MILITARY WEAKENED, CONGRESSMAN WARNS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

President Clinton is trying to let the American people force him into using ground troops in the Kosovo war, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said.

With uncertainty growing over whether the NATO bombing campaign will lead to a peace accord, the president is looking for the public to make the controversial decision to expand the war effort, said Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C.

``They got a tiger by the tail and don't know how to let go,'' Spence said in an interview with the Daily News. ``I think, quite frankly, he is hoping - by showing all the pictures of the humanitarian problem - to convince the American people to convince him to go in and use ground troops. He doesn't want to do it himself - he wants the momentum to build up and the American people demand we do something.''

The Clinton Administration maintains that it can achieve its objectives without the use of ground troops. However, in recent days, members of Congress have begun to call for exploring that option. Spence said he feared the United States might sink into a Vietnamlike quagmire by sending ground troops into Kosovo.

The Clinton administration put itself in the position of having to use force by thinking that the threat of force alone would bring the Serbs to the peace table, Spence said. The war now has put the United States in the position of committing a large amount of resources at a time when there are potentially larger threats looming, such as a flare-up with North Korea.

He said the Kosovo war will serve to highlight how thinly stretched U.S. military forces are and will help bring in more dollars for defense.

``We can't just replace bullet for bullet, missile for missile out there. We've got to help shore up the military or it will hollow out,'' Spence said.

The House's 2000 defense budget is $288.8 billion, an increase of more than $8 billion over the president's request. Of that amount, approximately one-fourth will go toward a pay raise for service personnel.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have presented Congress with a list of $145 billion of unfunded needs. Congress will try to whittle that list down over the next five years.

Spence said he does not support administration efforts to find cost savings through consolidation of test and evaluation facilities, saying the Pentagon has already cut too much across the board.

The relative ease of the current air war and of the previous Gulf War has given Americans a false sense of security, Spence said. Spence likened the situation to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

``The military has been worn down and worked to death. People don't understand the level (to which) we have sunk,'' Spence said. ``It reminds me of the day before Pearl Harbor. There were all kinds of warnings out there, but people didn't seem to take them seriously. We've got all kinds of warnings now.''