And now, you know, you have in a lot of places where, before the economy picked up, prison-building was a main source of economic activity, and prison employment was one of the big areas of job growth. Do you think people should lose access to college loans because they have been convicted of smoking pot which is now law? I think that, first of all I mean, those are people that seem to need a loan the most. First of all, I do not believe, by and large, in permanent lifetime penalties. There is a bill in Congress today that has bipartisan support that I was hoping would pass before I left office, but I feel confident it will in the next year or 2 which would restore voting rights to people after their full sentences have been discharged, and they would not have to apply for a Federal pardon to get it. I changed the law in Arkansas. When I was attorney general I changed the voting rights law in 1977, to restore voting rights to people when they had discharged their sentence. And my State is one of the relatively few States in the country where you do not have to get a pardon from the Governor to register to vote again or from the Federal Government, for that matter. But I do not believe in making people wear a chain for life. If they get a sentence from a jury, if they serve it under the law, if they discharge their sentence, the rest of us have an interest in a safe society, in a successful society, and seeing that these folks go back to productive lives. You know, keeping them with a scarlet letter on their forehead for the rest of their lives and a chain around their neck is not very productive. Just to wrap this up, do you think that we need a major rethink of what these drug sentencing laws are? I think we need to look at who is in prison, what are the facts Well, they are filled with drug prisoners, these jails. most of them are related to drug or alcohol abuse, but there are some non-violent offenders unrelated to drug or alcohol abuse, which is not to say that I do not think white-collar criminals should ever go to jail. But I think we need to examine the natural tendency of the American people, because most of us are law-abiding, is to think when somebody does something bad, we ought to put them in jail and throw the key away. And what I think is, we need a discriminating view.


There are some people who should be put in jail and throw the key away, because they cannot help hurting other people. And I believe that one of the reasons for the declining crime rate is that we have a higher percentage of the people in jail who commit a lot of the crimes; a very small percentage of the people are multiple, habitual criminals. And if you could get a significant percentage of them in jail, the crime rate goes way down. Now, on the other hand, there are a whole lot of other people in jail who will never commit another crime, particularly if they have if they get free of drugs or free of their alcohol abuse and if they get education and training and if somebody will give them a job and give them another chance. And what I think we need is a serious reexamination of what we have done, because we have done a lot of good in identifying people who are habitual criminals and keeping them in prison longer, and that is one of the reasons that the crime rate has gone down, along with community policing and improving the economy. But we also have just captured a whole lot of people who are in jail, I think, longer than they need to be in prison and then get out without adequate drug treatment, job training, or job placement. But the society is moving on this. I notice now back in Washington, there is a really good program where maybe two, that I know where they try to keep people who go to prison in touch with their children, and they use the Internet so they can E-mail back and forth. They try to, in other words, not cut people off so completely that they lose all hope and all incentive of returning to normal life, and they try not to damage these kids so badly, to reduce the chances that the kids will follow in their parents' footsteps. Let me change the subject. I think we need a whole new look at that. The sentencing guidelines, the disparities, are only a part of it. We have to look at how long should certain people go to prison from the point of view of what is good for society. We need to completely rethink it, because criminal laws and sentencing tend to be passed sort of seriatim in response to social problems at the moment. You, in general, restored judicial discretion and replace the kind of panic legislation that was passed about crack or The reasons for the sentencing guidelines in the first place was to try to reduce the arbitrary harshness.

Interview With Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine


It was not because they wanted to make sure everybody went to jail for a while; it was because the citizen guidelines tended to be abusive on the other end of the spectrum. I think we may need some sentencing guidelines, but I think the impact, the practical impact of the ones we have has led to some people going to prison for longer than they should and longer than they would have under the old system. I am going to change the subject. What was it like to run a war night after night? I mean, was it your mentality in feeling that as all of that was going on as you go to sleep every night? You were literally praying? You know, it is easy for people to talk about war when it is appropriate to use military force, but you have to know that once human beings start using big, powerful weapons, there will be unintended consequences. We wound up bombing the Chinese Embassy. We hit a schoolbus. And we have the most skilled Air Force and the most sophisticated weapons in all human history. In the Gulf war, which is normally thought of as a 100-hour war and a model of sort of technical proficiency, we had 4 1/2 months to settle in and prepare there, and still a lot of the American casualties were from friendly fire. The same thing happened even in the small engagement in Grenada and President Reagan. There are once you start killing people, there will be unintended consequences. How do you get yourself personally comfortable I mean, how do you get yourself, as a person and as a politician, ready to make that decision with a level of comfort you are now going to go ahead and do this? You have to be convinced that the consequences of inaction would be more damaging to more people and to your country. And in the case of Kosovo, I did not think it was a close case. They had already killed several thousand Kosovars, and they were running a million of them out of their homes, 800,000. It was a clean case of ethnic cleansing. And I thought the United States and our European Allies had to stand up against it. We could not let it happen in the heart of Europe. If we did that, we would lose the ability to stop it anywhere else. And would not it be on your conscience in some way, for having failed to stop it?


Look, it took us one of the things that just tore at me and in the end it did not require much military engagement, although it required some was how long it took me to build a consensus. It took me 2 years to build a consensus among our Allies for military action in Bosnia. And you know, what happened there was, after the slaughter at Srebrenica we finally got you know, everybody said, Okay, let us go we did a few air strikes, and all of a sudden we were at Dayton and the peace talks. And for all the raggedness of it, the Bosnian peace has held, and it is better now because we turned back the tide of ethnic cleansing. And I just knew, you know, there is no point in letting it happen again in Kosovo. How do you feel, then, about Rwanda? You did not have the allies; you did not have intelligence, all kinds of things. Is there anything that we could have done to prevent it? Do you feel any responsibility in that, personally? I feel terrible about it. One of the reasons that I went to Tanzania to be with Mandela and try to talk to the Burundians into the peace agreement because before my time, over 200,000 people were killed in Burundi. Same deal the Hutus and the Tutsis, same tribes, fighting the same battles. In Rwanda the thing that was shocking about Rwanda was that it happened so fast, and it happened with almost no guns. The idea that 700,000 people could be killed in 100 days, mostly with machetes, is hard to believe. After that, we began working very earnestly in Africa to train troops to be able to go in and prevent such things. We worked very hard with something called the Africa Crisis Response Initiative. And when I was in Senegal, I actually went out of Dakar to another city to watch a training exercise at least a parade exercise and talk to the troops from Senegal that our American soldiers were working with. We are now working with the Ghanaian forces and Nigerian forces to give them the training and the capacity to prevent the resumption of the slaughter of Sierra Leone. So I think that I hope the United States will be much, much more involved in Africa from now on, and everywhere.


In economic development, we passed the Africa trade bill this year; in fighting ENTITY, TB, malaria in Africa; in debt relief, we passed a big debt relief legislation this year; and in helping them to develop the mechanisms to do this. The African countries have leaders who are willing to go in and take their responsibility in these areas if we will give them the logistical and other support necessary to do it, if they are trained to do it. That is what happened in East Timor, where we did not have to put troops on the ground, but we sent 500 people over there and provided vital airlift and logistical and other support, so that the Australians and New Zealanders and the other troops that came in could bring an end to the slaughter there. In Europe it had to be done by NATO, and the scale of it and the power of the Serbian Government was such that if we had not been directly involved with our NATO Allies, we never could have turned it back and Milosevic never would have fallen. If we had not stopped him in Bosnia and Kosovo and kept the sanctions on, the people would never have had the chance to vote him out. So I feel good about that. I wish we had been Rwanda, if we had done all the things we have done since Rwanda and Africa training the troops, supporting them, working with them what I think would have happened is, the African troops would have moved in; they would have stopped it; and we could have given them the logistical support they needed to stop it. Another reason to vote for Gore. Another huge reason to vote for Gore, because, you know, Governor Bush has said that he does not think that is the business of the American military. We are only supposed to fight and win wars and let everybody else do this. He kept talking about Kosovo, I noticed, in a way as if we were the only forces in Kosovo. We were only 15 percent of the soldiers in Kosovo. Let me change the subject, back to Washington. Why do you think you were such a lightning rod for partisanship and bitterness and so much hatred during your term now? I think there were a lot of reasons. The Republicans really did not they believe the only reason they lost in '76 to Jimmy Carter was because of Watergate. They believe that, from the time Mr. Nixon won in '68, they had found a fool-proof formula to hold the White House forever, until some third party came on. That is what they believe.


Did you ever hear anybody articulate that, the Republicans I had a very candid relationship with a lot of those guys. They would tell me what was going on. I think they really believed that America saw Republicans as the guarantor of the country's security and values and prudence in financial matters, and that they could always turn Democrats into cardboard cutouts of what they really were; they could sort of caricature them as almost un-American; and that basically the Congress might be Democratic most of the time because the Congress would give things to the American people. But the Republicans embodied the values, the strength, the heritage of the country, and they could always sort of do, as I said about Dukakis, reverse-plastic-surgery any Democrat. So I came along, and I had ideas on crime and welfare and economic management and foreign policy that were difficult for them to characterize in that way. I think I was the first President in a long time that never got a day's honeymoon. I mean, they started on me the next day. I think, secondly, I was the first baby boomer President, not a perfect person, never planned to be I mean, never claimed to be and had opposed the Vietnam war. So I think that made them doubly angry because they thought I was a cultural alien, and I made it anyway. Southern Baptist, because the dominant culture of the Republican Party President Reagan put a nicer image on it. But the dominant culture were basically white southern Protestant men who led the surge of the new Republican Party, first under President Nixon and the silent majority and, you know, blue-collar people, and then it came to an apotheosis under President Reagan. So I think that, you know, they did not like losing the White House, and they did not like me, and they did not like what they thought I represented. And that all happened at the time you had this huge growth in conservative talk shows and these you know, sort of associated think tanks and groups and networks that grew up in Washington from the time of Nixon through the time of Bush. And I think they had sort of a permanent alternative Government set up by that time. And they went to war the first day of my Presidency.


Because you were the most threatening politically, and they despised what you represented culturally, age-wise and think they honestly disagreed with me on a lot of the issues as well, but a lot of it was, they were mad they were not in, which is one of the reasons they are working so hard now. And one of the big challenges that we face in the closing days of this election is to motivate the people that agree with us to the level that they are motivated. Were you surprised about the difficulties you had in your own party with Sam Nunn on the gays thing and Moynihan on health care and Kerrey on the economic plan? Not particularly, because I will come back to the gays in the military. Do not , because we have run through that. And the answer to that is, no, because a lot of the Democrats who were culturally conservative and pro-military thought that gays in the military coming up so early was inconsistent with the whole New Democratic approach we were taking. But as I explained to you, I think when we talked last, I did not bring it up first. Now, on the other issues, the fundamental problems there was that there were no easy answers. I mean, Bob Kerrey comes from Nebraska. He and Jim Exon were Democrats, but Nebraska is one of the most Republican States in the country, and I think, you know, he thought we should have maybe cut spending a little more or raised taxes a little less, or cut taxes a little less on lower income working people so we would not have to raise it as much, you know. And I think and we'd been through that tough Presidential campaign. But I did not take offense to that. Moynihan believed, first of all, with some justification, that he knew more about most areas of social policy than anybody else did. I think he thought we were making a political mistake not to do welfare reform first, which turned out to be right. We did make a political mistake not to do welfare reform first. And secondly, I think he felt that the system in Washington could not absorb in a 2-year period the economic plan which he strongly supported. The NAFTA trade agreement, which he strongly supported, which was controversial within our party, and then this major health care thing. He really did not believe and he is told me that, you know, he said, you know, We just do not have time to do these.


He said, The system cannot absorb this much change in this short a time. Hillary gets a bum rap for that. That was basically my fault, because I knew that basically there is only two ways to get to universal coverage. You either have to have a taxpayer subsidy, which is what we have done now with the Children's Health Insurance Program, because now we have got the number of uninsured people going down in America for the first time in a dozen years, primarily because in the Balanced Budget Act, we insisted the Democrats did on getting the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is the biggest expansion of Government-financed health care since Medicaid. You either have to do it that way or you have to have an employer mandate where the employers have to provide the health insurance, and then you exempt smaller businesses and subsidize that somewhat. I did not take offense at it. You know, they thought I was being bullheaded, and I think, in retrospect, they were probably right. What was your relationship with Newt like? I had an unusual relationship with him. Was it   It depended on which Newt showed up. But I thought the good Newt, I found engaging, intelligent, and that we were surprisingly in agreement in the way we viewed the world. But you know, Newt supported me in virtually all of my foreign policy initiatives. And after he got his Congress, he realized that a hundred of them had never had a passport. I remember him calling me once, wanting me to get them to go on foreign missions. He said, If you ask them, then they cannot be attacked back home for boondoggle trips. So we actually had a very cordial relationship. He was also very candid with me about his political objectives. And he, in turn, from time to time, would get in trouble with the rightwing of his own caucus because they said I could talk him into too much. We had a pretty good relationship. You know, on the other hand, as I told you, when he did things like blaming every bad thing that happened in America on Democrats in the 1960's and all that, I thought it was highly destructive. At some point, probably around 1996, I got to the point where I no longer had personal feelings about those things. But you know, things like the Whitewater investigation and the Travel Office investigation he was smart. He knew there was nothing in that stuff. It was all politics to him. It was about power.


But he really did believe that the object of politics was to destroy your opponent. And you know, he ran Jim Wright out of the Congress on account of that. That is what he thought he was doing. And he had an enormous amount of success in the beginning, and he won the Congress basically by having that take-no-prisoners, be-against-everything approach. Did not he tell you once on the phone that he was planning to lead a revolution against you? Well, he thought he was leading a revolution, and I was in the way. And I think he really believed, after '94 What did you think when he says this to you? I am out there to destroy I am going to take you on. I thought he was a worthy adversary, and I thought I would defeat him, because I thought the American people would stick with me. I think he thought that he could create, for the rest of my Presidency, a sort of an almost a parliamentary system where he would be the prime minister and make the policy, and I'd be in charge of foreign policy, and he'd help me. I mean, historically, the Newt versus Bill, I was just trying to think back, there has not been as powerful I mean, powerful and as antagonistic a Speaker to the President, not in modern times. You had an actual enemy. You had somebody actually out there daily fighting you, not a not a Lyndon, not a McCormack. Everybody went with Reagan and gave him what he wanted. That is what they decided to do. And you know, now I have a Speaker in Hastert I can really work with. But he still has the dominant power in the caucus is Tom DeLay and Dick Armey. And if they had their druthers, you know, they'd still follow that approach. But the balance of authority is so power is so close in the House that more often than not, we work things out. But in the Senate, you have got the same thing with Lott. You know, Lott I have a very cordial personal relationship with. I have a lot in common with Lott in terms of our background and childhood and, you know, that whole thing. How did you develop your strategy in sort of dealing with Newt and outflanking him? Well, that is part of it.


You know, I felt after they won that when the people actually saw the fine print on their contract, they would think that there was a contract on America instead of a contract with America. And then I felt that I had to oppose them when I thought they were wrong. But I could not let them push me back into the old confrontation where they could say, Clinton's an old Democrat. He is defending everything, even the indefensible, so you may think we are going too far, but America has to change, because this is a country in constant change. So that was for example, instead of just fighting them on the budget, I offered my own balanced budget.  That is because I felt they had to have a chance to run their and then when we got to the Government shutdown, I was not just against what they were doing; I had an alternative. See, I believe and I think it is more important, I think it is easier for Republicans to be against everything than Democrats because people view us as the party of affirmative Government. And since I believed in balancing the budget, I just did not want to do it the way they wanted to. What is your bottom line on Newt, historically? I mean, what is your if you were an historian, what would you say about Gingrich? That he was immensely successful in, first of all, consolidating the power of the Republican Party and its rightwing and then in winning the Congress, winning the historic struggle for Congress in '94 by opposing me right down the line. And in '94, the people the economy was getting better, but people did not feel it yet. The budget we passed did not impose great tax burdens on ordinary Americans, but they did not know it yet. And the crime bill we passed was going to help bring the crime rate down without interfering with people's gun rights, but they did not know it yet. So you had the best of all times to run through a gaping hole. And then I had made the mistake of trying to do both, trying to do the economic plan and NAFTA, which dispirited some of our base supporters. And then I tried to do health care under circumstances that were literally impossible. You could not get a universal coverage plan passed through Congress. So I made a lot of errors, and he ran through them, and he therefore changed the Congress.


Then I think people will say that we had one of these historic battles that periodically happens in America about the role of the National Government and, indeed, what the meaning of the Nation is. And I think he thought he could actually carry out the revolution that President Reagan talked about, you know, drastically shrinking the Federal Government, drastically limiting its ability to act in the social sphere and moving it to the right. And to me, we had a series of battles that were really the latest incarnation of this ageold battle of what does it mean to be an American, what is the idea of America, what is the purpose of a nation? There was my veto of the Newt tax bill after Newt was gone. The battle over the same thing is now happening, shaping up over the courts. The most important issue in this election may well be what happens to the courts. Because there is now already we are one vote away from having enough votes that would repeal Roe v.Wade. But there is this other issue in the courts which I think is quite profound, which is, there are five votes right now to restrict the ability of Congress to require the States to participate in protecting the American people in a lot of fundamental ways. But it is the same battle that we had between George Washington and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall on the one side and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne, and a lot of other people on the other in the beginning; the same battle Abraham Lincoln had around the time of the Civil War. Did the Federal Government have the power to enslave them? The same battle we had at the dawn of the industrial revolution when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson asserted the authority of the Nation to proscribe basic conditions in the workplace and protection. And it was the same battle that Franklin Roosevelt fought. Now we are in the fifth battle over how to define America. And in the first three skirmishes, we won. But I see that as a big issue in this election, a huge issue. Let us talk about impeachment a little. You are going to in the history books, it is going to say, of course, that you were the second President ever to be impeached. Do you feel that that will cloud your real accomplishments? And I am just grateful that, unlike Andrew Johnson, I was less embittered by it and I had more support from the public and in the Congress, so I was able to resume my duties and actually get a lot done for the American people in the aftermath.


Did you ever get so angry during it that you think it clouded your judgment? I got angry, but I always was alone or with friends who would deflate me, so I do not think it ever clouded my judgment on any official thing I took. You know, I realized that when it was all over, I would have the responsibility to work with the Republicans, as well as the Democrats. One of the things I had to learn as I said, it took me almost my whole first term to learn it is that at some point Presidents are not permitted to have personal feelings. When you manifest your anger in public, it should be on behalf of the American people and the values that they believe and the things they do. You just cannot a lot of this stuff you cannot take personally and especially when I realized that for the people that were directing it, it was just politics. You know, it was about power and politics. So I was largely able to purge myself of it. And I had very strong personal feelings about it, but I tried never to talk about it. in private? Yes, because Presidents will always be under siege in some way or another. And if you do not want the job and the attendant heat, you should not ask for it. Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about this episode now? I just think the less I say about it right now, the better. What do you think of Ken Starr now? I think he did what he was hired to do. You told me you never really met him and had no ill feelings. I met him. You know, I met him once when he interviewed me. He was hired to keep the impeachment thing I mean, to keep the inquiry going past the '96 election and to do whatever damage he could. That is why he was put in, and he did what they asked him to do. What is your take on Henry Hyde, who was supposedly Mr. Reasonable, and then he seemed to defy the will of the people after the '98 elections, where he kind of got repudiated? Well, he did what he was hired to do, too. I mean, the rightwing was in control of the Congress, and they thought they had paid in '98, and they thought they would never have to pay again. They thought it was a free shot to put a hit on me, and so they did.


Once the elections were done, I remember seeing you a week before, and clearly Democrats were going to take the House in a way they had never taken it before in an off election. And it was a referendum on this issue, and then they went ahead him and the Republican leadership went ahead despite that. What does that tell you about them? That they wanted to they stayed with their rightwing, and they thought they would pay no price in 2000, because they thought, whatever happened, it would all be over by now. And they thought they could put a black mark on me in history, and that was really important to them. They were just angry, and they thought they had paid once, and they would not have to pay this time, because the American people would move on to other things as they always do. And so they did it. It is not an issue now in this election, really. It is in three or four House seats, but not many. It is an issue to me. I have tried the only way it should be an issue in the election is that it indicates how important it is, if they should maintain their majority, they have somebody in the White House that can restrain them. Because it is just an example of other things they were doing to the environmental laws of the country, to the education laws, to the health care system. The American people should not be expected to dwell on it. They should not have to deal with it. Who do you think really came through for you and got up and defended you? There were 800 people, including a lot of Republicans who did not even like me, who filed testimony talking about how inappropriate it was. Then there was that bipartisan panel of career prosecutors who said that no one would bring any criminal charges on this. So a lot of people who came forward who had no particular reason to do it but who cared about their country and were offended by what was going on. Do you think in some way this is sort of a referendum on sort of the nature of morality or the character of America in some way? No, I think people strongly disagree with what I did. I think that they just were able to discriminate between a bad personal mistake and the justification for a Constitutional crisis. I think it said more about their ability to discriminate between two different kinds of problems than any changed moral standards. In the sixties we always talked still they talk about karma, you know, your karma?


Did you ever look at it in terms of what is in my karma that I got this shit-hammer dropped on me? If I had not made a personal mistake, they would not have the pretext to do what they did, even though what they did was wrong. Do you think it benefited us, that process, that we learned from all that, from the impeachment process? Well, the one thing it did was it pointed out all the other excesses. What was that? That civil lawsuit against me was bogus. Even the judge, who was famous for disliking me personally, threw it out as having no merit. So I think that what it did was, at least for the time being, it took a lot of the venom out of our public life. You know, even as hard as George Bush and Al Gore are hitting each other now in this election, they are by and large hitting at each other over the issues. I mean, Bush has got some ad up now questioning Gore's integrity, which is amazing that Bush would question Gore's integrity, but anyway. But he knows that there is a certain number of voters who vote for Republicans because they are convinced that they are morally superior to Democrats, not withstanding the fact that we are awash in evidence now that they are not. And so he is doing that, but there has been very little of that, even from him. They are basically the level of venom is lower than it was. And maybe I absorbed enough for several years. Because I think it is just crazy for America with all these fabulous opportunities and some pretty stiff challenges out there to waste our elections and our public officials' time with things that we know are bogus or trivial and cost the taxpayers a fortune, for no other purpose than for one side to pursue political advantage over another. There will always be some of that, but my instinct is that in the next 4 years, we will have a lot less of it. The press as President, you have a relationship with the press that is unique to anybody in the world. What is your take on the press in America? Well, I think that, first of all, it is very difficult to generalize. I think that on the balance, it is a great advantage for the President to have a bully pulpit that can reach everyone in America and everyone in the world instantaneously.


And any criticisms that a President has about negative press or incessant carping or whatever you have got to temper that with the fact that they make it possible for you to do your job in a communications age. And they work especially the working press, I have an enormous amount of respect for them. I mean these people that are on this airplane, because I have worked hard and I keep long hours, it is a hard job for them, because they have to they go around in the vans, not in Air Force One or the helicopters. They have a lot of hard work to do, and I think by and large, most of them do it as well as they can and as honestly as they can. I have an enormous amount of respect for them. Now, there is another part of the press that are kind of part of almost a celebrity political press that are that go all the way from the columnists to the people that are on all these talk shows all the time. And they have in order for them to be successful, their comments have to have edge. They tend to be more negative and more dogmatic in their attempts to be and sometimes there is more heat than light in a lot of what is said in a lot of those forums formats. But that is part of the new age we are living in. And also they are sort of on the cutting edge between the serious press, the tabloid press, and pure political advocacy and entertainment. You have got all these segments now that are kind of blurred together, compounded by a 24-hour news cycle, and the fact that there are umptydump channels people can watch, some of which are news channels that know they have to go after narrowly segmented markets, and they are targeting certain audiences. So it is a very different press environment, and if you took it all seriously, it would run you nuts. But you cannot once you realize kind of what the environment is, you just learn to deal with it. I think the important thing is to for Presidents, especially to try to hear the criticism, because it is not always wrong. I find it easier, really, when it comes from thoughtful columnists who are really trying to make a serious contribution to the national debate. Even in some other forums it is important. Which columnists or reporters do you think have been particularly good or particularly smart in their coverage of you in the last 8 years?


Well, I think just in terms of columnists, I think Tom Friedman is the best foreign policy writer we have today, by a long stretch. I think he understands the world we are living in and the one toward which we are moving. Therefore, whether he is criticizing me or analyzing an issue or whatever he is doing, he is trying to do it from a completely honest point of view of trying to say, here is where the world is; here is where we are going. I think Ron Brownstein is one of the best political columnists in America today, one of the two or three best. And you know, he understands this whole New Democrat movement that I have been a part of. He understood the ideas that underlay the '92 campaign and the whole Democratic Leadership Council effort, everything we are trying to do. And he made it his business to study that. I regret that his other responsibilities at the Post do not give him time to write more columns, because I think he is very good. No, I think that it was sort of like this Wen Ho Lee deal in a way. I mean, the same guy got a story, and it was kind of overwritten, and dire things were predicted. But I think whatever I feel about that, it has to be tempered by the fact that the Times has a serious conscience when it comes to the national issues. I think they really have tried consistently to think on the public issues, I think they really have done an excellent job of analysis and are trying to come out in the right place in the right way. So whatever I feel about that is tempered by that. Do you think institutionally it is working right, the press as a whole, the major newspapers, the networks, and so forth? I think they are doing the best they can in a very new and different environment. I have a lot of sympathy with them. So you do not have resentment towards them? Like, a lot of Presidents just hated once done, they just hated them. You know, how can Presidents hate the press? I mean, they can gripe all you want about all the negative coverage you get on the evening news or on these talk shows or being blasted in the newspaper or having to get on something where they are dead wrong like on Whitewater, whatever it is dead wrong, but still, every day they are right in all kinds of other things about all the things that affect the American people and their lives.


And anytime you want a microphone to have your say, you have got it. What creature comforts are you going to miss the most about leaving the White House, not living there? Everybody says I will miss Air Force One the most once I have to return to commercial travel. But what I will miss the most is not the creature comforts; it is the honor of living in the White House, which I have loved. I have loved living there, because I love my country; I love the history of my country. I know I was a pretty good American historian before I got there, and I know a lot more than I did then, and I have read a lot about Presidents that most people do not know much about, including me before I got there. And even more than that, I will miss the work. I love the work. I actually have loved doing this job. Even in the worst times the whole impeachment thing I just thank God every day I can go to work. I love the job. I have always loved it. Looking at the other side of the coin, what is there anything that seems attractive to you about not living there anymore? It will be the first time in 20 years you know, I have been I was Governor for 12 years, and 10 years, the last 10 years in a row so it will be the first time in 18 years that I have really had a private home that was my primary residence, and where I will get up every day, feeling a responsibility to be of public service, but knowing that I am basically in control of my life again. And it will be an interesting challenge for me. Eighteen years is a long time to be a chief executive, living in public housing, with every day scripted out you know, hours and hours a day, particularly if you work like I do. It is a challenge, and I am going to be interested to see whether I can meet it and what it means, you know, to go into this next chapter of my life. I am actually excited about it. What is the one thing about being what is the one thing that would surprise either Bush or Gore about being President that they just cannot know now? What advice would you give the next President? Now, Al will not be as surprised by that, because he is been there 8 years. It is another good argument for voting for him, because he is experienced and he makes good decisions. He makes good decisions, and he is had experience.


And the environment, I think, will be less hostile for either one of them than it was for me, and they will have more of an opportunity to craft cooperative solutions, because almost under any conceivable scenario, the Congress will be even more closely divided than it is now. You know, the Democrats are going to pick up some seats in the Senate. They might even be in control. But if they are, they will just have a one-seat majority here, too, and I think the Democrats will win the House. But if they do, they will not have any bigger majority than the Republicans do now, maybe a little more, but not much. So you will have a very closely divided Government which will require them to all work together. So I think they may have a less hostile environment than I did, and I hope they do, but I think they will still be surprised at how many different things they will have crash in on them at once. What would you tell them to do? You say, look, here is what you have got to do as the next President. Here is what I would like you to do. Well, first of all, I think after the election, they ought to get more rest than I did. You know, I did not really take a vacation. I think they ought to clear their heads. I would advise them to work as hard as they can to get a good Cabinet and a good staff, and then really emphasize teamwork, and when you come to the tough decisions, do what you think is right. A lot of these decisions, you know, that were unpopular that I made Bosnia, Haiti, debt relief in Mexico, taking on the NRA, doing the debt thing reducing the deficit, I mean, right now, it is like smooth sailing. But it is just not in the nature of human existence to be free of difficulty. And I think when you come down to those tough decisions, you just have to do what you think is right, tell the American people why you did it, and hope they will go along with you. So this comes out after the election. So do you want to give me a prediction. And I think if he does not , the only reason that I think that he might not win is if they vote a higher percentage of the people that want Bush to be President vote than the percentage of people that want Gore to be President.


Could I begin, ENTITY, with a twopart question? What is the significance of the South African election to you and the American people? And do you have any particular message for the people of South Africa that we could take back to them? First of all, I think it would be difficult to overstate the significance of this election to the American people for many reasons, first of all, our own history of racial division. We, after all, fought a great Civil War over slavery, and we continue to deal with our own racial challenges today. So all Americans, I think, have always been more drawn to the problems and the promise of South Africa than perhaps other nations have been. Secondly, our own civil rights movement has, for decades, had a relationship with the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. So this will be a great sense of personal joy to many, many Americans who have been involved in this whole issue personally. And finally, it is important to the United States because of the promise of harmony and prosperity in South Africa and what that might mean, not only to South Africa but to many other nations in the region and to the prospect of a revitalization, a new energy, a new peace, a new sense of possibility throughout at least the southern part of Africa. The United States is elated at the prospect of these elections. We have contributed to the effort to fight apartheid. We have tried to support the effort to have good elections and to make them meaningful, and we want to celebrate with and support South Africa. But we realize that the real work will begin after the election, of continuing to live in harmony, of fighting the new problems every day, of making democracy work, of dealing with the social problems and the very severe economic problems. And we intend to be a partner from the beginning. Shortly after the election I will announce a substantial increase in United States assistance and support for building South Africa economically, dealing with the social problems, helping the political system to work. And then in June, we will have here a very large conference sponsored by the Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown, in Atlanta, bringing together large numbers of American business people to give us the opportunity to urge them to be involved with South Africa in the rebuilding. Well, I do believe that we ought to dramatically increase our assistance, which we will do. I think we ought to dramatically increase our private investment in South Africa, which I intend to work on.

William J. Clinton Interview With Journalists on South Africa


I think we ought to do what we can to mobilize the resources of other nations to also contribute. And I intend to spend a lot of time and effort on that. I do not know that I would say it is exactly like the Marshall plan or that that is exactly what is needed, but it is obvious that a lot of money, a lot of investment, and a lot of opportunity is going to be needed to sort of jumpstart South Africa. And I think that the promise of this new democracy is that people will be able to live up to their potential. And I intend to do what I can to be a strong partner in that. This is the last one to would you you would probably be going to Africa soon, and is there any intention of paying a visit to our country? I assure you I am going to send a very high-level delegation to the inauguration to celebrate the elections. And I have been talking with my staff about when I can go to Africa. This year, because of the 50th anniversary of the ending of World War II, I will wind up making three trips to Europe, and I will go to Asia in the fall. But in 1995, 1996, my travel schedule is more open. I think that the United States, frankly, has not with the exception of South Africa has not paid as much attention to Africa as it should have and to its long-term potential and particularly to those countries that are trying to resolve their political problems and do things to help their people. Well, I do have some thoughts, actually. I think it has worked in South Africa partly because people with enormous influence decided to be statesmen instead of wreckers. After a certain amount of time, you had the leaders of the various groups deciding that there was no longer a future in fighting and killing and dying, that splitting the country up was not an option, and that somehow they were going up or down together. And then they translated those understandings into concrete commitments, not just an election. An election is only part of it, although a big part. I think the decision to go for a government of national unity for 5 years is absolutely critical to this and making the decision before you know the outcome of the election. The decision to have a bill of rights, the decision to have a constitutional court, I think all these things have made a huge difference.


And I think what you have got in other places, these sort of ancient divisions racial, ethnic, and religious divisions where people have not come to that wisdom; they do not understand yet, for whatever reason, that in the end they will be better off if they work together and that controlling territory is of nowhere near the significance in terms of quality of life and meaning of life that it was 100 years ago. It is almost as if, in some of the places that you have mentioned and you have written so powerfully about Bosnia, and I know you care a lot about Azerbaijan; you have the Abkhaz problem, you have all these things it is almost as if the cold war sort of imposed a freeze-frame on the history of a lot of these places. And then when it went away, people woke up and resumed the attitudes that they had held in the early part of the 20th century, which they carried over from the 19th century, as if there had been no communications revolution, as if there had been no changes in the global economy, as if all these things had happened. Here in this country, too, the ethnic diversity of the United States ought to be our greatest asset as we move into the next century. It used to be in America that the burden we carried was the burden of the fight between blacks and whites going back to slavery and the Civil War and the aftermath. And there was a study released in our press last week that said sometimes these groups resented each other as much as they resented the white majority, depending on what the facts were. So we are still dealing with this. I have to tell you, I believe that if the elections come off well, and especially in the aftermath of the agreement yesterday where Chief Buthelezi agreed with Mr. Mandela and Mr. de Klerk to participate in the elections and they worked out the constitutional role for the King of the Zulus I think when that was done I think if this election comes off, it will send a message around the world that there is another way to deal with these problems and that if it can be done in South Africa, how can you justify the old-fashioned killing and fighting and dying over a piece of land, over divisions which are not as important as what unites people in other places. I mean, it is amazing; you think of it contrast what we see in Gorazde with what we see about to happen in South Africa. It is a matter of enormous historical impact.


And I think that when it is shown around the world it has to reverberate in ways that we cannot fully assess but that have to be positive. Well, first of all, we have not finalized the amount of the aid package. We are working on it now, and we are going to get as much money as we can during this fiscal year from funds that are idle in the appropriate accounts. That is, there are some we are looking, we are scouring the Government accounts for things, money that will not be spent that we can put into this. And we will do as much as we possibly can. South Africa is a country of 40 million people where 7 million are homeless, for all practical purposes. If you look at it in the larger sense, if you look at the amount of investment we have, we have only a billion dollars invested now in South Africa since the advent of the sanctions and I am glad that I could lift the sanctions but a billion dollars. In the early eighties we had $3 billion. And one of the things that I intend to do in June with this conference that Secretary Brown is having is to do everything I can to accelerate return of American investment to the levels of the early eighties, and then to exceed that, because we know, as a practical matter, if you look at the incredible human and natural resources of South Africa, that there would be more American money, private sector American money than Government money. Now, next year and the year after we are going to stay after this thing on a multiyear basis we may be able to do better. But I think, given the condition of our budget laws and where the money is right now and the fact that we are in the middle of a fiscal year, we are going to do quite well. What are you trying to do with this money? Well, first of all, I want to encourage the South African leadership, once it is elected, to tell us what they think should be done with it. I do not want to be we are in no position to be dictating that; we should be asking them. But I can tell you, I know we can make it available for economic development projects, for human resource projects like housing and health and education, and for democracy and institution building how do you set up a system which will deliver these services and function properly.


It occurs to me, for example, the interconnection in South Africa and southern Africa generally, the transportation and waterways and the potential for telecommunications interconnection to leverage economic growth explosively throughout the region, is very great. It might be that your leaders would say, Well, if you have this amount of dollars, put it into these investments because they will generate more opportunities. It may be that your leaders will say, We cannot stand the sight of all these people living in substandard conditions; put more of it in housing. It might be that there is a public health problem that you want to deal with. I think that we should be guided in part, or in large measure, by what we are asked to do by the new leaders of the new South Africa. ENTITY, do you have any plans to invite the new South African President to Washington? Yes, I will issue the invitation promptly after the election. Well, we are certainly prepared to do that, to make that kind of investment. And we have, as you know, invested some money, as I said, since I have been ENTITY, I think somewhere in the range of $35 million, just to try to make the political process work right. If you ask me one thing I have learned in my own life growing up as a young boy in the segregated South, it is that this is something that you never solve, you just have to keep improving, you have to keep working with. My own interest in politics in America was inflamed overwhelmingly by my opposition to racial segregation in my own State, my own community, our own neighborhoods, our schools, and the terrible consequences which flowed from that. And so I thought, well, you know, when I grow up maybe there is something I can do to solve this. And when I ran for public office and when I served as a Governor of my State, and then when I became ENTITY, I think that I will always be able to say I did things to make it better. But this is not the sort of thing you solve. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, identifiable differences will always be used by narrow-minded people or frustrated people or ignorant people or sometimes bad people as a lever, a wedge, a means of acquiring power or influence or dominance or just inflicting harm.


The ultimate test of your democracy will be whether a disciplined effort can be made to take the attitudes represented, as you acknowledge, by your leaders and keep working until they become more and more and more real in the daily lives of every citizen of your country. It will get better, but you will always have to work on it. If they work at it I think it will get better. But I think you will, first of all, people will always tend to show a certain affinity to organize their living patterns around people who are more like them. But some people will seek a more integrated life. That is my experience in the South; that is my experience in America. I mean, I was amazed when I traveled around in other parts of America that a lot of people that I knew in other parts of the country lived a more segregated existence than I did, for whatever reason, maybe just the nature of the population of their communities. But I think there will always be a certain amount of cohesion of people of the same race or ethnic group or religious group, particularly if they have strong religious convictions. You see that all over the world. You see that here. To a certain extent, there is nothing wrong with that and it is not unhelpful. What is unhelpful is if that is used as a way to divide people and if it leads to some sort of legal or practical discrimination. And I think what Mr. Lewis is saying is absolutely right. We still have too much of that in America. We had a meeting here this morning, just for example, we had a meeting this morning; we had a couple of hundred people in the Rose Garden to talk about how we could better immunize all of our children in America. And it is appalling that a country as wealthy as we are only immunizes about two-thirds of our kids, about 64 percent of our children under 2 with all the recommended childhood immunizations. And it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that one of the reasons is that children under 2 are more likely to be children of color and more likely to be poor than adults over 50 who tend to make the decisions that control public policy in this country. So we had a meeting today to celebrate trying to organize ourselves with some discipline at the community level to eradicate not only a health problem but a problem of discrimination against the young, the poor, and often, children of color.


But I think you see this played out over and over and over again in every society. And what I think is going to happen in this country is that increasingly we will come to understand that the fact that we are a multiracial society is an enormous asset in a global economy, but only if we take advantage of it, only if we educate all our children, keep them healthy, and teach people to live together in ways that permit them all to succeed. South Africa has an enormous asset now. You have a biracial society; you have some other ethnic groups, too, I know, and mixed race, but you have essentially two great large ethnic groups of people, each of whom have different experiences, different backgrounds, different contacts throughout the world now. It can be a terrific asset for you that you are different, but only if you use it. You can now turn it into an asset. So I guess my answer to Tony is, some places it will be better; some places it will be worse throughout the world. highly homogeneous, coherent societies that think they can operate with great discipline by their own sets of cultural rules which are widely accepted within the society, who will then attempt to do well in the global economy by having high rates of savings, investment, and exporting to others but keeping their own life; or open, multiethnic societies which welcome the whole world and try to find a way to make strength out of diversity. And what you are going to see is each of those societies will be dealing with the conflicts that any course of action dictates. You have got a great reform movement going on in Japan, fighting great opposition, because they are saying, We need to be more open; we need to appreciate diversity more. But we do not want to be so open we do not have any discipline or control or direction, or whatever. And you have America saying, This diversity is a great asset for us, but not if we have so little discipline our crime rates are too high, our education systems are too poor, or whatever. So you have these two great models, each of them trying to find the strengths of one another. You have a chance to do that in South Africa. And it is a unique opportunity, at least in that part of the African Continent. And I think the world will come beating a path to your doorstep.


It will not just be the United States; the whole world will start showing up down there when you pull this election off, because they will be so exhilarated by the moral and the practical potential of what it is you are engaged in. That is what I believe. I'd like to answer the question it is a good question and a fair one and I'd like to sort of I will give you two answers, consistent one with the other, but I think showing what I perceive to be the dimension of the problem. First of all, the leaders of the country have taken great steps to minimize the prospect of that development by agreeing to a constitution with a strong bill of rights and a constitutional court and by agreeing to a government of national unity and by also, frankly, siding with international global developments that are consistent with human rights, renouncing terrorism, renouncing the spread of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. All these things augur for a government that will be balanced and fair and will not tolerate as official policy the abuse of human rights. If that should occur, I would think the United States should have the same obligation to speak against it there as we did before in South Africa and as we do now elsewhere in the world. I think the far greater danger for the man who wrote the piece and it was a very moving piece, I thought the far greater danger is what is in the heart of millions of people who to go back to your question who have not yet bought into the whole process that is unfolding. And who knows how many people there are carrying what wounds inside who may think they have some opportunity and some position to which they might be elected or just some opportunity because of their newfound freedom for payback time? I mean, that is something that no one can calculate. In other words, democracy requires every day millions and millions and millions of decisions in a country as large as 40 million, by people they just make decisions sometimes you will begin to make them almost subconsciously to support the democratic process, to show personal restraint, to respect the rights of other people, to deal with all these things.


I think that is going to be the far bigger challenge, is when you get the government in place and you have got the laws, you have got the bill of rights, you have got all this stuff, the government's going to try to do the right thing, I think the majority party will try to do the right thing what will happen is, what about all the people up and down the line? And what is in their hearts? Those are things that happen to free societies, and you will just have to work at stamping them out and minimizing them. I think the United States should focus more on Africa as a whole, as a continent. Do you intend to do that? And I intend to do that. Now, you know today, of course, we are profoundly I know that I will not use your term, but you know what occupies our headlines, of course, are in the north, Somalia and Sudan and the problems there and then moving down the continent to Rwanda and Burundi and then moving down to Angola where more children have been injured by land mines than in any war in human history. It is not on CNN at night, so people do not talk about it. And we are terribly troubled by Rwanda now, but it was not so many months ago that in a period of months it is estimated that as many as a quarter of a million or more people died in Burundi. There are other countries where progress is being made, where democracy is beginning to work, where people are beginning to try to put together these things that will make a successful country. And it seems to me that the United States ought to be working with countries that are trying to make good things happen, as well as doing what we can to alleviate human suffering where there is a tragedy. And I think we need a more balanced and more aggressive policy in Africa, and I am hopeful that we will be able to provide one. We have been so caught up with our own financial problems and cutting back on everything. And in our country, foreign aid of all kinds has a history of being unpopular among the people and, therefore, among the Congress. But I think that if there is a success in South Africa, which I expect there to be, I believe America will try to come to you; I believe the world will try to come to you; I think there will be a fascination about it.


The first thing I want to ask you is, how can you feel so secure about your security right now? In fact, when the incident occurred, within a matter of seconds a Secret Service agent was upstairs at the White House there with me. They have worked very hard to increase their ability to protect the President every year. And they get better at it every year. I have a high level of confidence in them. This incident could have happened at any time, I suppose. I regret it, but I do not think the American people should worry about it. We live in a democracy. The one thing I do hope people will draw from this incident is that the congressional Members who were brave enough to vote for the crime bill, to stand up to the brutal pressure the NRA put on them and the threats they leveled against them, to try to get these assault weapons off the street were right. That man had a modified assault weapon with a magazine with at least 20 bullets. And I think it is a good thing that we are trying to move against that. But in a free society where people have free movement and where there are lots of guns, this kind of thing can occur. We have to get out here and be with one another and talk to one another. So I am just going about my job and doing it with a very high level of confidence in the people whose job it is to protect the President. ENTITY, hearing that from you makes us feel a lot better. We asked our viewers to call into us, to write into us, to E-mail us with their questions for you tonight, so I'd like to take some time and talk about some of their questions. Linda Parker from Hartford wants to know how you feel about colleagues who have distanced themselves from you lately. Congressman Sam Gejdenson and Jim Maloney, who is running for Gary Franks' seat, did not show up when you appeared here a couple of weeks ago. How do you feel when your colleagues do this? Well, first of all, I can say for Sam Gejdenson that is just not an accurate characterization. I went to his district at his invitation and campaigned for him at a time when nationally I was not in nearly as good a shape in the polls as I am now, so I just think that is a bum rap. And Mr. Maloney, my wife has been to Connecticut campaigning for him. I took no offense at that. I think that it was a very successful trip to Connecticut.

Interview With Janet Peckinpaugh of WFSB Television, Hartford, Connecticut


Afterward, surveys show that the support rose for Mr. Curry, our candidate for Governor up there. And I feel very good about the State of Connecticut and the relationship I have had with the Democrats. I also think, however, that every Member of Congress and every Senator should seek to run, to some extent, a campaign that is tied not to the President but to their constituents. What I like to hear a Member say is, When I voted with the President, I did not do it for him, I did it for you. John Francis from Stratford wants to know your thinking on that. Well, here is what happened, and I think it is very important for the voters to listen to this. The Republicans put out this contract, and they said, If you will give us control of the Congress, we will take you back to what we did in the 1980's, trickle-down Reaganomics. We will give massive tax cuts, mostly to upper income people. That must be appealing in Connecticut; you have a lot of upper income people. We will give massive tax cuts. We will increase defense; we will increase Star Wars. And we will balance the budget in 5 years. That costs a trillion dollars. The only way to do that is to cut everything, including Social Security, across the board 20 percent. You say, we do not want to do that. Then you have to cut everything else in the Government across the board 30 percent. That bankrupts Medicare. If you do not do that, you are right back to where they were before, massive deficits, shipping jobs overseas. Connecticut lost 150,000 jobs in the last 4 years because of that kind of economic policy. We need to invest and grow with discipline. We do not need a lot of easy promises. We need to embrace the challenges of the global economy, invest, and grow. If they carry through on their promises, they cannot keep their promise to cut the taxes and increase the spending and balance the budget without going after it.


You are giving a major speech in Paris in a few hours' time on what you describe as a new era of transatlantic union. And obviously, the picture in Europe is much more encouraging, it would seem, than a few years ago. What is changed, in your view, and what needs to be fixed? This is the what is changed is the we have gone beyond the Iraq period for two reasons. People are beginning to see progress. And therefore, people that at least governments that felt like they did not want to participate in the liberation of Iraq have now wanted to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq. And their people are beginning to see some success. Maliki has moved things Stockholm and comports himself like a leader would, and he speaks hopefully about the future. Secondly, that there are a lot of issues that we are focused on that kind of send a signal that cooperation is necessary to change the conditions of the world for the better cooperation on ENTITY, cooperation on malaria, cooperation on trade, hopefully, discussion about climate change, cooperation in Afghanistan. In other words, the agenda is varied, and it is profound. And my speech basically says that by focusing on these issues and by working together in a unified way, we can be trans-formative, just like we were in the past. Europe used to be inward looking right after World War II necessarily so to rebuild. Now we can be outward looking as we help others. I also have a I am a believer that liberty is transformative the power of liberty is universal, that moral relativism must be rejected, and that we have got to have confidence in liberty to help others so that we are more secure ourselves. And one of the areas of Europe where liberty has been sort of partly transformative is clearly post-Soviet Russia. And you have had very strong personal relationship with Putin. First of all, is your assessment that Putin is still basically in charge? Let me start with the second. My personal relationship is important because we had differences. And therefore, if you work hard to establish a relationship of trust, that you are then able to air out your differences in a way that is respectful of the other person, and at the same time, find common ground. One area of common ground that has really not been given much attention is Iran. I agreed that the Iranians should have they have the sovereign right to have civilian nuclear power. Putin obviously believes they should; witness the cooperation on Bushehr.

Interview With Ned Temko of the Observer in Rome, Italy


We both agree, however, that they cannot be trusted with the knowledge that comes from enrichment. And therefore, Putin suggested to the Iranians that Russia provide the enriched uranium necessary to run their fuel plant. And as I said yesterday in the press conference, that this really undermines the argument for the Iranians because if, in fact, their only focus is on civilian nuclear power, they readily accept the plant, the fuel, and the offer of Russia to pick up the spent fuel. So there are areas where we cooperate, and there are areas where we have disagreements. And yet I believe the best foreign policy for the American ENTITY is to be in a position to earn the trust of those where there is not a hundred-percent agreement. And by the way, any American ENTITY will find out there is never a hundred-percent agreement, even with your closest friends. And so the first part of the question yes, look, I think it is I went to Sochi. Putin introduced me to Medvedev. And he, in not only his body language, but in his words to me that Medvedev is going to be in charge of foreign policy. I think it is I will take him for his word, and then we will watch and see what happens. How concerned are you about issues like human rights in Russia?  I think it matters when people speak up, whether it be in Russia or China or anywhere else. In Russia's case, there was early on in my Presidency, I remember talking to Vladimir Putin on behalf of the Catholic Church, where there were concerns about the Church being able to have a robust presence. Vladimir Putin is sensitive to religious issues. He has a beautiful little Orthodox church on his own property, which he proudly showed me and Laura one time. He made sure I met some of the Jewish community when I was there in Russia. And so he is sensitive to religious liberty, more so than some other countries. And is Western leverage reduced by the fact that Russia has a good chunk of the world's natural energy resources? I think it certainly changes the equation on a lot of foreign policy. It is interesting to watch the European Union wrestle with energy independence. Early in my Presidency, nations were saying they were going to get rid of nuclear power.


And I questioned them quietly, on an individual basis, about that decision, because if you get rid of one source of power, you have to find another source of power, unless, of course, you do not care whether your economy grows. So I predicted to some of these leaders that there would be an issue in terms of having a sole source supplier, particularly of natural gas from Russia. And my only point is, is that this energy issue complicates a lot of foreign policy issues, including that between the EU and Russia, as well as that between the United States and Venezuela, or the world and Iran. And the question is, what do you do about it? What we need to do about it in the United States is to get this Democratically controlled Congress to allow us to explore for oil and gas. We did an energy study when I first became ENTITY that predicted it would be an issue if we did not explore for oil and gas. And what people do not understand is hydrocarbons are necessary as we transition to a new era, based upon new technologies. It takes time and money to develop these technologies. The world is in the process of doing that. The United States is spending a lot of money on research, both privately and publicly. And yet we forgot the notion of transitioning. And so we do not explore in ANWR, we do not explore for oil shale, we do not explore off the coast of America, and we should be. In terms of the oil price, which is obsessing most of the world now, is there anything individual governments can do, in your view? It took us a while to get to where we are; it is going to take us a while to get out of it. And the truth of the matter is that there is either got to be more supply or less demand. And demand does not decline overnight, although patterns and habits are beginning to change in the United States. You notice some of these car manufacturers are now announcing they are going to be manufacturing smaller automobiles. I think that people have got to recognize that, I mean, our policy in America has been robust on the development of new technologies and weak on finding enough hydrocarbons so that we can become less dependent on foreign sources of oil. You mean the magic wand? And in terms of these conferences, I notice there is going to be a conference in Jeddah, and your national security staff I was asked this at a press conference last night.


Of course, I am going to go home and take a look at what it all means, and I will decide who is going to attend on our behalf. But if I might repeat, the solution to the price of hydrocarbons is either more hydrocarbons or less usage of hydrocarbons. During my trips to the Middle East I have got great relations with the leaders there, and I talked to King Abdallah about increasing the supply of oil, on the theory that if you harm your consumers with high price, they will find other ways to power their economies as quickly as possible. And secondly, he should not want to see kind of a worldwide contraction as a result of consumers spending money on energy that ends up overseas, as opposed to spending money on opportunities in their respective economies. So I think people, if they take a sober look at the world's supply, there is just not a lot relative to demand. One of the things that could help is that if some countries, big consumers of hydrocarbons stop subsidizing their populations so that there is a response to price on the demand side. Iran has been very much on the agenda again, all this week Ahmadinejad has all but said no to the latest incentive package. If that stands, what is the next step in your view? And sometimes the world tends to focus on the process as opposed to the results. And I have tried during my Presidency to say, we need to focus on the results. Here is your way forward; if you choose not to, there will be a consequence. And the consequence in this case, in the diplomatic channel, is sanctions that are effective. So we will work with our partners on implementation of the sanctions thus far in place through the U.N., and work with them on additional sanctions, including through the U.N. process, as well as through the financial process. What is at stake here? On the theory that there are people inside Iran who, one, are suffering as a result of the decisions their Government made; but secondly, leaders inside of Iran who are sick and tired of the isolation brought about by this regime. In 2003, the Iranians had agreed to verifiably suspend; we had agreed to say, there is a way forward, working with our European partners. Then Ahmadi-nejad gets elected, changes the tone and changes the policy.


And so my only point there is that and this is the point I make to our partners is that the Iranians had adopted a different attitude during my Presidency in other words, in the relatively near past and that is not to say they cannot do it again. And the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon are substantial. They are substantial in the Middle East. If the people in the Middle East do not think that the United States and Europe, for example, are going to work to provide security, they will find their own ways to secure themselves. And what the Middle East does not need is a nuclear arms race. It does not need the instability that comes from an innate fear that the West is not strong enough or willing enough to take on the problem. In my judgment, it is the international issue that faces all of us. And therefore, success in Iraq is important; it has consequences for the Iranian issue. It is important for us to have security agreements with our friends. We, the United States, has security agreements with UAE, for example. When you go to the Middle East and you sit in my seat and listen, yes, there is concern about the Palestinian state. But the dialogue has shifted dramatically from solve the Palestinian state and you have solved the problems in the Middle East, to now solve the Iranian issue and you solve the problems in the Middle East. Let us assume that Ahmadinejad does not respond to this latest package, that there are additional sanctions. You clearly feel very strongly about this issue. That is why I put all options on the table. What happens if at the end of the year, you have tougher sanctions, but you still have no resolution? I do not want to speculate on that. My hope is, is that let us get the tough sanctions in place. And alternatives not just for the United States, alternatives for a lot of other countries, some of which the world needs to think about as we head into this arena. We do not want a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. But you would be willing to hand over a status quo which was slightly improved, i.e., tougher sanctions? Actually, it is not status quo because there is a multilateral forum in place that will enable ENTITYs to more likely deal with this issue. I have made it clear that it is difficult for the United States to achieve an issue in a one-on-one situation with people like Ahmadi-nejad or Kim Jong Il.


I have changed the foreign policy of the United States to make it more multilateral because I understand that diplomacy without consequences is ineffective. And the only way to achieve consequences through diplomacy is for there to be a universal application, in this case, of sanctions. You know, I tell my partners, we are asking you to sanction. I know you are sitting there saying to yourself, Well, it is easy for him to say because they have already sanctioned. And the question facing countries is, does money trump effective diplomacy for the sake of peace and security? Postsurge, are things heading in the right direction, in your view? And as a result of violence being down, the economy is growing and political reconciliation is taking place. And the lesson learned in this postconflict period in both Iraq and Afghanistan is, you got to have security. I gave a speech at the Air Force Academy that said it is a different set of issues that we face now than we faced 60 years ago in postconflict. First of all, the conflicts took longer to resolve in World War II, and yet the reconstruction was done in relative peace and security. Here it took little time to accomplish the initial military objective, and reconstruction had to be done in the face of a lot of violence. And in 2006, it became apparent that our strategy of training and encouraging the Iraqis to take the lead was not working; sectarian violence was severe. As you know, I made the decision to send 30,000 more in because we recognized that and had belief that security would yield this kind of evolution of democracy, and it is. The number of laws they passed, the Iraqi Parliament have passed, have been I would say it certainly exceeded expectations. And they passed their budgets faster than we have passed our budgets. The British Government, Gordon Brown had said yesterday, I think, that he will announce sometime in the coming weeks future plans for British deployment in Iraq. British officers have acknowledged that in the recent fighting in Basra, the American military role was crucial to making sure that there was a response. Is there not a concern that, whatever the justifications for a British withdrawal, that a British pullout of troops could have an effect either on American deployment or on the situation as a whole? Or are you relaxed about it? I am , first of all, appreciative of the fact that Gordon Brown is constantly in dialogue with us about what he and his military are thinking.


Secondly, we ourselves are bringing out troops based upon return on success. And thirdly, I am confident that he, like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward will not be unraveled by drawdowns that may not be warranted at this point in time. I am looking forward to discussing with him. We have had some discussions. He was going to be at 3,500, I think, if I am not mistaken; he is now at 5,000. I think he is at 4,200. It is greater than he thought, in other words   In other words, the Government took a look and said, Well, maybe we ought to leave more troops in. My only point is, is that timetables you say, timetable for withdrawal, and our answer is, there should be no definitive timetable; there ought to be obviously a desire to reduce our presence, but it is got to be based upon success. All I can tell you is, from my perspective, the British response has been that way. They have said, we are going to have we think we will be at 3,500, but then adjusted their plans based upon the conditions. Still looking for them. And the obvious question your critics ask, particularly in Britain, is if we'd known at the time there were not any WMD, would there have been this war? Well, you know, that is one of those great hypotheticals that we did not know. Now having said that, I still strongly defend the decision. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power. But ENTITYs do not get to do redos; they do not get to do look-backs, ifs. All I can tell you is, is that we thought for certain there was weapons of mass destruction, as did the nations that voted for 1441. See, the interesting thing about history is that short-term, kind of momentary history, is that people forget what life was like at the moment that this decision was made. One, people forget that we tried to solve this problem diplomatically. Will Bush go to the United Nations, or will they move without trying to solve this problem diplomatically? Well, we did go to the United Nations; I insisted we go to the United Nations. And we worked diligently from the summer of 2002 until March of 2003 to see if we could not have solved this. We went back to the United Nations for a resolution.


And in the meantime, we are working with our allies and friends. We did not realize, nor did anybody else, that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction. It may have been, however, that in his mind all this was just a bluff. After all, there had been 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions, the world was not serious, which leads me back to the point that when the world says something, it better have it better mean what it says, otherwise people who are destabilizing just do not take it seriously. And so I was asked in Germany one of the guys said, You making any mistakes? One of the mistakes was my language made it look like that I was anxious for war; that because of my language, I did not understand the consequences. Well, of course I understand the consequences. And I understand better than anybody that the Commander in Chief has got an obligation to comfort those who have lost a loved one because of his decision. And then the man went on and said, Well, was it a mistake to get rid of Sad-dam Hussein? You very movingly described in one interview this week that how difficult it is to put young American men and women in harm's way and how much time and energy you have tried to devote to doing what you can, obviously, to comfort the families of someone who has been killed And making sure they understand that the sacrifice will not go in vain. Nothing worse than a politician making decisions based upon the last Gallup poll when people's lives are at stake, or where they have made a sacrifice. And I tell these folks and they want to know look, there is a lot of them, and I have not visited with all the families. Many, many families look at me trying to determine whether or not, one, I believed that it was necessary; and two, whether or not I am going to let their son or daughter kind of lie in an empty grave when it comes to the sacrifice they made. They want to know whether or not the ENTITY if he believes it was necessary, whether or not he is going to see this thing through, regardless of what they are screaming on the TV sets. You are flying into Britain where your public awaits you, and you know there is a tough public there sometimes. Do I care? Only to the extent that it affects people's view of my the citizens I represent. Do I care about my personal standing?


One of the questions, of course, they ask, is, do you feel a sense of personal pain over the Iraqi civilians who have I feel a sense of pain for those who were tortured by Saddam Hussein, by the parents who watched their daughters raped by Saddam Hussein, by those innocent civilians who have been killed by inadvertent allied action, by those who have been bombed by suicide bombers. I feel a sense of pain for death. I feel a sense of pain for the families of our troops. I read about it every night, or I used to read about it every night. But I get a report every day about whether or not the U.S. has suffered casualties. And when I get those reports, I think about those mothers and fathers. And I meet with a lot of families a lot in order to be able to it is my duty to try to console and comfort. And many times, the comforter in chief ends up being comforted, by the way, by the families, the strength of the families. This is a volunteer army, and these kids are in this fight because they want to be in the fight. And they believe in it. And yet these poor parents are looking at oftentimes looking at negativity, just people quick to report the ugly and the negative. But it is hard to report on the schools that are opening or the clinics that are opening or the playgrounds that are filling up. I have great faith in the power of liberty. First of all, I was not surprised when people went to vote in defiance of the killers. I was pleased, but not surprised, because I believe in the universality of freedom. And I say to people, I am concerned about the comfortable isolating themselves and saying, who cares whether somebody over there lives in a free society? And I will say in my speech, moral relativism must be challenged, this notion that it does not matter what forms of government are I think it does matter. I think it also matters, along these lines, that when I talk about freedom, it is just not freedom from tyranny, it is freedom from ENTITY/ENTITY; it is freedom from malaria; it is freedom from hunger for two reasons. One, it is in our national interests that we defeat hopelessness. And secondly, it is in our moral interests. A nation is a better nation when it feeds the hungry and takes care of the diseased.


And therefore, when I go to the G-8, my message to the G-8 is, yes, we will talk about the environment, and that is important. But George W. Bush is going to be talking about those people who are needlessly dying because of mosquito bites. And I expect them to honor their obligations. Why do not you match what the United States of America does? We are putting up $30 billion for ENTITY/ENTITY, $1.6 billion for malaria. And why do not you match us? And so we are going to go to the G-8 and we are going to sit down and say, Have we matched? Because there are people needlessly dying today. And we will come up with a good solution for greenhouse gases by getting China and India at the table. And it is going to take time to evolve, but I am going to remind people we can act today to save lives for the good of the world. That means shorten my answers. No, no, I will shorten my questions. First of all, your relationship with Tony Blair I am struck, in your last question, that you seem to share with him a genuine passion for ideas and that politics matter. How would you describe your relationship with Blair? I would say, first of all, it is a relationship forged by fire. We share as you can tell, I have this idealistic streak, and so does Blair. But we also understand that this idealism is a practical response to the world. These acts are not isolated acts of lawlessness. We are in a war. A lot of people hope this was not the war you know, just kind of dismiss it as, oh, there is some irritated guys, you know, just kind of making some moves. We viewed it as an ideological struggle that requires response through good intelligence, sometimes military, obviously, sometimes law enforcement, all aiming to dismantle and protect our people dismantle the cells and protect our people, but that ultimately, freedom has to defeat the ideology of hate. Was Tony Blair your poodle, to use the  You know, look, this is the convenient one of the great things about Western press is that they oftentimes retreat to the convenient rather than trying to, you know, probe the depths of a relationship or the depths of somebody's feelings or the basis of philosophy. It is convenient to say, you know, warmonger, religious zealot, poodle.


I mean, these are just words that people love to toss around foolishly. How do you think and how do you hope that you and Blair but particularly yourself how would you hope that the achievement what is your greatest achievement or your greatest pride as ENTITY? Well, first of all, just so you know, I am not going to be around to see it. It takes a while for history to have its you know, to be able to have enough time to look back to see why decisions were made and what their consequences were. So you know, I'd hope it'd be somebody who would use the influence of the United States to help transform societies by working on disease and hunger and freedom. Does this job take its toll on you? You got to have a set of beliefs that are the foundation for your very being. Otherwise these currents and tides and 24-hour news and politics will kind of leave you adrift. And I tell people that when I get home, I am going to look in that mirror and say, I did not sacrifice my core beliefs to satisfy critics or satisfy pundits or, you know ENTITY's Future Yes, I am going to think about that, yes writing a book. I am going to build a Presidential library with a freedom institute at SMU Southern Methodist University all aimed at promoting the universal values that need to be defended. I am very worried about isolationism and protectionism. The world has gone through these isms before. And you watch and see, the protectionist debate is mounting in the United States; it is mounting in Europe, certainly. It was much easier to kind of blame the economic woes on external forces, and therefore, the response would be, okay, let us quit trade, let us make sure our jobs are not going elsewhere, and that is some of those concerns are legitimate. On the other hand, it is a forerunner of isolationism, and you know, I remind people that we have been through a period of isolationism and protectionism right before World War II. And so I am going to set up a this is not , like, you know, a headquarters for the Republican Party. And by the way, just so you know, the foreign policy I have just outlined for you is you know, it is not a hundred percent received amongst conservative thinkers in the United States either. Do we have 90 seconds? I would say 90 seconds.


Just one very quick this is going to seem slightly flippant, but you are going to the greatest fan club of The West Wing television show in the world on Sunday. Since you are the only person who can review that program from experience I have never watched it. Because I do not watch network TV. I seriously do not watch TV. You know, I watch sports, but I'd much rather read books. And I do, I read a lot. I may even read yours. But I will not be able to find it because it is written by so-called written by the other guy. Last question, which comes back to Iraq again. Gordon Brown and I thought your question on the pain you feel personally was quite clear and absolutely strong. Gordon Brown a couple weeks ago phoned a voter who was upset about Iraq, and apologized on behalf of the Government, not for the war, which he still thinks was the right thing, but for the kind of suffering of the Iraqi people. But they are living in a free society. Everybody is going to have to handle their own internal business the way they want to. But my view is, is that when you talk to Iraqis, they are thrilled with the idea of living in a free society. Do they like the fact that violence is still there? But every society reaches a level of violence that is tolerable. And has that reached Iraq? I do know they live under a Government that they helped elect, or they elected. And there is still a lot of work to be done, do not get me wrong, but and you know, the thing that people ought to focus on is the courage of the Iraqis. They put up with a lot of violence, Muslims killing Muslims. But first of all, there have been some accidents, but nobody can claim that the United States or Great Britain are intentionally killing innocent people. As a matter of fact, warfare has changed a lot. It has, but before the war, hundreds of thousands were discovered in mass graves Freedom trumps tyranny every time. And it is hard for people to see that. It is hard for people sitting afar to say, Is not that beautiful, somebody lives in a free society? And my point is, is that I think it is important for those of us who do live in free societies to understand that others want to live in free societies. And it takes time and sacrifice and effort to get that done.


I want to ask you about Libya and the latest developments . U.N. mandate allows you, allows the coalition to protect the no-fly zone, to protect civilians, but it does not give any leeway to go after Gadhafi. Will you stay in Tripoli ? Well, look, first of all, we have been successful so far in accomplishing the very specific objectives of the mission under the U.N. Charter, which was to establish a no-fly zone, to make sure that we provided humanitarian protection at a time when that was urgently needed. Gadhafi had turned his troops on his people and said that they should go into Benghazi, a city of 700,000 people, and show no mercy. And because the international community rallied, his troops have now pulled back from Benghazi. The United States came in early to shape the environment so that a no-fly zone could operate safely, taking out, for example, Gadhafi's air defense systems. And so U.S. planes have already been significantly reduced in the area, because what is now happening is that all the other members of the coalition are maintaining that no-fly zone. You are absolutely right that Gadhafi may try to hunker down and wait it out even in the face of a no-fly zone, even though his forces have been degraded. But keep in mind that we do not just have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Gadhafi's leaving. We put in place strong international sanctions. We have frozen his assets. We will continue to apply a whole range of pressure on him. But with respect to the military action, that specifically is done under the U.N. Security Council resolution, and calls for maintaining the no-fly zone and ensuring that the people of Libya are not assaulted by their own military. Can you and will you give military support to the rebels? Well, you know, obviously we are discussing with the coalition what steps can be taken. I think that our hope is that the first thing that happens once we have cleared the space is that the rebels are able to start discussing how they organize themselves, how they articulate their aspirations for the Libyan people and create a legitimate government.

Interview With Juan Carlos Lopez of Corriente Latina


And you know, potentially what we may see is that all the enthusiasm the Libyan people had for a change in government that was occurring a few weeks ago but that Gadhafi, through just brutal application of force, made people fearful, that that can resurface. And it may be that it is not a matter of military might, but instead an idea that is come to the Libyan people that it is time for a change that ends up ultimately sweeping Gadhafi out of power. But we are going to be examining all our options, but our first task right now is to shape the environment so that, you know, Gadhafi's forces cannot attack his own people; maintain the no-fly zone. And the United States' role, once that environment is shaped, is actually significantly reduced because we have got a broad-based international coalition, including Arab states, that believe in the same thing that we do. Is it a contradiction when a Nobel Peace Prize winner authorizes the use of force on the eighth anniversary of the ? Well, listen, the when I received that award, I specifically said there was an irony, because I was already dealing with two wars. We were in the process of pulling our troops out of Iraq, and I was still dealing with an Afghanistan war that had dragged on for many years but had not been sufficiently focused in terms of accomplishing a clear goal of protecting the American people. And so I am accustomed to this contradiction, of being both a commander in chief but also somebody who aspires to peace. The situation here is entirely focused on making sure that the Libyan people can live out their own aspirations. You know, we are not invading a country. We are acting under a mandate issued by the United Nations Security Council, in an unprecedented fashion and with unprecedented speed. We had a limited task, a focused task, and we have saved lives as a consequence. And I think the American people do not see any contradiction in somebody who cares about peace also wanting to make sure that people are not butchered because of a dictator who wants to cling to power. We want to talk about your trip and your message to Latin America. Many said that you said things that people expected, but there were not details. That is and is part of a more . Certainly what is true is that the relationship between the United States and Latin America has evolved I think in a very positive way over the last several years.