[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[March 5, 1999]
[Pages 313-321]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
The President's News Conference With Prime Minister Massimo
D'Alema of Italy
March 5, 1999
The President. Good afternoon. I very much enjoyed my first meeting
with Prime Minister D'Alema. I am proud of our alliance and our
friendship with Italy.
I have to begin this press conference by stating again our great
sorrow over what occurred at Cavalese. When I called former Prime
Minister Prodi immediately after that terrible
event, I made it clear that we would take strong measures to assure that
something like that would not occur again. We have taken such measures
to enhance safety; we will continue to do so.
The Prime Minister and I today agreed that our Secretary of Defense
and their Minister of Defense will review these operational and safety
measures together to assess their adequacy and to determine whether
additional measures should be taken to ensure the highest levels of
safety. They will report to the Prime Minister and me as soon as
possible.
I know you will understand that I cannot comment on any particular
case, in part because legal proceedings are still pending, but let me
say that our objective has been, and remains, to determine
responsibility and accountability in an open and fair process. As I said
when this happened, the United States is responsible for this terrible
tragedy. Again I want to say to the people of Italy, on behalf of the
American people, we are profoundly regretful and apologetic for what has
occurred, to the families and to all the people of Italy.
Now, we must remember that we have been strong partners and good
friends, especially in working for our common security. Today we
discussed the coming 50th Anniversary NATO Summit. It will be here in
April. We will admit new members. We will plan to meet new challenges.
We will address our European allies' initiative, which I fully support,
to enhance their
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defense capabilities and assume a greater role in our common defense.
NATO's efforts have been aimed at helping the Eastern half of Europe
enjoy the freedom and stability the Western half has built over the last
half century. The end of the cold war made this a possibility but not a
certainty. We have learned that if we do not contain conflict in Europe,
it will spread, and we will pay a far higher price to deal with it down
the road. That is why we and our allies acted to stop the war in Bosnia
and start it on the path toward reconciliation and democracy and why we
are seeking to end the conflict in Kosovo. If we don't and it
intensifies, there will be a major refugee crisis in the center of
Europe, something that Italy knows all too well.
Almost certainly it will draw in nearby nations, including the
bordering states of Albania and Macedonia, which today are engaged in
the fragile process of building their own democracies. But the next
round of talks, set to begin in 10 days, now--I very much hope the
Kosovar Albanians will follow through on their statement at Rambouillet,
and sign the agreement to end the fighting and restore self-government.
It is in their strong interest, and it is also in Serbia's interest.
Serbia must accept the agreement and a NATO-led force in Kosovo, which
is essential for peace to take hold. And NATO remains ready to act if
Serbia instead continues the violent repression of Kosovo's people.
The Prime Minister recently wrote, ``the turmoil and uncertainly in
southeast Europe has made Italy a frontline state.'' How true. It is
terribly important that we, therefore, move together to strengthen
stability across this region. NATO has been working closely with some of
southeast Europe's emerging democracies to do that.
Two weeks ago, when President Chirac was here, I announced a new
initiative to expand security cooperation with these nations, to
coordinate security assistance from NATO countries to them, and to
improve cooperation and economic development across the region. I hope
and believe Italy will play a key role in this effort.
The Prime Minister and I also talked about our common efforts and
our common interest in spurring global economic growth, bringing greater
stability to the world's financial system, and putting a human face on
the global economy by supporting working families and aiding the most
vulnerable citizens, communities, and countries.
Today I am grateful to know that our economy reached a milestone of
18 million new jobs last month, since 1993. But the United States cannot
grow over the long run unless prosperity is increasing for our friends
and partners in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. I want to work
with the Prime Minister to address growth, the stability of the
financial system, and the human needs of the 21st century economy. And I
must say I'm quite optimistic about our prospects, based on our first
meeting today.
Again Mr. Prime Minister, welcome. The podium is yours.
Prime Minister D'Alema. Thank you, Mr. President, for your words,
and thank you for our talks which, for me, have been very interesting,
indeed.
I conveyed to the President of the United States that I was
personally shocked, and so is Italian public opinion, owing to a verdict
which gave the impression that the tragic accident at Cavalese could
find no effective answer in terms of determination and punishment of
those responsible for it.
I thanked the President of the United States for the sorrow he
decided to express in remembering that tragedy. It is a sincere sorrow
and a feeling we have great appreciation for. The President of the
United States repeated here that he believes that accident concerns the
responsibility of the United States. I also understand that at this
moment we cannot and must not interfere with the specific judicial
proceeding which is not yet over which will include new trials and new
verdicts.
I just wish to stress one point. That event certainly cannot be
considered an ordinary occurrence. It is not normal for a military
aircraft to fly in a valley, 300 feet from the ground. It is neither
normal nor acceptable that this leads to the consequences it did lead
to. We expect that at the end of the process it is made clear who was
responsible for this accident and that these people are punished for it.
At the same time, as President Clinton said, we gave a mandate to
the Defense Secretaries of the United States and Italy to jointly
reexamine all measures concerning the functioning of military bases,
concerning the military exercises around such bases, all the safety
measures that
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will reassure citizens that such accidents can never again occur.
I must say, I appreciated the human sensitivity and the serious way
in which President Clinton reminded us all of his commitments to Prime
Minister Prodi and his will that justice is done in a clear way.
Our talks have shown that the friendship and cooperation between the
United States and Italy is very strong, both in the preparation for the
NATO summit and in the preparation of the G-7/G-8 meeting, as well as in
confronting the most acute and delicate international crises.
We both want the Rambouillet peace accord to be signed. We ask this
with great determination--we ask this of Albanians, Kosovar Albanians,
for whom this peace agreement means autonomy, safety, and recognition of
their rights. And we ask the same, with great determination, of the
Yugoslav Republic and Serbian Republic, which have a duty to respect the
rights of Kosovar Albanians. And for them the peace accord means putting
an end to guerrilla activities and ensuring respect for the territorial
integrity of Yugoslavia.
We are ready to take upon ourselves our responsibilities, as we did
in Bosnia and Albania, together with our allies. We are ready to deploy
our forces to ensure peace and security in that war-torn area.
We also talked about Russia, the very serious problems in Russia,
the need for a common strategy between Europe and the United States to
help Russia to embark upon the path of a more solid democracy, an open
and functioning market economy.
I also expressed to the President of the United States my own
personal gratitude for his commitment to peace in the Middle East. And I
repeated to him our commitment to support and encourage that peace
process.
It was very interesting for me to have a dialog on the major
problems of the economy and of societies, making a comparison between
the experiences and problems of Europe and the United States of America.
We admire the American economic dynamism, the American capability for
innovation, for job creation and creation of wealth. At the same time,
we are very fond of the social rights and social solidarity which is one
of the assets of Europe. This is, indeed, a major issue for a shared
dialog and effort at finding new ways between Europe and the United
States.
How do we combine together strong, economic dynamism with the values
of social solidarity? We have opened a dialog on this issue, on this
major issue which President Clinton so many times has been actively
engaged upon. And I suggested to him that after the forum that was held
in New York with Prime Minister Prodi, with Tony Blair, with President
Clinton himself--I suggested to him that after that dialog we could have
a similar dialog, including European and American intellectuals and
political leaders.
And President Clinton told me he will think about this idea, namely,
about the possibility for a new dialog of this nature. And we would be
very pleased to host it in our country, organize it. It is very
important for me that, as well as having a loyal and active alliance at
a military and political level, we can develop a common dialog and
rethink it together. The world is confronting us with major challenges,
and we must and can search for the answer to these challenges together.
Thank you.
The President. Thank you. Now we will alternate questions between
the American and Italian press.
Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press]?
U.S. Aircraft Incident in the Italian Alps
Q. Mr. President, the Prime Minister said yesterday that he was
baffled by the acquittal of the Marine pilot, and that he felt that the
accident was a massacre. What do you say to Italians who feel that
justice has not been done, and that if the pilot is not guilty, then
someone else is?
And to the Prime Minister, sir, could you say, do the President's
remarks today about this, do you think that they will calm the anger in
Italy? How far will they go?
The President. Well, let me answer. First of all, because there are
at least two further court-martial proceedings to go forward, I have to
be quite careful in not making any comments that have any kind of impact
on those one way or the other.
To me, the important thing now is that the United States must
clearly and unambiguously shoulder the responsibility for what happened.
Our presence in Italy, our air operations, our training operations were
the context, the environment in which this horrible thing occurred. I
think the things that we can do are, first
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of all, to work closely with the Italians, as I've said, to make sure
that we have done everything we can to reduce the prospect to zero that
something like this will occur again and that our Italian counterparts
agree with that and agree with the changes; secondly, that we do what is
appropriate by the families. And there was a modest cash settlement
given to each of the victims' families shortly after the accident to
deal with immediate expenses. And under Italian law, they file claims,
adjudged by the Italians, and then we pay 75 percent of those claims
under our agreement.
And the third thing is to do everything we can to have a just
disposition of the cases that are now going through. And I'm committed
to all three things. I will do the best I can. I also think it's very
important. I don't know that my words could ever ease the pain of
someone who lost a child or a parent or a sibling or a spouse in that
terrible accident. But at least it's important for the people of Italy
and for those families to know that the United States is not trying to
duck its responsibility and that we are heartbroken and horrified by
what happened. And we're going to do our best to make sure that nothing
like that ever happens again.
Prime Minister D'Alema. I think President Clinton spoke very
clearly. We are not asking for a scapegoat. I do not know who was
responsible for what happened. It is up to the justice system to
determine who was responsible and who is guilty. But we expect that at
the end of this process it is clear and it is determined who is
responsible, and those who are found responsible are punished through a
fair trial. We are confident that this will happen.
Q. Prime Minister D'Alema, you touched upon something that we
Italian journalists have very much at heart, the Cavalese events. But I
ask you to make an effort, could you please very sincerely say to us,
are you satisfied with the answer given by President Clinton on this
specific point, on the Cavalese tragedy?
And I'd like to ask President Clinton, were you expecting a verdict
of acquittal on this case?
Thank you.
Prime Minister D'Alema. Let me repeat, I appreciated President
Clinton's words very much and the commitment he has taken. I consider
them to be serious commitment. We shall say we are satisfied when
whoever is responsible for what happened is found guilty and punished.
With so many casualties, with so many deaths, you can hardly ever say
you are satisfied. It is a word I cannot use. Let me say very clearly
that I have appreciated very much, and I think we should appreciate, the
great human sincerity with which President Clinton has shared this
tragedy, with no arrogance, with no sense of detachment.
The President. Sir, let me say again, because the person involved in
that court-martial is facing another action
and because there is yet another action against another person who was
in the plane, another trial pending, I
cannot comment on what my reaction to the verdict was, because anything
I say, under our law, that goes across the airwaves, could be inferred
one way or the other to have an impact on a pending proceeding, in ways
that would be disastrous for what I think we all want, which is an
orderly and just process.
Helen [Helen Thomas, United Press International]?
Kosovo/Missile Defense System
Q. Mr. President, I have a couple of foreign policy questions. Do
you expect a breakthrough on Kosovo, especially in view of--the policy
seems to be attacking or threatening Serbia and then retreating. It's
constant. And my other question is, how can you justify chipping away at
the ABM Treaty, which helped keep the peace during the cold war, and
pour billions and billions into a Star Wars defense against the
possibility that starving North Korea might fire a missile at us?
The President. Well, first of all--[laughter]--you know, she's been
doing this for quite a long time. [Laughter] And it's not a fair fight.
She's better at it than I am.
Let me, first of all, say about Kosovo, I don't think it's fair to
say that NATO threatens and backs away. We took military action in
Bosnia, which led directly to the peace. So I don't think Mr.
Milosevic is under any illusion that if
NATO has an action order outstanding, that we won't activate it. And I
would be astonished to believe that our allies would back away from a
commitment we had made.
I think what happened at Rambouillet was quite important and
justified the request, not of Serbia but of both parties--both parties--
for some more time to try to sell this agreement, to ruminate on it, to
decide how to respond to it. The Kosovars themselves wanted that.
Finally we have an agreement, not in every single
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point but in large measure, between the Serbs and the Kosovars on what
the nature of autonomy would be over the next 3 years. That's quite an
astonishing achievement.
And so my perception is quite the reverse. I think we were facing a
humanitarian disaster in Kosovo last summer. We came in with the threat
of force, and it worked, and we averted it. And we didn't have to use
force because we averted the tragedy; we got what we wanted. Were there
violations of the cease-fire? Yes, but they were violations from both
sides.
And there were problems there. But that's why we started this new
process with the new NATO action order. It became clear we had to do
more because, particularly, of the terrible killings in one village in
Kosovo, that were precipitated by the Serbs.
Now, I do not believe that, at least at the present point, Mr.
Milosevic could be under any illusion,
based on what happened in Bosnia that--from the point of the view of the
United States, anyway, and what NATO has said--that we will keep our
word. And I think we did the right thing to give both parties the time
they asked for at Rambouillet to try to figure out how to get to
``yes.'' The most important thing here is how to get to ``yes.'' It's a
good agreement. It will save lives. It will stabilize Kosovo. It will
move us toward genuine autonomy, which was working there, I might add,
before it was taken away a decade ago.
Now, on the ABM Treaty, let me say, doing the research on a missile
defense system, which is not a violation of the ABM treaty--it is
theoretically possible that we could develop a missile defense system
that, either by its nature or by where it was deployed, would be a
violation of the ABM Treaty. I, personally, have told the Russians over
and over again I have no intention of abrogating the ABM Treaty.
Anything we do, we will do together.
But the only threat we have--excuse me--the threat that the United
States is likely to face 10 or 20 years from now from missiles coming in
is by no means--not just from North Korea. It is a fact that many
countries with whom we have serious differences now are making vigorous
efforts either to build or to buy missiles with increasing ranges, that
go distances far beyond anything that would be necessary to protect
their own territory.
General Shelton has said that this
missile defense is tough; it's like trying to hit a bullet with a
bullet. That's what missile defense is. I think if we believe that the
technology might be there, we owe it to ourselves and to all of our
allies, not just our old allies but some of our post-cold-war allies, to
try to develop that, along with an adequate warning system, to try to
prevent countries that are desperately trying to get missiles, that they
could not possibly need to defend their own territory, from ever taking
offensive action against us or anyone else.
But I have no intention of supporting or initiating a unilateral
abrogation of the ABM Treaty. I will not do that. We have been very
candid with the Russians. We have talked to them about what we are
going. We have talked about what kinds of information we might share in
the future. But I have never advocated, initiated, encouraged,
sanctioned, or blinked at the possibility that we could unilaterally
abrogate the ABM Treaty. I personally would be very opposed to that.
NATO Bases in Italy
Q. Prime Minister D'Alema, next Wednesday you will have to answer
the questions by the Members of Parliament. Can you say as of today that
your government will not have to revise the legal status of NATO bases?
And I have a question for President Clinton. What is your answer to the
many Members of the Italian Parliament who are asking for a revision of
the status of the NATO bases?
Prime Minister D'Alema. We very clearly stated that we intend to
revise the rules and very seriously go through and check all the rules
relating to military actions, exercises, training, movements, flights,
in order to ensure high and certain standards of safety for the civilian
population. So to some extent, this does not concern the legal status of
the military personnel, which is, as you know, regulated by a 1952
convention. It should be revised by all the countries that signed it, if
it is to be revised. But this is a way to respond to the need to
reconcile the function of these military bases--which are not a
concession to someone else; they are a tool to defend our own security
and our common security--it is a way to reconcile this with the safety
of our citizens. We shall discuss this.
I don't know what you meant by legal status or position. Legally
speaking, the United States has asked to abide by the convention, to
implement the convention according to which military
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personnel working in military bases abroad, in case of charges, should
be tried by the country of origin. This convention applies to all
countries. It is not an American privilege. For example, when the
Italian pilots were charged for the Ramstadt accident, they were tried
in Italy. We required that the 1952 convention be applied, exactly like
the United States has asked to apply the 1952 convention for the
Cavalese accident.
Naturally, the convention must be respected and complied with,
because it exists. But we will be much happier to comply with it if our
citizens and our public opinions are reassured that by adopting these
procedures, justice is done.
The President. I'm not sure I have a great deal to add to what the
Prime Minister said. I agree with what he said.
If the question that many Italian officials are asking is, shouldn't
there be an agreed-upon set of changes in the procedures for the
movements and training of American military personnel to make them safer
for the people of Italy, I agree with that. If the question is, should
our very presence there be reexamined, and the agreement under which
Americans charged with offenses should be tried in American
jurisdiction, my answer is just what the Prime Minister said.
I believe it serves both our interests; for example, when we were
establishing our presence in Bosnia, I flew into Aviano, into our base
there. And I took a C-17, one of our supply planes and flew into Bosnia.
I also flew up to Hungary from there, the place where we had our base,
from which we moved our people in there. And it seemed to me that our
presence there, in that way, furthered Italy's interest, Europe's
interest, NATO's interest, and not simply American interest. That, of
course, is a judgment that every country and all the decisionmakers
make, in a way, on an annual basis. They decide. They continue to
support these things.
But I believe that the larger partnership has served the United
States and Italy very well.
Larry [Larry McQuillan, Reuters].
Monica Lewinsky/U.S. Aircraft Incident in
the Italian Alps
Q. Mr. President, more than 70 million Americans watched Monica
Lewinsky's recent television interview, and a number of people are
buying a book that she's put out. I'm just wondering, do you have any
thoughts on it that you can share with us that perhaps might bring
closure to this? And do you have any problem with the idea that she's
actually making money off that relationship?
And Prime Minister, some of your countrymen are suggesting that NATO
ought to conduct a review, an investigation of this accident. Do you
support that idea, to just ensure a sense of impartiality?
The President. Well, let me answer your question. First of all, I
did not see the interview, so I can't really comment on that. What I
hope is that she will be permitted to go on with her life, and I hope it
will be a good life. And I hope that the efforts that I have made and
that I continue to make every day--at home and at work--will bear fruit.
And I hope that all the people who have been hurt by this, including
totally innocent people who have massive legal bills, will get the help
they need. And I'm determined to do what I can to help them.
But the important thing is that the American people are virtually
screaming at us to get on with their lives and their business and to do
their business. And I'm going to do my best to do that, as well as I
possibly can. But you know, this was a pretty tough thing for everybody
involved, and I wish her well. I hope it works out all right for her.
Q. So the money is okay?
The President. You know, that's not a decision for me to make. I
think that my--I can only--one of the things I've learned, that I've had
to relearn all over again in this last 4-year episode, is that all I can
control in life is what I do and what I say. And if I do and say the
right things, then that's the thing that's best for me and my family and
for the American people. And that's what I'm concentrating on doing.
And I don't wish anyone ill who was caught up in this. And she paid
quite a high price for a long time, and I feel badly for that. So I just
hope it works out all right.
Prime Minister D'Alema. I think that at present we should follow
with attention and respect the proceedings and the judicial process
which is envisaged in the United States. As President Clinton mentioned,
two more trials have to be held concerning these events at Cavalese.
When this process is over, when we have a complete picture of
responsibilities and punishment for the events, then we shall evaluate
what to do, once it is made clear who is
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responsible and these people are punished. But at this time, I don't
think it would be right to examine other possibilities and put forward
new ideas that do not seem well-founded as yet.
Domestic Economies/Trade Issues/ United Nations Security Council
Q. Prime Minister, you talked about American, European, and Italian
values. There are some criticisms toward American values. These American
values have created 18 million new jobs in the last years. How many of
these are you willing to learn to create new jobs in Italy and in
Europe, if any?
Mr. President, the problem with Italian public opinion is a little
bit more widespread than just the crisis, the accident, that happened
yesterday. We have a crisis on trade, and Italy somehow feels to be a
target within the U.S. So what can you say to reassure Italians, and
what actions are you going to take? Because the public opinion is rather
upset, not just for that, but for the fact that Italian products are
constantly, constantly, whenever there is a trade war, on target. And on
other issues like the Security Council, the U.S. is against the Italian
position, while Italy seems to be having a position very much in sync on
G-8 and NATO position with the U.S. What do you say to that? What do you
say to the public opinion? What will you do?
Prime Minister D'Alema. It is not the first time that I have
expressed great interest for the dynamic nature of the American society
and economy. I think that when exchanging views and ideas and
suggestions it is certainly useful for Europe to learn some lessons
from--some important lessons--from the experience of the United States.
And more specifically, I think that one of the features that
impressed me most is their speed in terms of innovation, the ability to
innovate, and the amount of investment in education. Last night I was
talking about this with the Secretary of Education of the United States.
And I think that, undoubtedly, this is a strategic issue. The speed of
innovation, the investment in human capital certainly are strategic
options. And these are some of the things--there are other things, as
well--that we are interested in, in the American experience. And Europe,
which has a more rigid, heavier, less dynamic system--and so does
Italy--must learn from them.
The President. If I might just say I will answer the question you
asked me, but I would like to also comment on the question you asked the
Prime Minister. The great struggle every serious country faces is how to
reap the benefits of the astonishing revolution in technology and the
globalization of the economy, and to minimize the disruptions so that
you can have some sort of stable family and community life.
Now, what we had to do when I took office was to get rid of this
terrible deficit we had, which kept interest rates high for us and too
high for you and was taking too much money out of the global economy,
and to focus on some areas where we really needed to do better with our
own economy. And it is true that we are blessed in this country with a
very dynamic system. Of the 18.1 million new jobs we've had, almost 17
million of them were created in the private sector; they were non-
governmental jobs. An enormous percentage of them were created in small
businesses.
But I wouldn't say that you have nothing to look to within Italy. I
told the Prime Minister, when I was a Governor, I came to Italy 10 years
ago to study the economic organizations of small businesses in Northern
Italy that grew out of the medieval artisans' guilds. And I think--and
they are quite flexible; they have individual business owners working
together to market their products, to develop new products, to advertise
their products. There are all kinds of exciting options which will be
job-creating if you can figure out how to multiply them.
And what we are trying to do in America, now--by strengthening our
family leave law, by strengthening our child care support system, by
moving people from welfare to work, but making sure they keep the health
care for their children--is to get the benefits of having a social
contract that recognizes the need for families and communities to get
support, and the benefits of the dynamic economy.
You're coming at it from a different direction. What you need to do
is to keep as many of the benefits of the social contract as you can but
to make the economy as dynamic as possible, because you know that you
have a country full of intelligent, innovative people who could generate
more jobs than they're generating.
But understand that this is the dilemma that every single country is
facing from some perspective or another. And no one has all the answers.
And what I would hope that the people
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of Italy will give the Prime Minister the ability to do is to try some
new ideas to support him in admitting that no one has solved this
problem perfectly, and that we should want responsible leaders to have
serious thoughts about new ideas and to try them out without having
someone try to derail every effort that they make. I think he deserves
some support in addressing this issue, because for any of us to pretend
that we either shouldn't address it or have all the answers, I think
both approaches would be quite wrong.
Now, let me just say a word on the trade issue. First of all, the
specific issue you mentioned must feel strange to Italy, since the
Italians have not really been at the forefront of this decade-long
dispute between the EU and the United States over the banana issue. It's
not really about bananas; it's about rules.
I'm trying now--right now--to get the United States, through the
authority of the Congress, to take the lead in further market-opening
measures. I have done my best to keep our markets open during this very
difficult period for the Asian economy and for much of the Latin
American economy. We had a record trade deficit last year. I thought
that, except for where I thought our laws were being violated, like in
steel--where we were having steel dumped--I felt that we should try to
do that, that that should be our contribution, because we were doing
well, and we ought to try to help these countries as much as we could.
But we cannot maintain an open trading system, which I am convinced
is essential for global prosperity, unless we also have rules that are
abided by. Twice--just twice since I've been President, we've won this
case in the EU. I think we've won it 4 times over the last 10 years. It
has gone on--somehow the rules have to work. That's what this is about.
And since it's the EU--I had nothing to do, by the way, with drawing
up the details of what would be in the package of countervailing tariffs
or duties. But I think our Trade Ambassador's office must have felt that
since it was an EU dispute, there had to be some--we couldn't just pick
out countries and play favorites in that way.
But I regret this very much. And we still have time to fix this. We
can still fix this and it can be avoided, and I hope very much we will,
in the next few weeks, get a resolution of this. But it's been going on
10 years. And we lose cases in the WTO all the time, and we just take a
deep breath and face the fact that we lost. It happens. Now, so I would
say to the people of Italy, don't--it's not a unilateral issue.
Now, on the--you asked me about the United Nations. Let me just
say--I can't--there are very few countries in the world, in the years
that I've been President, who have shown more consistent leadership,
even through a successive change of governments, than Italy. For us,
it's a critical country in so many ways. And I was delighted that the
Prime Minister would come here today. I would do anything I could to
increase the responsibility and reach of Italy.
The United States has had a long-standing policy in favor of
expanding the Security Council to include Japan and Germany, largely
because of the size of their economies and their influence and their
importance for that reason. And we have been--we have recognized that
there are countries in the developing world that believe they should
have more permanent membership. So we have been for an expansion in the
size of the Security Council, generally, to guarantee certain continents
and regions a permanent position.
The position we have taken should not be viewed as an anti-Italian
position. We've tried to calculate how many people can you have on the
Security Council and still have it function. That's basically where
we've been. I'm not obsessed with any--there is no magic number. But
what we're trying to do is not to hold back anyone but to keep the
Security Council as a functioning body. But I doubt very seriously that
there's another leader of any other country in the world that has a
higher opinion of the international responsibility and capacity of the
Italian Government and the Italian people than I do, after having
observed it for 6 years.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President's 170th news conference began at 5:15 p.m. in the
East Room at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to former
Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Minister of Defense Carlo Scognamiglio
of Italy; President Jacques Chiraq of France; court-martial subjects
Capt. Richard J. Ashby, USMC, and Capt. Joseph P. Schweitzer, USMC;
President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(Serbia and Montenegro); and Monica S. Lewinsky, subject of Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr's expanded investigation. The President
[[Page 321]]
also referred to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Prime Minister
D'Alema spoke in Italian, and his remarks were translated by an
interpreter. In his remarks, the Prime Minister referred to Prime
Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom.