As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Bosnia in March 1996 with her daughter and several celebrities to boost troop morale and thank soldiers stationed there.

Clinton cites the goodwill trip as a part of her foreign policy experience, describing a dangerous landing where she was ordered to the armored front of the plane because of possible ground fire. She also now reports landing under sniper fire and contradicts her previous written account of a shortened welcoming ceremony at the airport.

But according to accounts at the time, she was placed under no extraordinary risks on that trip. And one of her companions on it said he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.

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THE SPIN

Clinton described her trip to Bosnia on Monday during a speech about Iraq in Washington. She said: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Questioned about it later at a news conference, Clinton said she was moved into the cockpit of the C-17 cargo plane as they were flying into Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina. "Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," she said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. … There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."

She gave a somewhat different account in her book, "Living History."

In it, she said there were reports of fire but does not mention hearing or seeing it on her way to Tuzla.

"Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find," she wrote.

She also described in the book how the plane was kept high, "above the reach of surface-to-air missiles and sniper fire." She wrote, "Above the airstrip, the captain dipped a wing and made a near-perpendicular landing to evade possible ground fire."

Former Army Secretary Togo West, who was also on the trip, said the military needed to take safety precautions with Clinton given that it was a combat zone.

"You can understand that they would have said to the first lady, ‘We’re not going to take any chances with you,’" West said at the news conference with Clinton. "’Run. Duck. This is a hotspot. This is serious.’" West is supporting her presidential candidacy.

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THE FACTS

An AP story at the time reported: "Security was tight — fighter jets accompanied her C-17 cargo plane to Tuzla — but officials said the first lady took no extraordinary risks on the trip." There was no mention of sniper fire.

The visit came three months after the war ended with the signing of the Dayton peace accord in December 1995.

AP reported that on the plane into Bosnia from Germany: "Mrs. Clinton chatted with journalists and crewmen during the 90-minute flight, wandering around the spacious plane in a black pantsuit — a contrast to the blue jeans and other road-ready clothes worn by most everybody else on the plane.

"The first lady spent quite a bit of time in the cockpit, with pilot Cheryl Beineke, one of just four female C-17 pilots in the U.S. Air Force."

The comedian Sinbad, who accompanied her along with singer Sheryl Crow and who is a supporter of Clinton rival Barack Obama, said he felt no sense of peril.

He told The Washington Post: "I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.’"

Sinbad also said he didn’t remember the threat of bullets. "I never felt that I was in a dangerous position," he said.

West asserted "it was a hot zone, it was a combat zone, and they needed to be very careful with the then-first lady."

Source: AP