Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, in Bosnia we have brought about 70 percent of our troops home. It has not been a quagmire. I told…”

“Well, first of all, in Bosnia we have brought about 70 percent of our troops home. It has not been a quagmire. I told the America people we might well have some loss of life there, but I was convinced we would lose fewer lives and do more good over the long run if we intervened when we did. I feel the same way about Kosovo. The argument that I tried to make for our putting troops there, if we could reach a peace agreement, was that we were moving in the right direction; the Europeans had been willing to shoulder a much bigger share of the responsibility; we were only going to be asked to put up about, oh, 15 percent of the troops. But I don't want to get in the position in Kosovo that I was in in Bosnia, where the Pentagon came to me with a very honest estimate of when they thought we could finish. And we turned out to be wrong about that. We were not able to stabilize the situation as quickly as we thought we could. And this business in Kosovo is not helping any. Keep in mind, there could be some ramifications in Bosnia, as well as in Macedonia, where we have troops. So I can just tell you that I think that we have tried to limit our involvement, we have tried to limit our mission, and we will conclude it as quickly as we can. I think that in all these cases, you have to ask yourself, what will be the cost and the duration of involvement and the consequences if we do not move. And I have asked myself that question as well. Again, I would say to you, I would not be doing this if I did not think, number one, whenever we can stop a humanitarian disaster at an acceptable price, we ought to do it. Two, I'm convinced we'll be dragged into this thing under worse circumstances, at greater cost if we don't act. And three, this is, to me, a critical part of the objective I brought to the Presidency of trying to leave office with an alliance between the United States and a more unified, more prosperous, more peaceful, more stable Europe. And this is one of the big three questions still hanging out there, as I said in my opening remarks, and I'm trying to resolve this. April [April Ryan, American Urban Radio Network]. And then Mr. King [John King, Cable News Network]. Police Brutality/President's Race Initiative”