President of the U.S., 1993-2001; Former Democratic Governor (AR)
Claims he opposed Iraq war from the beginning
Bill Clinton said he had opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning--a statement that raised eyebrows because he did not seem to take a strong public stance against the war when it started in 2003. “If he did, I don’t think most of us heard about it,”
Barack Obama told reporters. [News reports said] Clinton had been briefed by top White House officials privately about war planning in 2003 and he told them he supported the invasion.
For some experts, Clinton’s insistence he was always against the war
Source: Steve Holland, Reuters, “Reason to hope”
Nov 30, 2007
1969: Navigated draft maze; never quite clear on deferment
In Oct. 1969, Bill was reclassified as draft-eligible. In December, after receiving the high lottery number of 311, he formally withdrew from the ROTC program he had never actually joined & applied to Yale Law School. Like some members of his generation,
Bill managed to navigate the draft maze.
Bill’s draft status burst onto the campaign stage in Feb. 1992, when the Wall Street Journal reported on his dealings with the university’s ROTC program. Soon afterward, ABC discovered a 1969 letter from
Bill to Col. Eugene Holmes, head of the University of Arkansas ROTC, describing Bill’s opposition to the war and his gratitude for “saving me from the draft” with a deferment.
More than a decade later, Bill conceded it was a “misstatement” for him to
have claimed, “I had never had a deferment.”
Bill’s campaign possessed including an “Order to Report for Induction”; an induction postponement; and a notice of cancellation on July 23, 1969, a few days after Bill agreed to join the ROTC program.
After the raids on Kosovo succeeded, John Keegan, perhaps the foremost living historian of warfare, wrote a fascinating article in the British press about the Kosovo campaign. He admitted frankly that he had not believed the bombing would work
and that he had been wrong. He said the reason such campaigns had failed in the past is that most bombs had missed their targets. The weaponry used in Kosovo was more precise than that used in the first Gulf War; and though some bombs went
astray in Kosovo and Serbia, far fewer civilians were killed than in Iraq. I’m also still convinced that fewer civilians died than would have perished if we had put in ground troops, a bridge I would have nevertheless
have crossed rather than let Milosevic prevail. The success of the air campaign in Kosovo marked a new chapter in military history.
1992: Bombed Iraq to retaliate for Bush assassination plot
In June 1992, I ordered the military into action for the first time, firing twenty-three Tomahawk missiles into Iraq's intelligence headquarters, in retaliation for a plot to assassinate President George H. W. Bush during a trip he had made to Kuwait.
More than a dozen people involved in the plot had been arrested in Kuwait on April 13, one day before the former President had been scheduled to arrive. The materials in their possession were conclusively traced to Iraqi intelligence, and on
May 19 one of the arrested Iraqis confirmed to the FBI that the Iraqi intelligence service was behind the plot. Most of the Tomahawks hit the target, but four of them overshot, three landing in an upscale
Baghdad neighborhood and killing eight civilians. It was a stark reminder that no matter how careful the planning and how accurate the weapons, when that kind of firepower is unleashed, there are usually unintended consequences.
Cruise-missile attack on Sudan & Afghanistan praised by GOP
Clinton's cruise-missile attack on Sudan and Afghanistan [occurred during Whitewater]. The funny thing was, it sort of worked. Pentagon officials suddenly were stealing airtime from [Whitewater] prosecutors on the evening news. The overwhelming, and
rather surreal, assessment was that the President had done the right thing. The public supported the bombings. And so did many Republicans. Moreover, Clinton's decisiveness gave pause to those who had been saying that his presidency was crippled.
Source: The Natural, by Joe Klein, p.175-176
Feb 11, 2003
Accepted Bush policy: Saddam better than instability
Clinton never figured out how to thwart Saddam's apparent efforts to create a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. It should be noted that the Clinton national security team tacitly accepted the first Bush administration's implicit policy in
Iraq: Saddam in power was better than the instability that might occur if he was removed--Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds splitting off into states of their own, which might, among other things, greatly strengthen Iran and pose a serious threat to Turkey.
Source: The Natural, by Joe Klein, p.189
Feb 11, 2003
Regrets tactics used in Somalia
On Somalia, Clinton told me in July 2000, when he was still President, that he agreed to Powell's final escalation, the use of Delta Force guerillas in the hunt for the Somali warlord Mohammed Farah
Aidid. "There was an operational decision made there which, if I had to do it again, I might do what we did then, but I'd do it in a different way," the President said. "General Powell came in and said you ought to do this--and then he retired.
He left the next week. And I'm not blaming him, I'm just saying he was gone. So what happened was we had this huge battle in broad daylight where hundreds of Somalis were killed and we lost eighteen soldiers in what was a UN action.
I think I'll always regret [that]. I don't know if I could have saved those lives or not, but I would have handled it in a different way if I'd had more experience. I know I would have."
1995: Launched aerial assault against the Bosnian Serbs
The administration's uncertainty overseas, especially in the Balkans, continued to be an embarrassment. It wasn't until 1995, when the UN peacekeeping mission appeared to be collapsing in Bosnia (and Clinton found out that the US was committed to the
extremely expensive, potentially dangerous, and politically disastrous mission of extracting the peacekeepers--and thereby, presiding over a historic international defeat at the hands of ethnic thugs) that the President was convinced to take action.
He launched an aerial assault against the Bosnian Serbs, who capitulated soon after cruise missiles were fired into the city Banja Luka--the Serbs were astonished and terrified by the ability of the missiles to navigate the local street grid
& pick out specific targets. He coaxed a more permanent power-sharing agreement from the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. It was the first, most intricate, and, arguably, the most significant foreign policy success of the Clinton administration.
Legal ban on assassinations doesn’t apply to bin Laden
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hinted that the government has evidence showing there was state sponsorship of last week’s attacks. He said that the campaign against terrorism “will not be quick and it will not be easy”
and that the goal is “to drain the swamp they live in.” He added: “We have a choice, either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or to change the way that they live, and we chose the latter.”
Rumsfeld said the legal ban on government-sponsored assassinations restricts what the government can do in its pursuit of bin Laden, who is described as the prime suspect in the attacks. But former president Bill Clinton,
in an interview with NBC News, said the ban should pose no hurdle. The ban applies only to heads of state, not terrorists, he said. “I can assure you we’ve been trying to get Osama bin Laden for the last several years.”
Source: Dan Balz and Alan Sipress, Washington Post, p. A1
Nov 19, 2001
Visited Vietnam to “honor sacrifice on both sides”
As he watched, the lachrymal president bit his lower lip and teared up. Perhaps the tears were genuine. Perhaps the president was experiencing the same kind of sentiment that affects those who visit the Vietnam
Memorial, whatever their views about the war during the 1960s. Beyond these rites and the presidential tears, the president’s views on Vietnam and American military action were revealing.
Clinton said, “When we look back on it, the most important thing is that a lot of brave people fought and died in the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, and the South Vietnamese army, and the United States army.
And the best thing we can do to honor the sacrifice and service of those who believed on both sides that what the were doing was right, is to find a way to build a different future.”
In 1992, Bill Clinton told the Los Angeles Times that ‘it was just a fluke’ that he had not been drafted. In fact as everyone in America except Bill Clinton still remembers, the facts were quite the reverse. In 1968, the looming draft was young Bill
Clinton’s first political crisis, and he handled it in the same way he would respond to future crises: a crafty combination of lying, evasion, and using others. Clinton claimed, “I certainly had no leverage to get special treatment form the draft board.”
Source: The Final Days, by Barbara Olson, p. 28
Oct 25, 2001
Support Wye River Accords & other peace talks
[The Clinton Administration] advanced peace in the Middle East by brokering peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, including the Palestinians and Jordan; negotiating the Wye River Accords; supporting
the launch of final settlement negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians; and revitalizing peace talks between the Syrians and Israelis.
Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site
Dec 1, 2000
Combat terrorism; contain Iraq; develop oil
[The Clinton Administration is] combating threats:
Developed a national counter-terrorism strategy, appointing a national coordinator & striking terrorist targets in Afghanistan & Sudan.
Containing Iraq through deterrence, economic sanctions,
over $20 billion in humanitarian assistance from the oil-for-food program, and support for popular opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Secured landmark agreements to develop oil & gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site
Dec 1, 2000
Kosovo: led NATO alliance to end ethnic cleansing
[The Clinton Administration] ended a decade of repression and reversed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by leading NATO alliance to victory in 79-day air war against Serb forces, forcing their withdrawal, ushering in international peacekeepers, and
launching the Stability Pact to strengthen democracy, prosperity and integration throughout the Balkans.
[We supported] enlarging NATO, integrating Southeast Europe, and strengthening our partnership with Russia.
Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site
Dec 1, 2000
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