A retired US general has said homosexuality in the Dutch armed forces was partly responsible for failing to prevent the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war

John Sheehan, a former NATO commander and senior Marine officer, made his remarks at a Senate hearing where he suggested Srebrenica was not defended properly because Dutch ranks included openly gay soldiers, who were deployed to protect Bosnian Muslim civilians.

He argued against plans by US President Barack Obama to end a ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the US military.

General Sheehan said that the Dutch military had changed, along with other European armies, after the end of the Cold War, when they recognised neither the Germans nor the Russians were likely to attack.

He said because of the change, the Dutch military thought there was no longer a need for an active combat capability.

He said a soft socialisation process in the Dutch army had included open homosexuality and led to a focus on peacekeeping instead of combat operations.

He told the Senate hearing: "The case in point that I'm referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs. The battalion was understrength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off and executed them."

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, in pressing him to clarify his comments about Srebrenica, asked: "Did the Dutch leaders tell you Srebrenica fell because there were gay soldiers there?"

General Sheehan replied: "Yes, they included that as part of the problem."

Senator Levin vehemently rejected the allegation, saying that drawing a connection between the massacre at Srebrenica and gays in the Dutch military had "nothing to do with sexual orientation" but was related to "training and the rules of engagement."

Nearly 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after Serb forces captured the eastern town on July 11, 1995.