That morning, UN Force Commander Janvier was returning to Zagreb from Paris. Janvier had just suffered the latest in a series of setbacks. The new 13 ,OOO troop Rapid Reaction Force created by France, Britain and ~0~and in the wake of the ~0stage ~vj5i5 ~0u~d not ~hange its name. Ue feared "Rapid" would raise L.xpectations that the UN wou~ go to war against the Serbs and ~3d asked that the new force be called the less provocative The-~te~ Reaction Force. After janvier's proposal leaked to the press and was criticized as another example of UN timidity, the name was set as the Rapid Reaction Force. What janvier feared was that pressure would quickly mount ~ ~se the force to create corridors to funnel supplies to the enclaves. More than anything else the ~ Janvier, a Foreign Legionnair~ and commander in the Gulf War, was cautious. He complained to his friends about the loneliness of Ihis Position, the crushing responsibility he had and the lack of Iclear Political guidanc~ At meetings, he often appeared tortured, I furrowing his brow and grimacing. Janvier's top Priority was the safety of his Peacekeepers. Largely reflecting Akashi's view of the conflict, he was extremely hesitant to use force or to appear to be taking sides. And like Akashi, he believed that the role of the UN ~ it. was to pacify the speak with the media, but on May 22 he expressed his views on the safe areas in a closed~door session of the UN Security Council. Every six months the mandate of the Peacekeeping mission expired. UN officials in New York and the former Yugoslavi~ had Prepared an exhaustive report on the troubled mission UNPROFOR and were recommending that it be urgently reformed, or it would Soon be forced to withdraw. The safe areas, especially Sarajevo and Bihac, were routinely shelled or attacked by Serb troops; at times, Bihac' was even bombed by Serb airplanes in violation of the NATO~enforced "no-fly zone." Peacekeepers were routinely sniped at. The three- year death toll for the mission, now at a UN record 173 Peacekeepers, was steadily rising. Is The Serbs had allowed 30 percent of UN aid convoys to reach their destinations. Food supplies in all of the enclaves were dangerously low. Sensing the UN's weakness that spring, Serbs, Croats and Muslims commandeered over 500 UN vehicles. Hu-miliated, nearly all UN officials in the former Yugoslavi~ were desperate for a new, clearer mandate that lightly armed UN Peacekeepers could actually carry out. Secretary General Boutros Boutros~Ghali laid out several op-tions for the Security Council to reform the dying mission's man-date. Increase the number of Peacekeepers and use force to deliver aid and Protect safe areas; keep the number of Peacekeep~ ers the same but decrease the UN'5 responsibilities. or stay the course. Boutros~Ghali recommended reducing the scope of the I mission-diplomatic language for abandoning the safe area con-cept. The safe areas became the Achilles' heel of the UN peace-keeping mission. After limited support in 1993, NATO countries were no longer willing to deploy troops in them. French forces had pulled out of Bihac and been replaced by Bangladeshis in 1994. Canadian troops pulled out of Srebrenica in January 1994 and were replaced by the Dutch. Now the British and Dutch governments said they were pulling their soldiers out of Sre-brenica and Gorazde by January 1996. After a long and difficult search, Ukraine had offered to send its peacekeepers to the two isolated enclaves. But the Ukrainians, who were already in Zepa and Sarajevo, were infamous for corruption, black marketeering and their failure to enforce UN mandates. In his briefing to the UN Security Council, Janvier recom-mended that all but a handful of UN peacekeepers who were Forward Air Controllers withdraw from the eastern enclaves. A small group of the specially trained peacekeepers would be left in the enclave to guide NATO air strikes if needed. British gen-eral Rupert Smith backed the proposal because it would allow the UN to use force against the Serbs without being handicapped by the existence of hundreds of potential hostages. "Let us be pragmatic. . . and above all let us be honest with ourselves and those we have pledged to protect," Janvier had told the Security Council. "One shouldn't play in the storm if one cannot throw lightning bolts."16 The military situation had changed since 1993, Janvier as -[I serted. Bosnian government forces were now strong enough to defend the enclaves themselves. With the support of the Russian ambassador, he alleged that the Bosnian Army had repeatedly abused the safe area concept and used the enclaves to launch offensives. He also pointed out that it was the Bosnian govern-ment that had broken a four-month cease-fire negotiated by for-mer U.S. President Jimmy Carter the previous December. The last three French soldiers killed by snipers in Sarajevo were shot by Bosnian Muslims, he asserted. In fact, only one of the shots was confirmed to have come from the Bosnian side.17 The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Aibright, chided Janvier for criticizing the Bosnian government for fighting back against the Bosnian Serbs; the Muslims had a right to defend themselves, she maintained. The United States would oppose any reduction in the commitment to the safe areas. But at the same time the Clinton administration refused to send any U.S. ground troops to bolster the flagging mission. Janvier's proposal to effectively withdraw from the safe areas was flatly rejected. Unable to agree on how to change the man-date and unwilling to commit additional troops, the Security Council instructed UN officials and commanders to simply sol-dier on as they had for the last two years. As Janvier arrived in Zagreb, Srebrenica presented him with yet another watershed. The daily briefing convened in UN headquarters in Zagreb at 11 a.m. Force Commander Janvier opened the meeting. "A Kenyan soldier died in a car accident," he said through a translator. "In BH [Bosnia], the situation is quiet except in Srebrenica. The BSA [Bosnian Serb Army] attacked south to north-in retaliation per-haps for last week's attack by the BH [Bosnian Army] out of Srebrenica. "4 "I spoke yesterday with General Tolimir," he continued. "He explained that the Dutch are free and have their weapons. They are in Bratunac and not POWs." In truth, all of the Dutch hostages had been disarmed. Twenty were under armed guard in the Hotel Fontana in Bra-tunac aid ten were under armed guard in a house in Milici. None were allowed to leave. "The Dutch asked to be taken in by the BSA for their own safety," Janvier went on. "I demanded the BSA stop their action and hope to talk with the BSA this morning." Colonel De Jonge, the chief of operations, then gave a more detailed report on the attack and the situation in Bosnia and Croatia.5 Janvier spoke up after he concluded. "The BH blocked Ca-nadian resupplies to two observation posts, fired rounds against [UN] troops in Sarajevo and killed a [UN] soldier in a deliberate attack in Srebrenica. I will report this to New York," Janvier pledged. "In Sarajevo, [UN and UNHCR] convoys reached Sa-rajevo without firing by the BSA." Since arriving as Force Commander in February, Janvier had repeatedly criticized the Bosnian Army for launching offensives and sniping at UN troops while blaming it on the Serbs. Janvier' 5 suspicions about the Muslims were not unusual. Many Western military officers serving in the UN mission felt that the Bosnian Muslims were not the helpless, outgunned victims of Serb "geno-cide" that the media portrayed. The Muslims were better armed than the press realized and highly effective at getting fabricated or ~'caggerated accounts of Serb war crimes publicized. Some 0~cers went further and believed that the Muslim5 fired shells at their own people to demonize the Serbs and gen-that killed 5ev- erate international 5ympathy~ ~~cluding the one enty-tW0 people in the infamous ~ebruary 1993 Sarajevo marketplace massacre which led to the creation of the heavy weapons exclusion zone around the besieged capital. No proof of the ~llegations was ever produced~ but suspicion ran deep ~mong some senior French officers and UN 0fficials that the Bos-nian Muslims were trying to draw the UN and NATO into wag-ing war against the Serbs. As the july 10 daily ~riefing drew to a close, janvier accused the Bosnians of trying to draw the UN into fighting in Srebren-ica. "1 remind ~veryone that the BU trooPS are strong ~noUgh to defend themselves. Also, access to Srebrenica is not being de-fended by the Bosnians. The situation is not the same as 1993," 3 anvier said. '~'ve just received information that ~~snian sol-dier~ are 5hooting on Dutch trooP5 ~l0cking the route into Sre-brenica and 5hooting at NATO planes over Srebrenica." The claim that the Bosnians fired on a plane over Srebrenica was false.6 Serbs may have been firing on the planes, but no Dutch reported seeing Bosnian soldiers 5hooting at them. The report of the Bosnians firing on the Dutch was apparently a reference to the "Muslim hand grenade" that the Dutch ~hought had knocked their APC off the road near Camila Omanovic's house that ~orning. "The Bosnian Army is trying to push us into a path that we don't want," janvier warned. Yasushi Akashi agreed. "The B~ initiates actions," he said, "and then calls on the UN and international ~0~munity to re-spond and take care of their faulty judgment. The request for Close Air Support reached Sara jevo at 7:15 p.m. Knowing how hesitant Janvier was to use airpower, General Ni-colai had denied any request he thought Janvier would not ap-prove. He had waited for a clear-cut signal that Zagreb could not question. This was it. The Dutch general took the request to the acting UN commander in Bosnia, General Herve' Gobil-hard, and recommended that it be approved. Gobilliard signed the form immediately. In Zagreb, Colonel De Jonge received the request at 7:30 p.m. He had been waiting for this moment since he came up with the blocking position idea. De Jonge rushed into the office of Force Commander Janvier and announced that a company of Serb infantry was on a hill overlooking Srebrenica. The Serbs were advancing toward the town. The Dutch blocking position was firing over their heads.