Leighton W. Smith Jr. stepped down from his position as NATO commander amid mounting criticism. His resignation highlighted internal tensions and potential strategic challenges within the NATO leadership during the mid-1990s.
Smith's IFOR command in Bosnia was criticized for his refusal to use his authority to also perform non-military implementation tasks, including arresting indicted war criminals
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Despite others expecting that the IFOR commander would use his authority to do substantially more than he was obligated to do, Smith shattered that hope.
Smith and his British deputy, General Michael Walker, made clear that they intended to take a minimalist approach to all aspects of implementation other than force protection.
Smith signalled this in his first extensive public statement to the Bosnian people, during a live call-in program on Pale Television — an odd choice for his first local media appearance.
During the program, he answered a question in a manner that dangerously narrowed his own authority. He later talked told about it with a curious pride.
One of the questions I was asked was, "Admiral, is it true that IFOR is going to arrest Serbs in the Serb suburbs of Sarajevo?"
He said, "Absolutely not, I don't have the authority to arrest anybody."This was an inaccurate way to describe IFOR's mandate.
It was true IFOR was not supposed to make routine arrests of ordinary citizens. But IFOR had the authority to arrest indicted war criminals, and could also detain anyone who posed a threat to its forces.
Knowing what the question meant, Smith had sent an unfortunate signal of reassurance to Karadžić – over his own network.