By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 1997; Page A01

President Clinton has decided to fly to Bosnia next week, both to spread some holiday cheer among U.S. peacekeeping forces there and to underscore what he believes is the need for an extended American presence to finish reconstructing the war-torn country, officials said yesterday.

Clinton probably will leave Washington either Sunday night or the next night and visit both Sarajevo, the capital, and Tuzla, the major base for U.S. troops, during a whirlwind trip in which he will be on the ground for roughly 12 to 14 hours, officials said. Details are still being worked out, they said.

The president traditionally makes an appearance with military personnel during the holiday season and aides said they figured soldiers serving in Bosnia under restrictive rules and at some risk to their safety deserved recognition and a morale boost. But the trip also will serve to showcase a Clinton foreign policy success even as he tries to build the case back home for why U.S. troops may have to remain in Bosnia beyond the June 1998 deadline he set for their withdrawal.

"It's a chance to highlight what's been done and to make people realize that we have made a real contribution there," said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's important for people to see what American leadership has brought about."

The trip comes at a critical moment in Bosnia policymaking. European leaders are pushing Washington to remain part of a NATO-led international peacekeeping force after next summer and have threatened to pull out if the United States does.

Such an across-the-board withdrawal could lead to a breakdown of the fragile stability forged over the last two years, Western officials believe, and possibly even to a resumption of the ethnic war that ravaged the region from 1992 to 1995.

Clinton and many of his senior advisers appear predisposed to staying and have begun laying the political groundwork with congressional leaders. Although no formal decision has been made, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright has said "a consensus is developing" for a continued U.S. military presence.

But the administration is debating internally what form such a presence should take and whether to reduce the U.S. force, which makes up about 8,000 of the more than 30,000 foreign troops. Presented a draft set of options recently, Clinton concluded they were too limited and directed his foreign policy advisers to consider a wider range of scenarios.

The administration would like to trim the size of the U.S. contingent but is wary of doing so if it appears likely to leave too few troops to carry out the tasks now being conducted.

To make any renewed U.S. mission more politically palatable at home, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen pushed European allies during talks in Brussels this month to contribute more to the effort, including funding and training for a local police force to effectively maintain order.

How any new operation will be structured and defining its goals will be important in determining its support in Congress. Republican leaders already have tried to force Clinton to abide by his June 1998 withdrawal promise through legislation and are apt to look skeptically on any new follow-on mission.

Clinton made the decision to go to Bosnia last week, according to a senior official involved in the planning.

As his aides were considering which military installation he should visit this Christmas, they at one point were leaning toward a domestic base in the South until someone suggested Bosnia instead and the president readily accepted the idea.

While domestic politics were a factor, officials maintained the prime motivator was an interest in bucking up troops involved in a difficult assignment away from home at the holidays. One aide said Clinton almost went last year but could not because of logistical problems.

The president visited Bosnia once before, in a well-received January 1996 trip that came just as U.S. troops were settling in for the first time. Weather and violence dictated unscheduled changes in that trip -- a rocket-propelled grenade attack before his arrival played a part in the decision to scrap a stop in Sarajevo. This time weather is the major complicating factor.

Assuming all goes according to plan, Clinton will meet with Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic and other local leaders, though not with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, according to an official involved in the preparations.

While a hard-liner, Plavsic has been embraced by the West in an internal power struggle with Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who has been indicted on war crimes and remains a formidable obstacle to NATO efforts to rebuild a political and economic structure in Bosnia.

Karadzic's party won the most seats in last month's parliamentary elections in the Serb portion of Bosnia but lost its majority.