[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 42 (Monday, October 25, 1993)]
[Pages 2096-2102]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Radio Reporters

 October 18, 1993

    The President. First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming 
today and for offering all of us this opportunity to have a conversation 
with the radio listeners around the country and beyond.
    I thought I would open just by saying that I have sent a letter this 
afternoon to Senator Mitchell in the Senate about some potential 
amendments to the defense appropriation bill and one actual amendment 
dealing with Bosnia, Haiti, and the whole command and control apparatus 
of our military as it relates to cooperation with other countries in 
peacekeeping and other endeavors. That amendment has actually been 
introduced.
    The letter essentially says that I oppose the amendment that affects 
the way our military people do their business, working with NATO and 
other military allies. I think it unduly gets into the details of the 
command and control operations of the military, which I think is an 
error, and that I would oppose any amendments with regard to Haiti and 
Bosnia that were of questionable constitutionality and unduly restricted 
the ability of the President to make foreign policy, and outlines some 
of my concerns.
    In Haiti, my concerns are that there should be no restrictions that 
would undermine the ability of the President to protect the Americans on 
Haiti, that would aggravate the likeli- 

[[Page 2097]]

hood of another mass exodus of Haitians, or that would send a green 
light to the people who think they've got the best of both worlds: they 
got the sanctions lifted, and then they broke their word on the 
Governors Island Agreement.
    With regard to Bosnia, the amendment simply points out that the 
United States has very strong NATO allies and that there were strict 
conditions that I have put on any kind of cooperation in Bosnia with 
NATO to enforce a peace agreement and that I think most Members of 
Congress agree with those conditions, but I don't think we should have 
an amendment which would tie the President's hands and make us unable to 
fulfill our NATO commitments, thus raising all kinds of questions about 
the long-term relationship of the United States to Europe.
    So that's what the letter says. There is only one amendment so far 
that has been offered, and we are discussing with various Members of 
Congress other proposed amendments. We'll just have to see what happens. 
But I thought I ought to say clearly today that I would strenuously 
oppose such attempts to encroach on the President's foreign policy 
powers.
    Now we can go to the questions. Mark [Mark Knoller, CBS News].

Haiti

    Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Your opening statement raises the 
question of whether the United States would be willing to use military 
force for the purpose of removing the military leadership from Haiti and 
reinstalling President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power.
    The President. Let me tell you what I have done today on Haiti, 
first of all. I just signed the Executive order freezing the assets of 
any people who are supporting the military and police leaders who have 
continued to fight the resumption of democracy and who are responsible 
for the bad things that have happened down there in the last few days. I 
have also, with the authorization of the Haitian government, directed 
our ships in the area to move closer to the shore so they will be in 
plain sight. And that has been done today.
    I think we should continue to work with President Aristide and with 
Prime Minister Malval. They want to go back to the sanctions. Remember, 
once the sanctions were tough, and they included oil, they produced the 
Governors Island Agreement. And what happened is that people who have an 
economic stranglehold on Haiti got what they wanted with Aristide's 
request, that is, lifting the sanctions. They got the amnesty that 
Aristide promised, they thought he would never give. And then, when time 
came for them to deliver what they agreed to do, they didn't do it.
    So I think the appropriate position for us to take at this time is 
to go back to those sanctions and make them as tough as possible and 
enforce them as completely as possible. And that is what the Prime 
Minister wants us to do and what President Aristide has asked us to do. 
I think it would be an error for me to discuss what further steps might 
or might not be taken. After all, we do have--I'll say again, we have 
1,000 Americans there, and we have another 9,000 people with dual 
citizenship, and we'd have no way of knowing what will or won't happen.
    But what the Haitians want is for the conditions of legitimacy to be 
maintained and restored. That is, the Haitian people have expressed 
their desires; two-thirds of them voted for President Aristide. And in 
terms of the questions that have been raised again in recent days about 
whether he could or could not govern the country, that's why he worked 
so hard with our support to get Mr. Malval, who plainly can run the 
government, as one of the ablest people in the nation to be the Prime 
Minister so they'd have the kind of partnership that would work. So I 
feel comfortable that they are capable of working with their friends and 
allies in the area to bring about a more democratic and a more 
prosperous Haiti if given the chance.

Health Care Reform

    Q. Mr. President, economists are expressing some concern of late 
about your health care reform plan and about whether it might grow 
considerably larger than you envision. What assurances can you give the 
American public that it either will not grow out of control or that the 
need for universal health care

[[Page 2098]]

is worth it ballooning to the size of, say, Medicare and Medicaid, which 
are 10 times larger than originally predicted?
    The President. First of all, let me say that it's not a Government 
program. The Government will only insure the unemployed uninsured. Two-
thirds of the funding for this program will come from employers and the 
employees who don't presently contribute anything to the American health 
care system.
    Secondly, where have these economists been for the last 15 years? I 
mean, the American health care system is already 40 percent more 
expensive than any other one in the world and the only advanced health 
care system in the world that can't seem to figure out how to provide 
coverage to everybody while spending 40 percent more than anybody else 
spends.
    The budget we just passed in this Government has Medicare and 
Medicaid going up at 3 times the rate of inflation. We proposed to 
reduce that in our bill. We have also ceilings on how much health care 
expenditures can increase in any given year if the competition doesn't 
cut the costs.
    Now, if you look around the country at the places which have tried 
serious efforts at managed competition, including bringing the Medicaid 
program into a competitive arena, there's every indication that the rate 
of increase will slow down and that it will work. But the economists, 
they seem to want it all ways. They criticize me on the one hand for 
having a ceiling on how much costs could increase in any given year and 
then saying we don't have any guarantees, if you take it off they won't 
increase more. And it is difficult to imagine how we could design a 
system that would have costs more out of control than the one we have. I 
mean, the reason we have so much support here from employers in heavy 
industry, for example, who already cover their employees is that they're 
being killed by the cost increases.
    The system we have is irresponsible and out of control financially, 
and doesn't provide health care security to Americans. So we think there 
are plenty of protections built in to slow the rate of increase in 
costs. In fact, if anything, I think we've been certainly realistic and 
then some, in estimating how fast we can slow costs down. That is, even 
under our plan, it is estimated that the percent of our income going to 
health care will go from about 14.5 to about 18 by the end of the 
decade, and that if we just stay with the system we've got, which is the 
alternative--in all these things, you've got to ask what's the 
alternative--we'll go from 14.5 to 19 to 20 by the end of the decade. We 
have allowed and budgeted for significant increased expenses in health 
care.

Republican Criticism

    Q. Mr. President, in the past week or so you and your foreign policy 
team have come in for some pretty blistering criticism, especially from 
a group of prominent Republicans. Richard Lugar, Dick Cheney, Dan 
Quayle, James Baker, and Robert Dole have all been very, very critical 
of your foreign policy. And some members of your administration have 
suggested that's politically motivated, these people might be running 
for President. What do you make of it, and how do you react to those 
criticisms?
    The President. I think you can monitor their travel schedules and 
statements as well as I can. I don't have anything to say about that. 
I'm going to do my job as best I can. I'm going to try to support a 
bipartisan approach to foreign policy. I'm going to try to involve 
Republicans and Democrats in the process of consultation and getting as 
good advice as I can all the way along. And I think that you have to 
expect that when things go very well, as they did with Russia and the 
Middle East, people will say you're doing fine, and if difficulties 
arise, then some will say that you didn't do fine. So I just don't want 
to get into the politics of it.
    If you want to talk about any specific policy in any specific 
country, I'll do my best to answer that. But I think it serves no useful 
purpose for me to engage any of them in this sort of debate. Whatever 
the political motivations are, I have a contract that runs for a 
specific amount of time. I'm going to do the very best I can during that 
time, and then when the time is up the American people can make their 
own judgments. I haven't even been President a year. I don't have any 
interest in starting a political debate now.

[[Page 2099]]

Administration Goals

    Q. Even though it's been less than a year, Mr. President, it's been 
a very ambitious Presidency with a lot of projects you've taken on 
yourself, health care reform, reinventing Government, national service, 
things you inherited like Somalia, Haiti in a way, NAFTA. Is there ever 
coming a point, is there now a point that you just have to say, enough 
is enough for now, the plate is too full, we have to resolve some of 
these things before we get on with other things?
    The President. Oh, sure. And we have taken that position. I mean, 
first of all, if you go back to the budget, we kept the budget front and 
center until that was resolved. And it plainly has worked rather well. 
Long-term interest rates are still below 6 percent. The budget did some 
remarkable things. It dramatically broadened the availability of college 
loans to students, and it has the most significant piece of tax reform 
for working families in 20 years by increasing the earned-income tax 
credit, so that all working families on modest incomes with children 
will know they'll be lifted above the Federal poverty lines. That's a 
lot to accomplish in a year right there.
    The national service bill passed, and very well, and of course, a 
number of other pieces of legislation have. And now, what we're going to 
focus on between now and the end of the year is making as much headway 
as we can on the first round of reinventing Government cuts, on the 
crime bill, on the political reform initiatives that some of which have 
passed the Senate already, the campaign finance reform and lobby reform 
bill, and on getting the health care bill heard and setting schedules 
there so we'll know that it will be reviewed along with all other ideas 
in a prompt and timely fashion, and we'll be able to see as we wind up 
here a process which unfolds next year and brings us to a date-certain 
vote.
    But we do have a lot going. We probably had more done this year than 
in any given first year in a long time, and there's still a lot more to 
do. For example, we started our welfare reform task force hearings 
around the country, but I don't intend to offer any legislation on that 
until next year. And there will be a lot of other things that will come 
up as we go along next year. We want, for example, to change the whole 
unemployment system, as you know, to a reemployment system. We don't 
think that will be offered until next year, to give the American people 
a system of lifetime education and training.
    I do hope that we can pass as many bills as possible this year. I 
was heartened by the fact that the House passed our education reform 
bill, the Goals 2000 bill, with such a big bipartisan majority last 
week, which made me think we could probably pass that bill completely 
before the Congress goes home the end of the year.

Russia

    Q. Mr. President, it's coming up on 2 years since the end of the 
Soviet Union and the declaration by the remaining states to call 
themselves democracies or create democracies. Secretary Christopher is 
headed over there. Can you tell us what the objective of his trip is? 
Will he be looking to set up a summit meeting?
    The President. Well, there is a possibility, of course, that 
President Yeltsin and I will meet again early next year; I have to go to 
Europe to the NATO summit. But primarily, what he wants to do is to 
convey the continuing support of the United States for democracy and 
reform in Russia, to urge the Yeltsin administration on in their efforts 
to complete the timetable to get a new constitution and to have 
legislative elections and to restore completely the conditions of 
democracy in Russia, and to review the progress on the Russian aid 
package, both the ones, the two passed by the United States Congress 
here with strong bipartisan support and the international package that 
came out of the G-7 summit. And so he'll be doing all those things. And 
I'm sure they'll review some of the difficulties in that part of the 
world, too. President Yeltsin also has his share of foreign policy 
problems that he can't fully solve. But we'll talk about that. We're 
interested very much in some of those things. Especially we'd like to 
see the last Russian troops withdrawn from Latvia and Estonia, as they 
have been from Lithuania.

Haiti

    Q. Mr. President, if we could return to the Haiti issue for just a 
moment. Senator

[[Page 2100]]

Dole said he didn't think it was worth any American lives to restore 
President Aristide. You indicated you didn't want to go too far into 
options. But are there conditions beyond, say, a direct physical threat 
to the U.S. Embassy compound in Port-au-Prince under which you would 
consider committing U.S. troops to Haiti? For example, attacks or 
killings of foreigners, a flow of refugees, or maybe just threats 
against foreigners? Are there any conditions for sending U.S. troops?
    The President. I just think at this time it's better for me not to 
rule in or out options. Keep in mind, the Haitian Government, as we 
speak, has not asked for that and does not want that. And keep in mind 
that the sanctions did work once before to get this agreement, which was 
not honored perhaps because we raised the sanctions, we lifted the 
sanctions.
    But let me remind you that the circumstances of this need to be 
focused on. Haiti is very much in our backyard. The people wanted 
democracy. There is the continuing issue of whether there would be 
another exodus of Haitians trying to come to the United States, 
something which I think is not in their interest or ours but is 
something that the present conditions could make more likely. And we do 
have those Americans there.
    So what I want to do today is to encourage Prime Minister Malval and 
the brave people who are in his government and the good people of Haiti 
who plainly want democracy and are being pushed around by the only guys 
in town with guns, which I regret very much. But we are trying to 
preserve the legitimacy of democracy there.
    Now, the truth is, as you know, there are people in this country, in 
the press, and in the Congress and elsewhere, who, notwithstanding the 
vote of the Haitian people, basically have never felt very strongly 
about returning Aristide anyway and have questioned his fitness to be 
President. You can do that with the winner of any election. But all I 
can tell you is that I would just like to observe just a couple of 
things. Number one is, unlike his adversaries, President Aristide has 
done everything he said he would do under the Governors Island 
Agreement, including giving them amnesty. And secondly, recognizing his 
lack of experience in politics and business, he reached out to a man 
like Malval, who's plainly one of the ablest people in the country and 
clearly a very stable and reassuring figure, asking him to run the 
government. So I feel that we should support the democratic movement in 
Haiti. And I think that the steps we're taking now are the appropriate 
ones.

Assistant Attorney General Nominee

    Q. Mr. President, have you decided on a nominee for the position of 
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights?
    The President. I don't want to give you an evasive answer, but let 
me tell you what happened. We had, weeks ago, a nominee who declined the 
position for personal reasons. And the Justice Department was asked, the 
Attorney General specifically was asked, to make another recommendation. 
I believe that she has a recommendation for me which I have not yet 
formally received. But I am not positive of that, but I believe so.

Gun Control Legislation

    Q. Mr. President, I'd like to ask you about a subject that you've 
brought up in a number of your remarks lately. You've been discussing 
the issue of gun control, firearms violence, the extremely high cost of 
health care related to firearm injuries. Senator Chafee of Rhode Island 
has once again introduced legislation which is pending in the Judiciary 
Committee now which would ban the sale, manufacture, possession, 
importation, or exportation of all handguns with exceptions for law 
enforcement, military, and licensed target clubs. You've talked about 
your support for the Brady bill and for a ban on assault weapons. How 
would you feel about Senator Chafee's bill, which I understand Dr. 
Sullivan, former HHS Secretary, is testifying on tomorrow?
    The President. Well, I have to read it, but I think it might go a 
little far if it bans all handguns, just because I think that there is a 
lot of evidence that Americans have used handguns responsibly for 
sporting purposes, that they're not all used as weapons for committing 
crimes or killing people. I do believe, however--and let me say first--
secondly, as a practical matter, I have not yet been able to get 
Congress to vote on the crime bill,

[[Page 2101]]

including the Brady bill and the vote to ban a comprehensive list of 
assault weapons.
    I also know that I heard that Senator Kohl has an amendment, which I 
would encourage, which would make national the ban on ownership or 
possession of handguns by minors unless with their parents or another 
supervising adult in an appropriate setting, which might be the way to 
go on the issue that Senator Chafee is concerned about. Nonetheless, I 
hold him in the highest regard. He's, I think, an extremely responsible 
person, and I welcome the hearings on his legislation. But I would have 
a little problem with a total ban on handguns. I would have a problem 
with that based on what my understanding of the situation is.
    Again, we ought to focus on the Brady bill, the assault weapons ban, 
and banning possession by minors right now. Since I have been working on 
this in the last several months, one of the multitude of statistics 
that's made the biggest impression on me is the one that we were told a 
couple of weeks ago, that now someone shot in a criminal encounter is 3 
times more likely to die from a gunshot wound because they're likely to 
have nearly three bullets in them, as opposed to only 15 years ago. That 
is a huge statistical change. And of course, as I pointed out, these 
wounds and the homicides put an enormous financial burden on this 
country, on the medical system, on the criminal justice system.
    But mostly, it's an incredible human problem. We've got 90,000 
people in the last 4 years murdered in America, most of them by 
gunshots. That's more in any single year than were ever lost in a single 
year in the war in Vietnam. I think the time has come to do something 
about this. And I'm hopeful that both Houses of Congress will act on the 
crime bill and on the assault weapons bill before the end of the year. I 
hate to keep coming back to this, but right now I don't know that we 
have the votes to pass the assault weapons ban in the Congress. And I 
hope we can get the votes to do that and to pass the limitation on 
minors and possession or ownership of handguns. I think if we push those 
now in the Brady bill, then the Congress could really make a dent on the 
exposure of Americans to lethal violence.

War Powers Resolution

    Q. Mr. President, could I go back to your comments about the use of 
American military force and your discussions with Congress? Would you 
oppose, would you veto legislation which contained an amendment 
requiring you to ask and get the consent of Congress before you use 
troops in Haiti or Bosnia? And how far do you think the congressional 
role in the war powers area goes?
    The President. Well, let me say, my letter says that I want to 
resist and that I urge the Senate not to vote for things which unduly 
infringe on the President's power, and certainly not things that are of 
questionable constitutionality. Before I express an opinion about a 
veto, I need to see a specific piece of legislation. And there are still 
discussions going on about the questions of Haiti and Bosnia. The whole 
issue of the War Powers Resolution and the role of Congress and the role 
of the President obviously has been the subject of virtually nonstop 
debate in America for the last several years, for all kinds of obvious 
reasons. Sometimes Congress has acted or attempted to act to restrict 
the President's authority under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and 
sometimes they have.
    All I can tell you is that I think I have a big responsibility to 
try to appropriately consult with Members of Congress in both parties--
whenever we are in the process of making a decision which might lead to 
the use of force. I believe that. But I think that, clearly, the 
Constitution leaves the President, for good and sufficient reasons, the 
ultimate decisionmaking authority. And I think to cut off that authority 
in advance of it being made without all the circumstances and facts 
there before us is an error and could really lead to weakening our 
relationships with a lot of our allies and encouraging the very kind of 
conduct we want to discourage in the world.
    I understand what's going on here, and it's all perfectly 
predictable, given any reading of American history and perfectly 
understandable, given the aversion that Americans have always had to 
seeing any of our young people die when the existence of our country was 
not immediately at stake. And the President should be very circumspect 
and very careful in committing the welfare and the

[[Page 2102]]

lives of even our All-Volunteer Army. We need to have a clear American 
interest there, and there needs to be clearly-defined conditions of 
involvement, and the burden is on the President to provide those. But 
still the President must make the ultimate decision, and I think it's a 
mistake to cut those decisions off in advance.

Advice From Previous Administrations

    Q. Final question. Thank you, Mr. President. In the past week or so, 
President Bush himself and, as we've already discussed here today, some 
members of his foreign policy team have criticized your foreign policy 
team. I'm curious about the promise that has been reported that 
President Bush made to you. And it's also been reported in at least one 
commentary, that there was an implied promise from your side to go easy 
on any revelations about the so-called Iraqgate scandal. What can you 
tell us about your discussions with Mr. Bush on this?
    The President. Well, first of all, with regard to the Iraqgate 
issue, there was no promise expressed or implied. There was no 
discussion about that between me and President Bush. I believe he said 
publicly that he would not have anything negative to say about the 
administration for a year at least, that he thought we were entitled to 
that.
    And again, I just don't want to get into this. This is a free 
country, people have free speech, they can say whatever they want to 
say. I think you will agree. And maybe I've been wrong to do it, but I 
have been pretty careful about focusing on the problems we have in the 
future and not trying to spend a lot of time establishing partisan blame 
for the past. I said that in my State of the Union speech. I said it in 
the health care speech. I said it repeatedly. What's past is past. I'm 
doing the best I can with the issues that I faced when I came here. If 
the time comes in the future when I have to engage in a debate with any 
of those folks about who-did-what-when, I'll do my best to have that 
kind of a debate. But I just don't think--it doesn't get us very far. 
And I would hope that if they have a constructive suggestion to make 
about what America should do, I would be more than happy to take it. I'm 
not ashamed to ask for advice from anybody, Republicans or Democrats. 
I've called every living former President, I've called former 
Secretaries of State, I've called those that agreed and disagreed. As 
you know, Secretary Shultz thought that the previous administration 
should have done more in Bosnia, thought that we should. I mean, there 
are people who have--Secretary Kissinger thought just the reverse. I 
mean, this is a new and difficult and uncertain time. But if they have 
anything to say about what they think we ought to do, I'll be glad to 
listen, and I'd just ask that it be constructive when they do it.
    Q. I'm told by your aides that we're out of time. On behalf of the 
radio networks, we thank you, and we hope we can make this a regular 
thing.
    The President. I would like to do it on a regular basis. I'm a big 
radio listener, you know. Except if we did it enough, we could even have 
Top 10 countdowns in the middle and stuff. [Laughter]
    Q. We accept the challenge.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 3:40 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House.