U.S. Seeks Int'l Court Compromise

The United States doesn't intend to abandon peacekeeping commitments even though American peacekeepers aren't immune from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says.

"We have no intention of pulling back," Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a Pentagon briefing. For new peacekeeping missions, the United States will try to arrange for "immunities that will protect our forces before we go in," he said.

President Bush opposes the court because it could order the arrest, trial and imprisonment of citizens of the United States and other countries that haven't agreed to the court's creation. Bush said he's concerned that Americans could be prosecuted for political reasons.

Because American peacekeepers don't have immunity, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Sunday night to extend the mission in Bosnia, and then agreed to a 72-hour extension.

"We'll try to work out the impasse, but the one thing we're not going to do is sign on," Bush said Tuesday in Milwaukee.

The United States offered a compromise Tuesday at the United Nations that would block prosecution of American peacekeepers by the court while avoiding the threatened halt to the Bosnian mission.

The U.S. proposal would give the Security Council much more power over determining whether peacekeepers could be prosecuted. It would let the five permanent members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — use their vetoes to block the court's investigation or prosecution of peacekeepers.

Council members met informally late Tuesday to discuss the U.S. proposal, but diplomats said there was no enthusiasm for it because it would still undermine the court. The court was launched on Monday to try those accused of genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity.

On that day the United States withdrew two U.S. military observers serving with the United Nations in East Timor.

On Capitol Hill, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden, agreed with the administration that U.S. soldiers must be protected from frivolous prosecution.

But he said to veto the peacekeeping mandate was not the right way. "It jeopardizes the continuation of vital peacekeeping and police training missions in Bosnia, and U.N. operations elsewhere," he said.

About 3,000 U.S. soldiers are part of the peacekeeping force in Bosnia.

Under the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended the Bosnian civil war, U.S. soldiers in the peacekeeping mission would have immunity from being arrested in Bosnia on an International Criminal Court warrant. But that would not prevent those soldiers — or their military or civilian commanders — from being arrested in an International Criminal Court case in another country.

More than 100 countries celebrated the birth of the International Criminal Court as a milestone for global justice and pledged not to let U.S. opposition sabotage its mission to deter and prosecute war criminals.