Bill Clinton: “No, we're not in their company. It pains me that for whatever reason--and I understand--I have a lot of sympathy with a…”

“No, we're not in their company. It pains me that for whatever reason--and I understand--I have a lot of sympathy with a lot of these countries in Ottawa, that were in Oslo. I have a lot of sympathy with the countries that have themselves had a lot of people killed from landmines. But the argument that I have tried to make to them is that what we really have to do--we will never solve this problem until we get the producers, the people that are making these landmines, to stop making them, stop selling them, and stop using them. That's what we have to do. And I believe the United States is in a better position to work with the rest of the world to get that done than nearly any other country. But I don't feel that I'm in their company at all. We unilaterally stopped producing, stopped selling, stopped using these landmines. We have unilaterally destroyed a million and a half of them. I imagine that no country in Oslo can make that claim. We're going to destroy another million and a half by 1999. I doubt that any country in Oslo can make that claim. We have done everything we could. We have even said we are going to unilaterally give up our self-destruct landmines that do not--as far as I know, have not killed a single civilian or maimed a single child anywhere in the world. And thousands of them have been tested. They all self-destructed when they were supposed to, except one that was an hour late. So we are not in their company. I wish we could sign the Oslo agreement. I understand the difficulties of the countries involved and the emotional feelings surrounding this issue, but we have to have some time to deal with our challenge in Korea. And our antitank mines, we believe, are more effective than other countries' are, and there is an explicit exception for antitank mines that is written in such a way that doesn't cover ours. And I could never agree not to have antitank weapons, given the kinds of combat that our people are likely to be in, in any kind of projected scenario, over the next 20 to 30 years. I couldn't do it. We have to have some resolution of that. It would just be--that would be completely irresponsible for me to let our people be in combat situations without an antitank device that I thought was the most effective available. Proposed Tobacco Legislation”