisely because we failed to back him including, I regret to say, our own Government, when he asked for more troops in Sarajevo two or three weeks ago, and he did not receive the response that he should have received, and the consequence was that Serbs not unnaturally drew the conclusion that we weren't prepared to back him and they could start playing fast and loose again, and that's the mistake not to be repeated. HUMPHRYS: So you're not saying "if there is going to be military action", you're really saying "when". You're not prepared to put a time on it but you're saying quite clearly "there must be action taken against the Serbs now". ASHDOWN: We have to back what the Commander on the ground decides is appropriate, given the circumstances. He has now been given the political instruction which enables him to go further. I wish he'd been given it earlier. This is exactly the action many of us have been recommending for the last two years, that we should establish a sort of "cordon sanitaire", no go area if you like, an exclusion area round the safe areas and if that had happened we would not be in the position we're now in, but there's no point in looking backwards. It's now necessary to look forward. The two catastrophes occur when Generals try to interfere in politics or politicians try to interfere in warfare. Now that NATO has taken its decision, now that the UN has taken the decision, this is now a military situation and what happens next should be left to the Commander on the ground, our job is to support him at every turn and every time we fail to support him, every time we fail to provide him with the resources we will encourage the Serbs to believe that there is a division between the politicians and the Commanders on the ground, and they are past-masters are making use of that gap in order to edge a little forward, confront us again, take a little more territory. HUMPHRYS: And if no action is now taken, if the Serbs can get away with defying the main part of this ultimatum, then NATO is seen to have been humiliated, I'm tempted to say again. ASHDOWN: Well, exactly so and what's happened so far is that we have allowed division, lack of clarity, lack of a clear objective, not just in the last two or three weeks but the last two years. We have failed to understand right from Mr Major's self-proclaimed success at the London Conference more than two years ago, failed to understand that unless you can stop the Serbs on the ground, unless they can be taught that they cannot gain more on the ground than they have gained from the negotiating table, you will never get them to negotiate seriously. And while we have presented the Serbs with that kind of ultimatum as, for instance, in the case of Sarajevo, they have responded as indeed it appears that they may well be responding in Gorazde. HUMPHRYS: But what you seem to be saying now that is you can't leave it just to the General on the ground because NATO has staked its authority on this ultimatum. ASHDOWN: The General on the ground has to choose the time. HUMPHRYS: Yes indeed, but that's what we're talking about, we talking about the timing. ASHDOWN: And the means. Exactly. He has to choose the time and the place and the means. But perfectly-self evidently, If the Serbs flout NATO and the UN's ultimatum .. HUMPHRYS: They already have. ASHDOWN: If they flout it and continue to flout it, then that action has to be used, but the point at which you use it, the way in which you use it, the means in which you use it, is a purely military decision, and that decision must not sought to be second guessed from Westminster, from the UN or from anywhere else but the person who is responsible for taking the action on the ground. HUMPHRYS: Indeed, indeed. As far as the timing of the action is concerned and the manner of that action perhaps that is up to the General on the ground. ASHDOWN: Not perhaps, it has to be. HUMPHRYS: Alright. ASHDOWN: If it's any other way it'll lead to disaster. HUMPHRYS: Alright, it's certainly up the the General on the ground but what you're saying quite clearly is that the politicians, those who lead NATO have made a decision, they have issued an ultimatum, they've received a deadline. If those are not respected then action has to be taken. It's a call for action as far as you're concerned. ASHDOWN: Self-evidently. If you do not now take the action that you have threatened in Gorazde in the face of a repudiation of the ultimatum presented to the Serbs, then you may expect General Mladic to do what he's done in Gorazde in one of the other pockets. The Serbs are absolute experts at playing what I call "international grandmother's footsteps". As soon as you turn round and confront them, they retreat, as soon as you turn your back or weaken your will they seek to grab a bit more. That's what they've done for the last two years. They've never been convinced that we were serious about taking the action we said we were going to take. They have never believed that there was a solid front between politicians and military Commanders on the ground, they've always seen the divisions and they've always been prepared to exploit them, and unless we are prepared to stop that, then our room for manoeuvre, our capacity to shape events, will diminish to the point where it will be nothing and then the option will be to withdraw. And the UN and NATO is coming very very close to that ultimate option. HUMPHRYS: But in the meantime we have to accept that if we take action of the sort we're talking about against the Serb forces, the consequence for British and other United Nations soldiers on the ground and observers is going to be profound. Could be extremely dangerous. ASHDOWN: Well John, it is extremely dangerous. Anybody who has been to Sarajevo, anyone who's been to Bosnia, knows it's extremely dangerous. We've lost troops there already. There's a military adage that says if you're going to go in "go in hard, go in clear, do not pussyfoot about'. HUMPHRYS: But we haven't got the forces to go in hard. ASHDOWN: Do not try and send four SAS soldiers to rotect a City like Gorazde or they'll be wounded and they'll be killed. HUMPHRYS: So send more soldiers. ASHDOWN: No. John, what we have to do is support the military Commander on the ground. I'm not able to say here and neither are you with respect, that you should send more soldiers. HUMPHRYS: I'm not saying anything. I'm asking you about whether that's an inevitable consequence. ASHDOWN: Precisely. That's a question I can't answer from the comfort of my sitting room in Somerset, or you from a BBC newsroom. That's a decision that has to be taken by the Commander on the ground. We have embarked on this operation, it has to succeed. The status and standing of the international institutions and international opinion depend on that, so does the peace of Bosnia and I venture to say probably the peace of the whole Balkans area in the long term as well, and maybe even the kind of order that will provide peace for Europe in general. So we've embarked on this course of action. We must support the Commander on the ground and judgements about extra troops are his judgements to make, not ours. HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, thank you very much.