CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Former President Clinton is Interviewed
Aired February 6, 2003 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, exclusive. Former President Bill Clinton here for the hour with lots to talk about: Iraq, the space shuttle tragedy, North Korea, his new foundation, AIDS and Black History Month. Even the Rolling Stones concert where he's going right from here. We're get all into it with the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton, next on LARRY KING LIVE.
We're fortunate to have Bill Clinton right here in Los Angeles with us. He's going to introduce the Rolling Stones tonight at a concert to benefit global warming and we'll get to that in a while.
But first thing's first. Mr. President, thank you very much for giving us the honor.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Glad to be here.
KING: OK. Iraq. You, I imagine, saw Colin Powell yesterday. Did he make a good case? What do you think?
CLINTON: Well, I think he made a good case. He always makes a good case. But the most important thing he said from the point of view from the United Nations is that we had intelligence and photographs which seemed to prove that Iraq was almost taking these chemical stocks, at least, out of the backdoor while the inspectors were going through the front door, that they were moving things.
And if that's true, it means Mr. Blix and his inspectors might never get to do the job that they were appointed to do. So I think that we need to listen to Blix, listen to the Secretary Powell and I still hope the United Nations can act together on this and I think there's still a chance we can.
And, you know, there's still a chance that Saddam Hussein will come to his senses and disarm.
KING: You support the president?
CLINTON: I think that he's doing the right thing now.
What I wanted him to do all along was go to the U.N. I think, you know, we've got three big security problems now.
We still haven't, for sure, eradicated bin Laden and also we're hearing the leadership of al Qaeda and they're still very active. And that's the most imminent problem.
And then we've got the North Korean problem we can talk about later, if you want. That's the biggest potential problem.
But Saddam Hussein, for 12 years, has defied the will of the United Nations and we contained him effectively, but I think it's fair to say that after what happened on September the 11th the will of the international community has stiffened, as represented by this last U.N. resolution which said, clearly, that the penalty for noncompliance is no longer sanctions. It can be your removal from office.
So, I -- my position all along has been one Senator Dole and I took here together on your show that we ought to let the U.N. do its work and I still believe that. But I think the fact that Colin Powell demonstrated persuasively that they're moving the weapons, or the weapon stocks in this case, which -- and it would be easier to move the much smaller quantities of anthrax or aphrotoxin (ph) or they may have a little smallpox. But we're pretty sure they've got a botulism (ph) and the chemical agents, VX and ricin.
KING: Does it look inevitable to you? I mean...
CLINTON: It's not inevitable. It still would be much better if this could be done without violence. But the man needs to get rid of his chemical and biological weapon stocks and...
KING: Did you see information when you were president that led you to think he was doing this?
CLINTON: Sure.
You know, in 1995, keep in mind we had information from two members of his family, two men who had married into his family that defected to Jordan. They gave us thee information and basically the Iraqis, said, OK, we were lying all of the time, here's what we really have. We went in and got that and destroyed it. Everything these guys knew about. Then they foolishly went back to Iraq and they were killed within a month of going back.
In 1998, when we and the British bombed for four days when we kicked the inspectors out, we degraded their capacity further, but there's no question they've had some time to rebuild.
Now based on the declarations they made in '99 and the estimates that were there in '91 at the end of the Gulf War, it's clear that the inspections destroyed more stuff than was destroyed in the Gulf War. but it's pretty clear there are still some things, substantial amounts of chemical and biological stocks unaccounted for.
KING: When you say up to the U.N. -- if -- would you demand another thing other than 1441 from the U.N. if you were sitting in still back in that chair?
CLINTON: Well, as a matter of international law, I don't think it's required. But what we're trying to do here is two things. We're trying to get rid of the chemical and biological storehouse in the hands of a tyrant because he might someday use them or give them away, and more importantly because international law, through the U.N. resolution, says he shouldn't have them.
The second thing we're trying to do is to build a global alliance for peace and freedom and security. So if we can do it with broad support within the U.N., it would be much better. Otherwise, there will always be some who believe that America acted alone. They will question our motives. They will use what we did as an excuse to attack other countries.
KING: But that would stop you from doing it, if you felt it was right.
CLINTON: I don't think it -- I don't think as a matter of law he has to go back. I think that -- not as a matter of American law and, in my view, not as a matter of international law. I think, as a matter of international politics, because we really are trying to build a global cooperation of nations.
If we can get, based on this evidence, and letting the inspectors do a little more work if we can get an agreement with the French and the Germans and the others who are skeptical and who think that we've been too eager to do this all along, that would be better and it might give us a chance to resolve this peacefully. I think the greatest victory of all would be is if Saddam Hussein saw the whole world arrayed against him and thought, you know, they jig was up and he either had to...
KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
CLINTON: ...exit or give up the stuff.
KING: Colin Powell was your chairman of the Joint Chiefs. What -- how do assess him as secretary of state?
CLINTON: I think he's done a good job.
I think, you know, as you might imagine, no two people agree on all policies. I think he's been loyal to President Bush.
He went -- we were in Davos, I came there right after he did at the world economic forum. And he gave a very tough speech and a lot of the Europeans thought too tough and I said, Well, he did a good job. He was supposed to be loyal to his president. That's what he hired on to do. And I think he's been loyal to the administration but I think he's been pushing more than, say, Secretary Rumsfeld or the vice president and some others for international cooperation.
Colin Powell is trying to build a new era of international cooperation along with getting rid of these weapons of mass destruction.
KING: It ain't easy. CLINTON: And it's not easy. But I -- and so I think he's doing a good job.
KING: You mentioned North Korea. How serious is this?
CLINTON: I think it's very serious.
First of all, let's make sure the people listening to us understand what exactly has happened. North Korea is a poor country with about 17 million people and about a million and a half or a million seven in the army. Over a million of them very close to Seoul, South Korea.
They know they can't win a war in the end, but they could do a lot of damage. They can't grow their own food. It's the most isolated society in the world. When their soldiers defect sometimes they weigh less than 100 pounds. Their only cash crops are bombs and missiles. They're great at it. They're really good at bombs and missiles. But they know they can't use them except to sell them because they need money.
China, for example, long a sponsor of North Korea, now does 10 times as much trade with South Korea as North Korea. So nobody in the region wants them to have the weapons. The main reason they had weapons or missiles was either to sell them or to be paid not to sell them and to be recognized as important. Their objectives are to survive with food and energy and not to go the way of East Germany. They don't want to go away.
So, in '94, we found out they would have the plutonium power planks and you can take the spent plutonium rods, after you generate electricity, and still have enough to make a lot bombs. We had a tough time with them, but we got them to end that program and they kept it ended until apparently today they started again. They would have 100 hundred weapons if we hadn't done that.
And then in '98 we got them to stop testing long-range missiles and in 2000 we nearly got them to end the missile program. It turns out they had this smaller laboratory program to develop a nuclear bomb with enriched uranium.
KING: So what do you do?
CLINTON: So what we should do, in my opinion, is get their neighbors, first of all, beginning with the South Koreans, and then the Japanese ,who tried to make up with them. The prime minister of Japan took a very courageous and controversial trip to North Korea. And the Chinese and the Russians and get them all together and say, Look, here's the deal. We'll make an omnibus agreement if you'll end both nuclear programs, let testing in so you can't start any thing again, end the missile program, something that they had not agreed to do. And we'll make sure you got enough food and energy. We'll teach you how to grow food and we'll give you a non-aggression pact. They want this non-aggression pact, I think that's a no-brainer. Why? Because if we ever had to attack it would be because they did some thing that violated the non-aggression pact. KING: Right.
CLINTON: So, I think that the diplomatic course is right -- the president and the administration has said that they want to handle it diplomatically. But I think you have to firm in public and absolutely brutal in private. You cannot let them become a nuclear arsenal, because the pressure on them to sell these bombs will be overwhelming. They have no other way to make money.
KING: And who do they sell them to?
CLINTON: Well, you tell me.
I mean, you know, we found some missiles they were selling to Yemen not very long ago and put the president in a terrible bind because the Yemenis had helped us get the people that blew up the USS Cole shortly before I left office.
But this can be handled diplomatically as long as there -- we should not take the threat off the table and we shouldn't think we're bribing them if we get something we didn't have before. We can't pay them twice for the same thing. But if we can make a comprehensive settlement that says, Here's the way you can be part of the East Asian community. Here's the way you can be part of the world community. And here's what you have to do. That's what I think we ought to do.
CLINTON: Well, if you read the Rodman-Hart Report, it's a bipartisan report and a good one. Or you just talk to anybody in a major city, it's obvious that we have a lot to do to better protect our ports, our tunnels, our bridges, our water supplies, our power plants, just to start there.
And after September the 11th, there were repeated attempts in the Congress to get more money to do those things. That's a big part of Homeland Security and to get more direct support for first responders, fire and police.
Instead, was there opposition to this in the Congress and from the administration to getting a lot of this money, most of the money. And now they're proposing even to get rid of the program that we started to put more police on the street, which I think is a mistake especially when just basic crime is going up again.
So it's just a place where we disagree. I'd rather see -- I don't think that you and I should be getting a tax cut, Larry. I think they should take that money and guarantee more police and more fire protection and do this other stuff. And they got something left over, they can send kids to college.
KING: What do you make of the alerts we're under? The Yellows and the Greens and the -- what do you do in the cases?
CLINTON: I don't think there's much for us to do, but what happens -- to be fair to the government, they're in a pickle. If they don't issue the alert and something happens, then they cover up.
If they do issue the a and people don't have anything to do they feel like they're being jerked around. It's a difficult thing for the government.
If the alert is a possible terrorist attack, then at least, you know, people can look around. You'd be amazed how many things are foiled almost, not by accident, but just by alertness.
There were, for all of the terrible things we suffered when I was president -- Oklahoma City, the first World Trade Center bombing -- there were lots and lots of things, an attack on the Lincoln Tunnel, attack on the Holland Tunnel and attack at the Los Angeles airport....
KING: That were stopped?
CLINTON: ... that were stopped. Planned bombings in cities in the Northeast, the Northwest over the millennium.
KING: Really?
CLINTON: Yes, that were stopped by vigorous law enforcement and working with citizens and sometimes somebody picked up a tip.
So I think that the government's in a difficult position because they know when they give these alerts they may scare people and there's nothing quite they can do and they don't really want them to stay off airplanes or anything like that.
But if they don't give the alert and something happens then they'll always wonder might somebody have picked it up?
KING: So you agree with your wife's critique?
CLINTON: On the spending, I do. I think we should be spending more on Homeland Security. I think that the Iraq issue, as I've told you, is serious. And I think -- so far, I have supported all these steps to work through the U.N., but to get tougher, but it is by no means, or in my view, the most serious security problem facing the country.
KING: Al Qaeda still... CLINTON: I think al Qaeda is No. 1. I still believe that. And I still believe over the long run having North Korea making nuclear bombs and big missiles with nothing to do, but sell them, knowing that if they'll use them they'll be incinerated...
KING: What do you do with desperates everywhere when you're the only super power?
CLINTON: Well, I think first of all, you can't unseat them all. And you have to have either -- if they don't do anything to you, you have to have some authority under the U.N. to do something because otherwise you create a bad precedence.
Suppose a writer I respect, Robert Kaplan wrote a book recently called "Warrior Politics" in which he says that people don't cooperate unless you make them. So Bill Clinton did the right thing in Bosnia and Kosovo, but he should have done more of it sooner.
And he basically argues that -- I would imagine, therefore, he thinks what we're doing in Iraq's all right and if we had to it by ourselves it would be fine.
We could do it easily enough. Militarily it's not a problem. The problem with that is that the biggest security threats we face are not necessarily from other governments, but from terror cells and in an open society an action can produce a reaction...
KING: That cell could be in Syracuse.
CLINTON: That's correct. And what we need to do, therefore, is to be, in my view, we need to be aggressive, but we need to do it by building international cooperation as much as possible. Even if we have to slow down, and there's some things we can do.
You don't do everything in life you can just because you can. Nobody does.
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