Bill Clinton: “Well, first, I want to thank General Downing. I think he did a very good job, and he did exactly what I asked him to do.…”

“Well, first, I want to thank General Downing. I think he did a very good job, and he did exactly what I asked him to do. I said, ``I want an unvarnished, blunt, straightforward report. I want you to take a hard line here because we have got to do everything we can to ensure the safety of the troops.'' And that is exactly what we did, and the Pentagon and the American people are in his debt. Now, I had a meeting with Secretary Perry on Friday evening, and he had been briefed, obviously, on the outline of the recommendations of the Downing report. He said that the Defense Department was already in the process of implementing virtually all of the recommendations of the Downing report, that he fully agreed with them, and that we would be aggressive in the implementation of the recommendations. So I think it's fair to say that we know we're living in a world in which terrorism is a bigger problem and in which Americans may be the target of terrorists, particularly Americans in uniform. And as we know more about what we can do to protect them, we intend to do everything we can. I give you the same answer I gave to Jim [Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News] on the previous question. And we are going to aggressively implement the Downing report. Thank you.”