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President Clinton Excerpt from press conference released by the White House Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, DC, March 19, 1999 |
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Ladies and gentlemen, as all of you know, we have been involved in an intensive effort to end the conflict in Kosovo for many weeks now. With our NATO allies and with Russia, we proposed a peace agreement to stop the killing and give the people of Kosovo the self-determination and government they need and to which they are entitled under the constitution of their government.Yesterday, the Kosovar Albanians signed that agreement. Even though they have not obtained all they seek, even as their people remain under attack, they've had the vision to see that a just peace is better than an unwinnable war. Now only President Milosevic stands in the way of peace.
Today the peace talks were adjourned because the Serbian negotiators refused even to discuss key elements of the peace plan. NATO has warned President Milosevic to end his intransigence and repression, or face military action.
Our allies are strongly united behind this course. We are prepared, and so are they, to carry it out. Today I reviewed our planning with my senior advisors and met with many members of Congress. As we prepare to act we need to remember the lessons we have learned in the Balkans. We should remember the horror of the war in Bosnia, the sounds of sniper fire aimed at children, the faces of young men behind barbed wire, the despairing voices of those who thought nothing could be done. It took precious time to achieve allied unity there, but when we did, our firmness ended all that. Bosnia is now at peace.
We should remember the thousands of people facing cold and hunger in the hills of Kosovo last fall. Firmness ended that as well. We should remember what happened in the village of Racak back in January -- innocent men, women and children taken from their homes to a gully, forced to kneel in the dirt, sprayed with gunfire -- not because of anything they had done, but because of who they were.
Now, roughly 40,000 Serbian troops and police are massing in and around Kosovo. Our firmness is the only thing standing between them and countless more villages like Racak -- full of people without protection, even though they have now chosen peace.
Make no mistake, if we and our allies do not have the will to act, there will be more massacres. In dealing with aggressors in the Balkans, hesitation is a license to kill. But action and resolve can stop armies, and save lives.
We must also understand our stake in peace in the Balkans, and in Kosovo. This is a humanitarian crisis, but it is much more. This is a conflict with no natural boundaries. It threatens our national interests. If it continues, it will push refugees across borders, and draw in neighboring countries. It will undermine the credibility of NATO, on which stability in Europe and our own credibility depend. It will likely reignite the historical animosities, including those that can embrace Albania, Macedonia, Greece, even Turkey. These divisions still have the potential to make the next century a truly violent one for that part of the world that straddles Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Unquestionably, there are risks in military action, if that becomes necessary. U.S. and other NATO pilots will be in harm's way. The Serbs have a strong air defense system. But we must weigh those risks against the risks of inaction. If we don't act, the war will spread. If it spreads, we will not be able to contain it without far greater risk and cost. I believe the real challenge of our foreign policy today is to deal with problems before they do permanent harm to our vital interests. That is what we must do in Kosovo.
Let me just make one other statement about this. One of the things that I wanted to do when I became President is to take advantage of this moment in history to build an alliance with Europe for the 21st century, with a Europe undivided, strong, secure, prosperous and at peace. That's why I have supported the unification of Europe financially, politically, economically. That is why I've supported the expansion of NATO and a redefinition of its missions.
What are the challenges to our realizing that dream? The challenge of a successful partnership with Russia that succeeds in its own mission; the challenge of a resolution of the difficulties between Greece and Turkey so that Turkey becomes an ally of Europe in the West for the long-term; and the challenge of instability in the Balkans -- in different ways, all those things are at stake here.
I honestly believe that by acting now we can help to give our children and our grandchildren a Europe that is more united, more democratic, more peaceful, more prosperous, and a better partner for the United States for a long time to come.
I will say again to Mr. Milosevic, as I did in Bosnia, I do not want to put a single American pilot into the air; I do not want anyone else to die in the Balkans; I do not want a conflict. I would give anything to be here talking about something else today. But a part of my responsibility is to try to leave to my successors, and to our country in the 21st century, an environment in Europe that is stable, humane and secure. It will be a big part of America's future.
Thank you very much. Mr. Hunt?
QUESTION: Mr. President, as you mentioned, Yugoslav forces seem to be mobilizing for war in Kosovo, despite the warnings of NATO air strikes. After so many threats in the past, why should President Milosevic take this one seriously? And is there a deadline for him to comply? And is it your intention to keep pounding Serb targets until he agrees to your peace terms?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, there are several questions there, but let me say, I think he should take this seriously, because we meant -- we were serious in Bosnia. And it was the combined impact of NATO's action in Bosnia, plus the reversals they sustained on the ground in fighting, plus the economic embargo, that led them to conclude that peace was the better course.
Now, he says here that this is not like what happened last fall, that this threatens Serbia's sovereignty to have a multinational force on the ground in Kosovo. But he has put that at risk by his decade -- and I want to reemphasize that -- his decade of denial of the autonomy to which the Kosovars are legally entitled as a part of Serbia.
My intention would be to do whatever is possible, first of all, to weaken his ability to massacre them, to have another Bosnia; and secondly, to do all that I can to induce him to take -- it is not my peace agreement. It was an agreement worked out, and negotiated, and argued over, with all the parties' concerns being taken into account.
I will say again -- for the longest time, we did not believe that either side would take this agreement. And the fact that the Kosovar Albanians did it I think reflects foresight and wisdom on their part. They did not get everything they wanted. And in a peace agreement, nobody ever gets everything they want. We've seen it in the Middle East, in Northern Ireland, everywhere else.
So it is not my agreement. It is the best agreement that all the parties can get to give us a chance to go forward without bloodshed. I believe, also, as I have said publicly to Mr. Milosevic and to the Serbs, it is their best chance to keep Kosovo as a part of Serbia and as a part of Yugoslavia. And so I would hope that the agreement could be accepted, and I'll do what I can to see that it is.
QUESTION: And the deadline, sir -- is there one?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't want to discuss that. We're working on that. I expect to be working on this all weekend.
* * * * * * * QUESTION: Mr. President, you met this morning with members of Congress. And afterward, some of them came out and said that they had trouble imagining how you could justify air strikes in Kosovo unless the Serbs launched a new offensive first. In fact, Senator Nickles actually suggested that it might take a significant massacre before such a move would get public support.
In your mind, does the mere fact that the Serbs refused to sign a peace treaty justify air strikes? Or do you think they need to -- if they took military action, only then you could act?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first, I believe they have already taken provocative actions. And there was, in the very recent past, the massacre at the village that I mentioned in my opening statement. Plus, there is the long unquestioned record of atrocity in Bosnia.
So what we have tried to do along -- and, frankly, the Russians have been with us in this; I don't mean that they support military action, but they've been with us in the peace process -- is we could see that the same thing that happened in Bosnia and that had happened to some extent in Kosovo already, and had already produced tens of thousands of refugees in Kosovo, was going to happen there. And it seems to me that if we know that, and if we have a NATO action order predicated on the implementation of the peace process, and the failure to do it triggering reaction, that we ought to do what we can to prevent further atrocities.
I understand what Senator Nickles was saying -- I think he was saying that the American public has not seen the sort of atrocities there they saw in Bosnia, that that is not fresh in people's minds. But with all the troops that have been massed, and what we know about their plans and what they have publicly said about them, I would hate to think that we'd have to see a lot of other little children die before we could do what seems to be, to me, clearly the right thing to do to prevent it.
QUESTION: So you would act first then? I mean --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't think it's accurate to say we're acting first. I think they have acted first. They have massed their troops, they have continued to take aggressive action. They have already leveled one village in the recent past and killed a lot of innocent people. I do not believe that we ought to have to have thousands more people slaughtered and buried in open soccer fields before we do something. I think that would be unfortunate if we had said we have to have a lot more victims before we can stop what we know is about to happen.
* * * * * * * QUESTION: Mr. President, it seems you're on the verge of committing U.S. forces to combat without a clear definition of your threshold for doing so. In January, Serb troops massacred 44 civilians. You called it murder and demanded that the Serb forces withdraw. They did not. Last month, you said it would be a mistake to extend the deadline, but the deadline passed. Last week, your administration said atrocities would be punished, and then after that a bomb went off in a Kosovo market and killed numerous children. What level of atrocities, sir, is a sufficient trigger? What is your threshold?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, you've just made my case. I think that the threshold has been crossed. But when I said that the deadline should not be extended, Mr. Pelley, what I said was that those of us who were trying to shepherd the process should not extend the deadline. When the parties themselves asked for a delay, that's an entirely different kettle of fish. The rest of us can't be so patronizing that we can't say to both sides they had no right to ask for a delay. They asked, themselves, for a delay, and I thought it was the right thing to do. I still believe that it was the right thing to do. And it did lead to one side accepting the agreement.
You have made another point, which I did not make in my remarks, but I would like to make, based on the factual statements you made -- everything you said was right, all the factual things you've cited -- which is that there are, basically, two grounds on which, in my judgment, NATO could properly take action. One is the fact that we have already said that if the peace agreement were accepted by the Kosovars, but not by the Serbs, we would take action to try to minimize the ability of the Serbs just to overrun and slaughter the Kosovars. That's the first thing I said.
The second thing, what you said is quite right. While our threat of force last year did result in the drastic reduction of the tension and a lot of the refugees going home, it is absolutely true that there have been actions taken since then and forced movements since then that would trigger the other NATO action order to use force. The reason that has not been done, frankly, is because the peace process was going on and we knew that if we could just get an agreement from both sides that we could end the violence and we wouldn't have to act under either ground.
So from my point of view, as I made clear to the Congress today, I think the threshold for their conduct has already been crossed.
John?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Sir, if I might follow up -- with the OSCE monitors leaving tonight, if Serbian forces move into Kosovo, will that trigger NATO strikes?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I've already said, I do not believe that -- I think that whatever threshold they need to cross has been crossed. I think that, in view of the present state of things, it would be better if I did not say any more about any particular plans we might have.
* * * * * * * QUESTION: Sir, you said on Kosovo that if we don't act, the war will spread. That's very similar to what we said when we went into Bosnia several years ago. Our troops are still there. How can you assure the American people that we're not getting into a quagmire in Bosnia?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, first of all, in Bosnia we have brought about 70 percent of our troops home. It has not been a quagmire. I told the American people we might well have some loss of life there, but I was convinced we would lose fewer lives and do more good over the long run if we intervened when we did.
I feel the same way about Kosovo. The argument that I tried to make for our putting troops there, if we could reach a peace agreement, was that we were moving in the right direction, the Europeans had been willing to shoulder a much bigger share of the responsibility, we were only going to be asked to put up about, oh, 15 percent of the troops.
But I don't want to get in the position in Kosovo that I was in in Bosnia, where the Pentagon came to me with a very honest estimate of when they thought we could finish. And we turned out to be wrong about that. We were not able to stabilize the situation as quickly as we thought we could. And this business in Kosovo is not helping any. Keep in mind, there could be some ramifications in Bosnia, as well as in Macedonia, where we have troops.
So I can just tell you that I think that we have tried to limit our involvement, we have tried to limit our mission, and we will conclude it as quickly as we can. I think that in all these cases, you have to ask yourself, what will be the cost and the duration of involvement and the consequences if we do not move. And I have asked myself that question as well.
Again, I would say to you, I would not be doing this if I did not think, number one, whenever we can stop a humanitarian disaster at an acceptable price, we ought to do it. Two, I'm convinced we'll be dragged into this thing under worse circumstances at greater cost if we don't act. And three, this is, to me, a critical part of the objective I brought to the presidency of trying to leave office with an alliance between the United States and a more unified, more prosperous, more peaceful, more stable Europe. And this is one of the big three questions still hanging out there, as I said in my opening remarks, and I'm trying to resolve this.
* * * * * * * [End of excerpts]
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