Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Thank you very much, Doctor. And to all our distinguished guests here today, let me welcome you and say that…”

“Thank you. Thank you very much, Doctor. And to all our distinguished guests here today, let me welcome you and say that I have rarely enjoyed anything in this room as much as I have what has already happened. I've told this story before, but I feel just like I did the first time I gave remarks, a speech, as a public official. It was at one of these civic banquets, and it started at 6 o'clock in the evening. Everyone in the audience was introduced, hundreds of people--except three people, and they went home mad. [Laughter] Five people spoke before me. I got up to speak at a quarter to 10, and the man who introduced me did not do nearly as good a job as our distinguished guest from Thailand--he said, ``You know, you could stop here and have had a very nice evening.'' [Laughter] Well, we could certainly stop here and have had a very fine occasion. Let me begin by thanking the Secretary-General for being here. We've had a very good meeting, just before we came over here, to talk about our shared goal of preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and of securing Iraq's compliance with its obligations under the U.N. Security Council resolutions. The Secretary-General deserves the thanks of all Americans for securing the agreement with the Iraqi Government to open all sites for inspection. The commitments made to him, as well as last week's successful U.N. inspections in sites that had previously been closed, are quite significant. They must be carried out.…”