President of the U.S., 1993-2001; Former Democratic Governor (AR)
Response to 1993 World Trade Center bombing muted
The US had been hit for the first time by Islamist terrorists on February 26, 1993. Six people had been killed and more than 1,000 injured when a truck bomb exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in NYC.
Only later did authorities learn that the bombers had intended to level both of the twin towers. Bill’s reaction at the time had been muted, as his administration viewed the incident as a law-enforcement matter rather than an act of war.
By spring, 1995, four Arab Islamist conspirators had been convicted, and the FBI had linked the attack to the al-Qaeda terror network. Still, when Mike Wallace noted in the 60 Minutes interview that “it cost the World Trade Center bomber.
$4,000 for all of what was involved” and asked what the administration proposed to do about “terror on the cheap,” Bill mentioned only that he would “try to get the legal support we need to move against terrorism.”
Torture must only be hypothetical exception, not US policy
Q: You said the following on this show on September 24, 2006: “Imagine the following scenario: We get lucky, we get the #3 guy in al-Qaeda, and we know there’s a big bomb going off in America in three days, and this guy knows where it is. We have the
right and the responsibility to beat it out of him. The president could guarantee a pardon of that sort of thing post-facto to the intelligence court just like we do now with the wiretaps.” Now, Sen. Clinton said, “As a matter of policy, torture cannot b
American policy period. These hypotheticals are very dangerous.“ Doesn’t seem as if she’s for the exception that you were outlining.
A: I think she’s right. I think America’s policy should be to oppose torture, to honor the Geneva Conventions for
several reasons. 1) It’s almost always counterproductive. If you beat somebody up, they’ll tell you what you want to hear. 2) It hurts us in the rest of the world & helps to recruit other terrorists. 3) It makes our own people vulnerable to torture.
Most millionaires don’t mind less tax cut to protect the US
Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for weapons of mass destruction. It cost $1 billion. It would have been paid for by asking the 200,000 millionaires in America to cut their tax cut by $5,000.
Almost all 200,000 of us would like to have done that, to spend $5,000 to make all 300 million Americans safer. The measure failed because the White House and the Republican leadership in the House opposed it. They thought our $5,000 was more important.
Source: Speech to the Democratic National Convention
Jul 29, 2004
Proposed more funding for terrorism defense
I asked for funds to guard computer networks against terrorists, and to protect communities from chemical and biological attacks and to reverse the decline in military spending that had begun at the end of the Cold War.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.843
Jun 21, 2004
2000: Warned Bush that biggest problem was Al Qaeda & Osama
President-elect Bush came to the White House for the same meeting I had had with his father 8 years earlier. We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican
administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last 8 years, I thought his biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the
absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear powers in India and Pakistan; and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden,
that we still might achieve an agreement in the Middle East, and that we had almost tied up a deal with North Korea to end its missile program.
He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.
Established AmeriCorps as national service program
The notion that Clinton had no "core values" was becoming a Beltway cliche. And yet, most of the people who participated in the endless internal meetings about the budget were aware that there were lines that Clinton wouldn't cross, promises he wouldn't
abandon. Two of his campaign proposals, both distinctively New Democrat ideas, were sacrosanct. He insisted upon EITC & the establishment of AmeriCorps, the national service program that had been the best applause line of his presidential campaign.
Source: The Natural, by Joe Klein, p. 55
Feb 11, 2003
1998: Accused of "wagging the dog" by attacking Bin Laden
A questionable strategy to turn the nation's attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. For nearly two weeks before Clinton's grand jury date, the Administration had been planning an assault on the guerilla infrastructure of Osama bin Laden.
Early on the morning of August 20, three days after his testimony, Clinton approved a cruise-missile attack on a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan and on a guerilla camp in Afghanistan, both of which were said to have been linked to bin Laden.
These attacks had a distressing similarity to the plot of the movie "Wag the Dog," which had opened--uncannily--about the same time as the Lewinsky scandal did. In the film, political consultants concoct an imaginary war in Albania to distract attention
from a presidential sex scandal involving a young "Firefly Girl." And there were suspicions, even among the President's own foreign policy team, that the scandal had influenced Clinton's decision to go after bin Laden.
Promise of national service watered down in AmeriCorps
In 1992, his best moments as a candidate--and his biggest applause lines--came not when he made promises or criticized the opposition, but when he proposed a higher calling for young people, a new form of national service.
National service was an issue that helped distinguish an obscure governor of Arkansas from his opponents. Audiences loved it, especially young audiences. It reminded people of Kennedy and made Clinton seem larger--large enough, ultimately, to unseat the
incumbent President of the United States.
A curious thing happened when the program was implemented, though. AmeriCorps turned out to be a worthy venture, one that Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, wisely shoes to continue. But it lacked the drama
and importance--the centrality--of Clinton's original campaign proposal (in part because the legislation was watered down, the opportunities for service made more peripheral, after pressure from the public employees unions).
In August of 1999, Bill Clinton exercised his presidential clemency power in favor of a group of Puerto Rican terrorists euphemistically referred to as “separatists” in the same sense that Timothy McVeigh is a separatist.
The action caught everyone by surprise--there seemed little legitimate reason for his action.
Most of the Puerto Rican recipients of the president’s unexpected grace were members of FALN--the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional--a
Marxist group responsible for a reign of terror that included 130 bombing attacks in the United States from 1974 to 1983.
I have kept my pledge to maintain and modernize our defense capabilities. We completed a comprehensive review of our military needs for the future and restructured our forces. Even as the size of our forces decreased, their capabilities, readiness,
and qualitative edge have increased.
As a result, our military and intelligence forces are more mobile, agile, precise, flexible, smart, and ready than ever before. Today the mere threat of our force can deter would-be aggressors.
Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p.148-149
Jan 1, 1996
Finally, not a single Russian nuke is aimed at US
The dissolution of the Soviet Union created 4 nuclear powers-Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, & Ukraine-where once there had been just one. I saw it as my highest responsibility to continue the work of my predecessors to reduce the threat from Russia and to
eliminate it entirely from the other 3 newly independent states. Today, for the first time in decades, not a single Russian nuclear missile is aimed at an American city. We are cutting Russian and American arsenals by 2/3 from their Cold War height.
Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p.154-155
Jan 1, 1996
Build a sensible missile defense, not “Star Wars”
It only takes a lump of plutonium the size of a soda can to build a bomb, and rogue states are an ever-present threat. It will be more than a decade before any such state will have the ability to launch a long-range missile attack against the continental
US, but in the meantime we must build a sensible national missile defense program. There are some in the Congress who want to revive the recklessly expensive and extreme “Star Wars” scheme-a costly system that is neither necessary nor prudent and that
would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. What we need is a practical, smart missile defense based on real, not theoretical, threats, and that is exactly what we are getting. We’re already spending $3 billion a year to develop such a defense by
2000, one that will be deployable by 2003, if needed-well before the threat becomes real. In addition, we are beefing up programs to defend against existing threats such as short- and medium-range missile attacks against our troops and allies.
