[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[January 24, 1994]
[Pages 121-122]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters 
January 24, 1994

Secretary of Defense Nominee

    Q. Mr. President, how close are you to naming a Defense Secretary?
    The President. I think we'll have an announcement today, just in a 
few hours.
    Q. Is Bill Perry your choice, Mr. President?
    The President. We'll have an announcement. You can wait and see.
    Q. Why do you think it took so long, and what do you account for 
what seemed to be a reluctance by a number of people to take on the job?
    The President. Well, I don't think it has taken that long. I mean, 
it's been, what, a week--less than a week since Mr. Inman said he didn't 
want the job.
    Q. And at least two people who reportedly have said they weren't 
interested in the job, and Mr. Perry----
    The President. But the stories are basically inaccurate. The only 
accurate story is the one that I have confirmed, which is that I talked 
to Senator Nunn during the transition before I became President, based 
on the fact that he was not only the head of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee but a longtime personal friend of mine and someone I sought 
advice from on these matters. And he told me then that he was not 
interested in being Secretary of Defense. And the only thing I did was 
to call him back and make sure he had the same position then that he had 
now.
    The job was absolutely not offered to anyone else, absolutely, 
categorically not offered to anyone else. And it wasn't really offered 
to him. I just said, ``Are you still in the same position you were in 
before?'' And he said, ``That's right.'' He said, ``I'm doing what I 
think I should be doing.'' But he knows, I think--I don't want to 
overstate it. I think Sam Nunn always knew that if he were ever 
interested in that job, that I was very open to that. But--so the 
decision--then, after that, after it was clear that he was in the same 
position he was always in, I went about trying to pick a successor. I've 
done it, and I expect to have an announcement.
    Q. Do you think you can twist someone's arm to take it?
    The President. No.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, there have been new calls for air strikes in 
Bosnia. You talked about that a lot over this past trip to Europe. Can 
you give us any update? And what about what you said was your resolve to 
do something about this?
    The President. Well, what I said was that NATO should not reaffirm 
its position unless the circumstances that they set out for bombing, if 
those circumstances occurred they'd be willing to go forward. Now, I 
presume you're referring to what was said in the European Parliament 
yesterday.

[[Page 122]]

    Q. And also the President of Bosnia calling for air strikes, too.
    The President. Well, the President of Bosnia, yes--but what the NATO 
leaders, what the others voted for was to leave on the table the proviso 
that bombing could be done in order to relieve Sarajevo if that were 
appropriate or to further the U.N. mission by opening the airstrip at 
Tuzla or, if necessary, to facilitate the transfer of troops from 
Canadian to Dutch at Srebrenica. Now, that is a very rather narrow NATO 
mandate.
    And what happened was as soon as the meeting was over, it was not 
clear how strongly or firmly some of them felt about that. But I think 
it's also clear that the U.N. Secretary General, who has a say in some 
of those decisions, but not all of them, based on what the international 
law is now, is still opposed to it. And I don't have any information 
that leads me to believe that the other NATO allies, that the heads of 
state as opposed to people in the European Parliament, have changed 
their mind about whether there should be any bombing at this time.
    That's all I can tell you.
    Q. What about----
    The President. Let me say, I believe in general what I've always 
believed. There's not going to be a settlement in Bosnia until the sides 
decide that they have more to gain from signing a peace agreement than 
by continuing the fighting. And now the government finally has been able 
to get some arms, even through it was, in my view, unfairly the only 
side subject to the arms embargo--they've been able to get some weapons. 
And they appear to be, the Bosnian government, most reluctant to sign a 
peace agreement at this time. But if they can work out something on 
access to the sea and protection of Sarajevo and then the Moslem 
enclaves to the east, perhaps we can still get an agreement. But there 
will not be--the killing is a function of a political fight between 
three factions. Until they agree to quit doing it, it's going to 
continue. And I don't think that the international community has the 
capacity to stop people within the nation from their civil war until 
they decide to do it.
    Now, there are things we can do to retard it, to keep it within 
bounds, to keep it within humanitarian limits. And I wouldn't rule out 
any of those options. But there has been no decision by anybody to enter 
the war on the side of one of the combatants, which is what some would 
like. But there has been no decision to do it. They're going to have to 
make up their own mind to quit killing each other, and the circumstances 
are, in fact, on the battlefield are somewhat different than they have 
been for the previous 12 months. But I hope that it means that it's more 
likely that there can be a settlement, and I still have some hope that 
that will occur.

Note: The exchange began at 12:06 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of this 
exchange.