Bill Clinton: “No, but speeches like that may make them take me less seriously than I'd like to be taken. There have been no constant…”

“No, but speeches like that may make them take me less seriously than I'd like to be taken. There have been no constant flip- flops, madam. I ran for President saying that I would do my best to limit ethnic cleansing and to see the United States play a more active role in resolving the problem in Bosnia. And we have been much more active than my predecessor was in every way from the beginning. I also said very clearly that I did not believe we should inject American ground forces on the ground in Bosnia to try to affect the strategic outcome, to take part in the civil war. When I became President, I argued to our European allies that we ought to lift the arms embargo, or at least be caught trying, in the United Nations because of the unfairness of the situation on the ground. They argued back to me that they were on the ground as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force and that if we lifted the arms embargo, we would lengthen the war, make it more bloody, and subject their people to being shot or taken as hostages. So, we could not prevail. I then worked to get NATO, for the first time in its history, to agree to an out-of-area operation, which we did in August. We have enforced a no-fly zone. We have had the longest humanitarian air lift in history. We have succeeded, because of the NATO air power, I believe, in getting a lot of the lines of communications for humanitarian aid open again there, and of course, the safe zone around Sarajevo and elsewhere. I wish it could have been done overnight, but fundamentally, Bosnia is in the--it's in the American interest to limit the conflict to Bosnia, to try to restore humanitarian conditions, to see that a bad example is not set, and to limit the refugee outflow. Those are the things we are trying to do. We have troops in Macedonia. We have used our air power. We have pushed NATO. And we have pushed the United Nations. But I don't think you can say that the world community could have intervened and changed the course of this war or should have intervened on one side or the other. What we need to do is to stop the conflict from spreading, which I think has been done, try to stop the military escalation within Bosnia, which I think has been done, and then get the parties back to negotiate a decent peace. I believe that was, as a practical matter, the only option open to me after I became President, and I have worked very hard on it for a year. I do not believe I should have injected American ground forces there into the conflict. We, after all, had at the time I became President several thousand forces in Somalia. We have obligations in Korea and in other places in Asia. We have obligations potentially in the Middle East because of the work we are doing there. And the United States has done the best it could. I think we have done a very great deal. Do I wish we could have done more earlier? Do I wish the Europeans and our other allies had totally agreed with me? Of course I do. But I also respect their differences and their long experience in this area. I did the best I could. I moved as quickly as I could. I think we have shown a good deal of resolve. And I think what this Bosnian situation shows is that if you can get NATO agreed to act with resolve, NATO can have an impact. I will still say in the end we have to resolve this through negotiations. Air power cannot change the course of the civil war either. They're going to have to negotiate a peace. What we're going to try to do is to make it less bloody and less productive to pursue aggression, so that the parties will want to go back to the peace table. Ms. Woodruff. Mr. President, just a quick followup. Would you not acknowledge that given what you said during the campaign about it being time to end Serb aggression, that it is much easier to make these statements in a campaign than actually to carry them out as President?”