[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 15 (Monday, April 18, 1994)]
[Pages 815-817]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the American Helicopter Tragedy in Iraq and an Exchange With 
Reporters

April 15, 1994

    The President. Hello. The people here from Louisiana and Texas are 
here primarily for health care, and I apologize for the delay. But I met 
for an hour and a half this morning with my national security team about 
a variety of issues, but I wanted to say in particular a word of update 
about the terrible tragedy in Iraq yesterday.
    After I met yesterday with my national security advisers, I spoke 
with Prime Minister Major and with President Mitterrand, expressed my 
condolences for the losses of French and British citizens, and assured 
them of what I can now reassure you about, which is that we've put 
together an investigative team which is now on the site and is working. 
We will move as quickly as possible to do a thorough and complete 
investigation and then to put out all the facts.
    In a couple of hours, an hour or so, the Secretary of Defense and 
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be having a briefing at 
the Pentagon to discuss this further and to answer further questions. 
But we are going to stay on top of this, work through it, and make a 
full report to the American people.
    If there are any other questions--perhaps we could take some 
questions on foreign policy or any other national issues for a while, 
and then we'll come back to the health care questioning.

Iraq

    Q. Sir, in light of that shooting down, should the peacekeeping 
mission in Iraq continue?
    The President. Oh, I think so. I very definitely think so. Keep in 
mind these people--the tragedy of this is that both sets of planes, the 
two helicopters and the two planes were there trying to save the lives 
of the Kurds. And I think it has performed a very valuable function, not 
only in saving the lives of the Kurds but in permitting them to continue 
to live in northern Iraq and relieving Turkey of a very serious 
potential refugee problem.
    There is no question in my mind that it has been a very successful 
and a very important mission. The Secretary of Defense implied yesterday 
and said again today that we would obviously, in the course of this 
investigation, be reviewing all the tactical issues involved. But our 
policy is sound, and I believe it should continue.

Bosnia

    Q. In Bosnia, sir, there's another issue of peacekeeping. You have 
recent events by the Bosnian Serbs' actions that have been taken against 
U.N. peacekeepers and military observers. You yesterday made a statement 
you've been sending a message to them. But apparently, that message has 
not been getting across. Why is that, would you say? And is there a 
chance that there could be a stalemate emerging?
    The President. Well, I think that some friction was predictable when 
the policy began. But let me remind you that since the

[[Page 816]]

United Nations has taken a more vigorous approach and asked NATO to be 
available, in fact, to provide close air support and created a safe zone 
around Sarajevo, substantial progress has been made. After a long time 
when virtually no progress was made, we've had relative peace in the 
Sarajevo area; we've had the agreement between the Croats and the 
Muslims which is holding.
    We had some friction as a result of the last round of very modest 
air strikes as a result of the shelling of Gorazde which put United 
Nations personnel at risk. I think that what I have to do, again, is to 
clarify if there is any real doubt that the United States has no 
interest in having NATO become involved in this war and trying to gain 
some advantage for one side over the other.
    But I think we must maintain an absolutely firm support of the U.N. 
policy. We can't have our U.N. personnel there vulnerable to shelling 
and to attack with no one there to defend them. The United Nations does 
not wish to become involved in changing the military balance.
    Finally, I would say the most important thing is for the parties to 
get back to the negotiations. And I, again, want to say that Mr. Churkin 
from Russia is working hard on this. Our Ambassador, Mr. Redman, is 
there working. The United Nations is working. So I'd say our position is 
to be firm but not provocative and not trying to change the military 
balance. We need to get the negotiations back on track.
    But remember, this policy has produced a lot of progress, after a 
prolonged period in which there was a lot of bloodshed and no progress. 
And I think if the Serbs will consider what the reality is, they will 
see that they have a lot more to gain from negotiations than from 
provocation. We should just be firm and work through this.

Iraq

    Q. Mr. President, you say the investigation is continuing in Iraq. 
Do you have, however, any preliminary estimates of what caused this 
incident?
    The President. No, sir, I don't, really. Like every other interested 
American--I think almost all our people are interested in this, I 
suppose--I have asked a lot of questions, and I've been able to ask a 
lot of those questions. But I think it would be a real disservice to the 
process for us to jump the gun. I don't want to mislead the American 
people. I don't want to say something that might later be proved wrong. 
We will conduct a thorough and vigorous investigation, and we will do 
our best to get all of the evidence out to you. But I don't want to make 
a preliminary judgment.

Peacekeeping Operations

    Q. Mr. President, right now on your desk, you have the Presidential 
directive dealing with peacekeeping. We understand that it's very close 
to completion, if not virtually completed. And it raises a lot of the 
things that have been happening this week--are touching on the issue of 
peacekeeping. Our understanding is, there are going to be tougher 
criteria for getting involved in peacekeeping activities. Is that the 
case? And could that mean that there would be fewer peacekeeping 
ventures?
    The President. Well, keep in the mind, the United Nations decides 
which peacekeeping ventures it will get involved in. And then we have to 
decide which ones in which we will become involved.
    There are several issues here. And if I might, let me just outline 
some of them. Some of them relate to the management of the peacekeeping 
operations rather than particular decisions. The United States has long 
favored tighter financial controls and oversight. And we have urged the 
appointment of an inspector general at the United Nations publicly. We 
have also felt that our overall contribution to the peacekeeping cost 
was higher than it should have been and considerably higher than our 
world's share of annual income. So we have asked for some--we will seek 
some change of that. We also want to be very clear about the standards 
for our involvement in peacekeeping operations.
    Now, having said that, I met with a bipartisan committee of 
congressional leaders yesterday morning and urged them to support our 
peacekeeping budget this year because we have a sensible way of avoiding 
dropping behind again in our obligations dividing the responsibilities 
between the Defense and State Department. And I asked Congress to

[[Page 817]]

help me pay the arrears that we owe to the United Nations in 
peacekeeping. Even our own forces who went to Somalia can't be fully 
reimbursed in large measure because the United States owes more debt to 
the peacekeeping fund than any other country.
    So I believe being involved with other nations in peacekeeping is a 
good way of burden sharing. After all, we only have--I think fewer than 
one percent of the forces involved in peacekeeping in the world now are 
American forces. We have about 5 percent of the world's population. We 
have less than one percent of the world's forces involved in 
peacekeeping.
    So while we pay a little more than I think we should, our commitment 
in terms of manpower is less than our population would appear to warrant 
and certainly than our military capacity would. So we have been 
advantaged by multinational peacekeeping, and I will support it. I do 
think we need to have higher standards, and that will be in my directive 
when it comes out.
    Q. Sir, when do you sign the----
    The President. I'm not sure. We're working--we're very close. We've 
been working on it for a long time as you noted.

Note: The President spoke at 11:51 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Ambassador Charles Redman, 
U.S. Special Envoy for the Former Yugoslavia. A tape was not available 
for verification of the content of these remarks.