Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Senator Harkin, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for that wonderful…”

“Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Senator Harkin, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for that wonderful welcome. It's great to be back in Iowa when it's dry. [Laughter] I am glad to be here. I want to thank the State officials who came here to greet me at the plane. Standing behind me, your attorney general, Tom Miller; your secretary of state, Paul Pate; your State treasurer, Mike Fitzgerald; your State auditor, Richard Johnson; and your secretary of agriculture, Dale Cochran, I thank them all for coming. I am also glad to see some old friends here. Your former Congressman, Neal Smith, who's been a great friend of mine, I'm glad to see him. I'm glad to see all those folks from the United Rubber Workers Union, Local 310 here. Good luck to you. And I want to say a special word of welcome and thanks to the young national service AmeriCorps volunteers for their work. Thank you. I'd like to thank the base commander here, General Don Armington, for welcoming me and for making available this facility. And as Tom Harkin said, I'm here for the National Rural Conference. I want to say to all of you before I begin that, how much I appreciate what Senator Harkin said and the response that you had to the terrible tragedy that the people of Oklahoma City have been through and that our entire Nation has been through. You, I know, are very proud of them for the way they have responded, the work they have done, and the courage they have shown.…”