Bill Clinton: “Well, first of all, it is--let me answer the second question first, and then I'll go back. In general, obviously no one…”

“Well, first of all, it is--let me answer the second question first, and then I'll go back. In general, obviously no one country can change the body of a treaty which has already been ratified by other countries; we can't do that, and lots of other countries have ratified it. But every country is empowered to, in effect, attach a set of understandings as to what the treaty means, and as long as they're not plainly inconsistent with the thrust of the document and don't vitiate it, they can go forward. And one of the things we've been doing with a lot of the opponents and the skeptics of the treaty--Senator Helms, for example, and others raised, I think, 30 different questions in the beginning, and we have reached agreement, I believe, in 20 of those 30 areas, and we've offered alternatives that we believe are reasonable in the other areas. Let me just say for those of you who may not understand this, Iran is a signatory of the--they have ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. Iraq and Libya have not and will not. The concern is that if a country is attacked by chemical weapons, and they are part of the treaty, that all the rest of us have pledged to do something to help them. And the concern would be, well, what if Iran is attacked by Iraq, and the United States and Germany, for example, give them a lot of sophisticated defense technology on chemical weapons, and they turn around and use the chemical weapons against someone else--in other words, if they turned out to have lied about their promise in the treaty? That's the argument. We have made it clear that, as regards other countries, we will not do anything to give them our technology--not Iran, not anybody--and that's what our response will be, will be limited to helping them deal with the health effects of the attack. We will help people in medical ways and with other things having to do with the health consequences. So I believe that the compromise we have reached on that, once it becomes fully public and the language is dealt with, will be acceptable to at least most of those who have opposed the treaty on that ground. Cuba [A participant asked about the difference between the U.S. policy of engagement with such countries as China, Vietnam, and North Korea, and the policy of embargo for Cuba, suggesting it would be better to open up Cuba.]”