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| PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON | |
 June 11, 1999 
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President Bill Clinton speaks to Jim Lehrer about the Kosovo conflict and the progress towards peace in the Balkans.
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PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you, Jim. I'm glad to be here. JIM LEHRER: Is the peace process, the withdrawal of the Serb troops and the other matters, proceeding on schedule today? PRESIDENT CLINTON: So far it's proceeding in an ordinarily way. The Serb forces are withdrawing. They are withdrawing in a fashion that appears to -- our commanders to be consistent with our commitment to be gone in the 11-day time period. And General Jackson is readying our forces to deploy. JIM LEHRER: When will that happen, do you think? The first NATO troops? When will we go in? JIM LEHRER: What's your reading of the Russian troop movement today that caused such a turmoil? The Russian troops came from Bosnia into Serbia and there was some idea that they may go into Kosovo? What's going on? PRESIDENT CLINTON: The last that we heard was, I think, was when Mr. Ivanov told Secretary Albright that they were just pre-positioning. But that they recognized that we had to work out the arrangements for their participation and even as we speak, there are discussions going on about that. PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't really think so. But there are... there are, you know, some factors I would imagine they'll have to work through. And I haven't received a detailed briefing. But, for example, you know, we're going to have almost 30 countries this time in this operation. And I would expect that in each one of the zones of responsibility in the areas of responsibility, there will be multiple countries. The Russians, I think, would like to play a major role, but they understand we have to have unity of command under General Jackson. That's the sine qua non of the whole thing. But we also know that in every zone we have to have two things: first of all, there has to be the fact and the feeling of safety and security so the Kosovars will go home. Secondly, in those sectors where there are Serbs, they have to know that we are committed to protecting them, too. And a lot of thought has been given to how that might be best done and how the Russians can make the strongest contribution there. So our commanders, their people, they're talking about it. They're talking it through. I expect they'll resolve it. |
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| Mapping the air campaign. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, were you surprised that Milosevic hung in there as long as he did, for 78 days? JIM LEHRER: What was it or who was it that convinced you that bombing alone would work? PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, you know, when I talked to the American people about this in the beginning, I made it clear that there was no way that any bombing campaign could literally physically extract every Serbian soldier and paramilitary operative and put them back out of Kosovo. But I knew that our people had made dramatic progress in the last few years, even since desert storm, in precision-guided weapons, and in the capacity of our planes to deliver them and to avoid even fairly sophisticated anti-aircraft operations. And I just felt that if we worked at it and we could hold the coalition together, that we'd be able to do enough damage that we could do it. And I... Secretary Cohen and General Sheldon felt there was a better than 50-50 chance we could do it. Mr. Berger did. PRESIDENT CLINTON: Secretary Albright did . . . I just . . . I've been dealing with Mr. Milosevic now for a long time, more than six years. And I think I have some understanding of the politics in the environment in Serbia. I just felt if we kept pounding away, that we could raise the price to a point where it would no longer make any sense for him to go on, and where he could no longer maintain his position if he did. And I regret that he required his people to go through what they have gone through to lower their incomes as much as they've been lowered, and to erode their quality of life as much as it's been eroded, and even to have the civilian casualties which have been sustained, although there are far, far less than there were in Desert Storm after the bombing, for example. Still, I hate it. But what we did, miraculously resulted in no combat air losses to our people. We did lose two fine Army airmen in training. We minimized the losses to their people.... to their civilians. But it did a terrible amount of damage. And, finally they couldn't go on. It didn't make any sense. |
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| Risking American lives. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, as I'm sure you're aware, the fact of no casualties by NATO has been used as a criticism of the whole approach here -- that yes, ethnic cleansing was bad in Kosovo, yes we needed to do something, but it wasn't worth risking any American lives to do so. So we would have had to do everything we have done to do this. I told the American people at the time that we could not have mounted and executed an invasion that would have stopped this ethnic cleansing because at the time the Rambouillet talks broke down, when the Kosovars accepted it and the Serbs didn't, keep in mind, he already had 40,000 troops in and around Kosovo and nearly 300 tanks. So no force... there was no way to mobilize and implant a force quick enough to turn it back. And, somehow the suggestion that our moral position would have been improved if only a few more Americans had died, I think is wrong. Believe me, fewer Serbs died than would die if we had had to invade. We would have had to deploy a force of about 200,000. We would have put them at great risk just getting them into the country. That was actually the biggest risk. I don't think the combat once in the country was as big a risk as the problems of deploying into Kosovo. But, I just don't accept that. I don't think that, you know... We moved aggressively. We were criticized by some people in the Congress and elsewhere for starting the bombing too soon. And, those who say that we should have used ground forces, even if we had ... If we announced on day one we were going to use ground forces, it would have taken as long as this bombing campaign went on to deploy them, probably longer. |
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| The ground troop question. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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PRESIDENT CLINTON: I was afraid I had done that when I said to the American people that I did not intend to use ground forces. And, shortly thereafter in an interview, I made it clear that I did not do that and repeatedly I said that and I said I thought we ought to be planning for ground forces. And so I think, you know, I think the differences, for example, between the British position and ours and others were somewhat overstated because we had done quite a lot of planning for a ground force, and we had made it explicit we that weren't taking the option off the table. And Chancellor Schroeder from Germany, was reported as having done so. When I talked to him and examined the German text of what he said, there had been a little overstatement there. So my own view is that if this had not worked, NATO would have put ground forces in there and that we were determined not to lose this thing. We were determined to reverse the ethnic cleansing. I think the Europeans were especially sensitive, as I was, to the fact that it took four years to mobilize an action against Bosnia, and that there were all kinds of arguments used about it, including the fact that U.N. peacekeepers were there, diplomacy was going on, any action would have upset all that. They didn't want that to happen this time. So the truth is that this action against ethnic cleansing was hugely more rapid and more responsive than what was done in Bosnia. That's why there won't be as many lost lives.
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JIM
LEHRER, NewsHour Executive Editor: And now to President Clinton. Mr.
President. Welcome. 
PRESIDENT
CLINTON: I think it will be quite soon. It's his decision. I think there
are a number of factors that are going into his thinking, but they'll
have to be in there pretty soon because they're determined not to let
some big vacuum develop. But they have a lot of plans to make and they
are mapping them, starting with the strategy for de-mining and then
dealing with the refugees that are brought back and those that want
to come back on their own. So they are working that, but I would expect
it would be quite soon. 
JIM
LEHRER: Is it going to be... do you foresee a major problem developing
over this? 
PRESIDENT
CLINTON: Not after the beginning. When we started this, I thought there
would be one of three possible scenarios. First of all, I absolutely
reject the theory that some people have advanced that what he did was
worse than he would have done if we hadn't bombed as early as we did.
I just simply don't believe that. He had this plan laid out. He was
going to carry it into effect last October. He didn't do it because
of the threat of bombing. So what I knew was that if he decided that
. . . to behave as he had in Bosnia, that there would be a day or two
of bombing and we'd make this agreement that we made today, or a couple
of days ago, and it would be over. But that there was a strong chance
that it would not, because in the minds of Mr. Milosevic, there was
a big difference between Bosnia and Kosovo. Bosnia was something that
he wanted badly that he didn't have. Kosovo was something that he had
that he wanted to take absolute control of by running people out of.
so once he decided to take the bombing, I was not surprised that he
took it for quite a long while. Because he kept looking for ways to
break the unity of NATO. He kept looking for ways to turn someone against
what we were doing. Of course the third scenario was that, you know,
that the bombing never worked and we had to take even more aggressive
measures. But I always thought there was a much better than 50-50 chance
that this bombing campaign would work. And I am gratified that it has
achieved our objectives. 
JIM
LEHRER: Better than 50-50 was as good as you got. 
PRESIDENT
CLINTON: Well, now, first of all, I never said that. That it wasn't
worth risking any lives. We did risk lives. And I think the American
people should know that our pilots, particularly the pilots in our A-10's,
they were quite frequently fired upon by people held... holding these
shoulder missiles. And they were deliberately positioning themselves
in populated areas where there were civilians living. And over and over
again our pilots risked their lives by avoiding firing back when they
could have easily taken those people out who were firing at them, but
to do so would have killed civilians. So there was risk to the lives.
I remind you, we lost two airplanes and had to go in there and rescue
two pilots. So that's not true. Secondly, if we had put a ground force
in for an invasion, it still wouldn't be done today. That is, all this
bombing we did we would have had to do anyway. Let me take you back
to Operation Desert Storm, where we deployed a half million people in
the theater. It took, as I remember, four and a half or five months
to do it. Bombed for 44 days there, but because of the terrain and the
weather, they dropped more ordinance in 44 days than we did in our 79-day
campaign. 
JIM
LEHRER: What about just the threat of ground forces? You were criticized
you and your fellow NATO leaders were criticized for taking it off the
table at the very beginning, telling Milosevic all he had to do was
hunker down. 