[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 49 (Monday, December 11, 1995)]
[Pages 2105-2108]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's News Conference With Prime Minister John Bruton of 
Ireland in Dublin

December 1, 1995

    Prime Minister Bruton. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. President: I'd like 
to welcome you warmly to Ireland, to thank you for all that you have 
done to help bring peace to our country, to thank you for all that you 
are continuing to do to bring the people that live on this island closer 
together and to improve the relations that exist between this island and 
its neighbors.
    I'm delighted that it was possible for the British Prime Minister, 
John Major, to whom I pay tribute here, and myself to agree on a 
framework for moving forward towards a settlement of the differences 
that have existed on this island for 300 years now. And the fact that we 
were able to do that on the eve of your visit is no accident. Because we 
both realized, both John Major and I, that the sort of support that you 
have been able to give, yesterday and today, to the people of this 
island searching for peace, searching for reconciliation, searching to 
heal the wounds that have been there for so long, and looking positively 
to the future, we both appreciate it that your support gives them 
encouragement, gives us encouragement, and is something for which we 
from the bottom of our hearts sincerely thank you, Mr. President.
    The President. Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by thanking 
the Prime Minister for his warm welcome and more importantly, I want to 
say a special word of thanks to all of the people of Ireland and the 
people of Northern Ireland who have shown such extraordinary warmth and 
generosity to Hillary and me and now our American delegation.
    This has been an extraordinary experience for us, and I will never 
forget it. I thank the Prime Minister for what he said, but the truth is 
that the credit for this latest progress belongs to the Taoiseach and to 
Prime Minister Major. They announced this twin-track initiative to 
advance the peace process of Northern Ireland shortly before I arrived 
here. It gives the parties a chance to engage in an honest dialog where 
all their views are represented and everybody's voice can be

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heard. And I certainly hope that it will be successful.
    Let me also say, as you know, it establishes a means to address the 
issue of decommissioning, and I am gratified that my good friend Senator 
George Mitchell is going to lead the international body to deal with 
that issue. He is seizing this opportunity already. He has begun to 
organize the effort with other members, and I expect him to be at work 
shortly.
    Let me again say, I know that I speak for all Americans who want 
peace and ultimate reconciliation on this island when I say that the 
Taoiseach has shown great courage in the pursuit of peace, and we intend 
to do whatever we can to help him, Prime Minister Major, Mr. Spring, and 
all others who are working for peace to succeed.
    The United States is honored to stand with those who take risks for 
peace, and we are doing it all across the world, in the Middle East, in 
Bosnia, and here. It is a difficult road to travel. It is always easier 
to stay in the known way and to play on the known fears. But the right 
thing to do is to do what is being done here, and I applaud it, and I 
want to do everything I can to support it.
    Let me also say that we had the opportunity to discuss the situation 
in Bosnia, and I described as best I could the terms of the peace 
agreement and what we intend to do in the United States with our allies 
to implement it in a military way and what nonmilitary tasks have to be 
undertaken. I am very hopeful that after the peace agreement is signed 
in Paris in just a couple of weeks, we will see a dramatic change in 
that war-torn land.
    Let me say that the kind of thing that the international community 
is going to have to do in Bosnia is consistent with what Ireland has 
done every day for nearly 40 years now. Irish peacekeepers have helped 
people to live in peace from Cyprus to Somalia, to feed the hungry, to 
do so much that most people in the world don't even know that the people 
of Ireland have done. And again, I want to say on behalf of the American 
people, I am very, very grateful for that.
    So we had a good meeting, we've got a wonderful relationship, the 
Sun is shining, and I hope it's a good omen for peace in Northern 
Ireland.
    Thank you.

Irish Peace Process

    Q. The impasse has been broken at the moment, but the roadblock is 
still there. Senator Mitchell's committee is going to start its work. If 
at the end of the day the deadlock is still there, is your Government, 
your administration prepared to act as persuaders to get to all-party 
talks without preconditions?
    The President. Well, first of all, let me say I think we ought to 
give these folks a chance to succeed. We shouldn't be talking about ``if 
at the end of the day.'' The Prime Minister of Great Britain and the 
Taoiseach have announced, I think, a brilliant formulation which permits 
people to go forward in dealing with all of these issues without giving 
up any of the things they say they believe in and have to have.
    I think we ought to give this process a chance to succeed. If it 
fails, then we'll reconnoiter and see what to do next. But I think the 
lesson of the last 15 months is that the people like peace, they like 
the absence of violence, and they want to go forward, not backward. They 
want to deal with the issues that are still before them. So, I'm 
inclined to believe it will succeed. If it doesn't, then you can ask me 
that question.
    Q. What has your visit done, in concrete terms, to change the way 
the United States will engage with the peace process? How has it 
affected where you go from here?
    The President. I don't know that the visit has done anything to 
change, in concrete terms, the way we are engaged, except I believe that 
since we have quite a large number of Members of Congress here and quite 
a large number of business people here and quite a large contingent of 
people in the news media here, all seeing what is going on in Northern 
Ireland, I think it will deepen the support of the American people for 
our constructive involvement, and it might well intensify the pace at 
which people in the private sector are willing to make investments and 
try to bring the economic benefits of peace to the people there. But we 
are committed, we have been committed, and we're

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going to stay committed. And we'll be there until the work is finished.
    Prime Minister Bruton. Now an American journalist.

Balkan Peace Process

    Q. Mr. President, back home Republicans in Congress are expressing 
concern about snipers and bombs and ethnic hatreds that American forces 
are going to face in Bosnia. When you go to Germany tomorrow, what will 
you tell the American troops about the dangers they face, and have you 
heard any estimates about the casualties that they might suffer?
    The President. Well, first of all, the American troops that have 
trained to go to Bosnia know every bit as much about the dangers they 
might face as I do. What I will tell them is that it is not a risk-free 
mission. Indeed, being in the military is not risk-free. We lose a 
significant number of our finest young people every year just in the 
training exercises because of the inherent danger of moving around and 
doing the things that they do in the air, on the land, and at sea.
    I will tell them that we have done everything we can to minimize the 
risks, we have guaranteed for them very robust rules of engagement so 
that if anyone attempts to interfere with their mission or to take 
action against them, they can respond with decisive, indeed, with 
overwhelming force, and that their peace and their security, their 
safety is uppermost in my mind and in the mind of their general officers 
who have done all the planning for this mission, but that this is a 
mission very much in America's interest where we can make a huge 
difference and stop the worst slaughter in Europe since World War II, 
and that I'm very proud of them for doing it.
    Q. Mr. President, are you escalating the U.S. involvement in Bosnia 
even before we go there? Suddenly, 20,000 troops have become 25,000 and 
the cost has gone from 1.5 billion to 3 billion.
    The President. No. Well, first of all, I don't think it's going to 
be at 3 billion but we--the numbers keep getting bandied around here. 
Some people who count the money in Europe would be double-counting it. 
Some of this money is going to be spent anyway. I don't think we should 
count as a cost of the operation in Bosnia, for example, the salary of 
someone who's going to get paid their salary whether they're there or 
not.
    The 25,000, let me say--well, I have always said we would have 
20,000 people in the theater. We have been asked how many people are 
necessary to support them. And we will have--we'll have another roughly 
5,000 people outside of Bosnia in support of those who are in Bosnia, 
but they will not be in the Bosnian theater. There may be some extra 
costs associated with them that are sizeable enough, and they ought to 
be included in the bill that we tell Congress we expect to pay here.
    But if you look at it, again I will say, this is an appropriate 
level of contribution. This is no more than a third--may wind up being 
considerably less than a third of the total contribution, depending on 
how many other nations participate. You heard the British Prime Minister 
say 2 days ago that he expected that Great Britain, a country with a 
population of roughly--well, less than a fourth of ours, is going to 
send 13,000 troops to the theater. So the Europeans are going to take 
the major load, and we should support them.

Irish Peace Process

    Q. It seems that this historic trip by President Clinton to Ireland 
has facilitated an agreement between yourself and John Major. Is that 
not ominous for the future of the peace process if it takes President 
Clinton's arrival to produce that level of movement forward? When we get 
to the really serious negotiations, won't it be more difficult?
    Prime Minister Bruton. I think the ingredients for the agreement 
have been there for quite some time. But I think it is the case that we 
both recognized that the President's visit to Britain and Ireland was an 
opportunity for both of us to launch in the best possible circumstances 
an initiative which we were probably going to have to agree anyway very 
shortly. But we were able to do it on the eve of President Clinton's 
visit in such a fashion as to ensure that his presence here has given it 
the fairest possible wind.

[[Page 2108]]

Balkan Peace Process

    Q. Mr. Prime Minister, why is it necessary for the United States for 
the third time in this century to send troops to Europe? Why aren't the 
Europeans capable, in your opinion, of resolving these kinds of problems 
in Bosnia by themselves?
    Prime Minister Bruton. I think it's important to recognize that if 
you have genocide of the kind that was occurring in Bosnia, that's not 
just a European problem; that's a problem for the world at large. It's a 
problem for the common civilization which we all share. It's a common 
problem for all of us who have democratic values, democratic values 
which stem in Europe chiefly from the inspiration of the American War of 
Independence and the United States Declaration of Independence. Those 
values are universal, and therefore there is a universal responsibility, 
in my view, for all of us to do whatever we can in proportion to our 
means to facilitate the making of peace.
    It is very important also to stress that the role that the United 
States, the European Union, and others have played in Bosnia is one of 
facilitating peacemaking. The peace is not being made by the United 
States, no more than it is being made by the European Union. The peace 
in Bosnia is being made by the people of Bosnia themselves. And that is 
the same situation in this country. We provide a framework. They must do 
the deal.
    The President. And I just want to mention one other thing, too. I 
want you to think about these points: Number one, at the end of World 
War II, we established NATO, recognizing that we would try to stay 
together dealing with common security concerns. Admittedly, at the time, 
we thought those concerns might play themselves out in Central Europe in 
the contest between what was then the Soviet Union and the Western bloc, 
the NATO bloc. But we understood that we had shared concerns that would 
manifest themselves first on the Continent of Europe but could become 
much more immediate for us.
    Now, the NATO powers have voted among themselves to work with others 
through the United Nations and on our own in brokering this peace 
agreement and trying to implement it. This is consistent with what we 
have done since World War II.
    The second thing I'd like to ask every American is how you would 
have felt--I would like to ask every American how would you have felt 
when President Bush sent out the call for help in Desert Storm, which 
was a war, not a peacekeeping measure, if they said, ``You handle that. 
You have more money, more soldiers, more interests there. You're 
concerned about the oil. You waste more oil than the rest of us do. You 
guys handle that''? Or think about all the countries that helped us in 
Haiti who didn't say, ``I'm sorry. That's not our problem. That's your 
problem. You have the refugees in the United States. We don't have them. 
They're on your shore. They're your problem. We can't be bothered with 
that.'' But instead, we have had dozens of countries rally to the United 
States to work with us in common cause when their values were violated 
by things that were of more immediate concern to us. That's what they 
did in Desert Storm. That's what they did in Haiti.
    And I will say, every day, every day for almost 40 years, there has 
been a citizen of Ireland in some distant country working for 
peacekeeping in places where the United States did not go. And they did 
not ask, ``What is the immediate interest of the people of Ireland in 
doing that?''
    So I think the United States has been very well-served by countries 
that have been willing to stand up with us, to stand up for good things 
and right things that also affect our interest. And I believe we should 
do this now.
    Prime Minister Bruton. Thank you. We must respect the timetable. I'm 
sorry. Thank you very much, indeed. Thank you.

Note: The President's 108th news conference began at 1:20 p.m. on the 
steps of the Government Buildings. This item was not received in time 
for publication in the appropriate issue.