

	     


			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                             April 15, 1994     

	     
		      STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
				   
	     
			  The Roosevelt Room 



11:51 A.M. EDT


	     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 
advisors, 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.
	     
	     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.
	     
	     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.  Is there -- 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 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.  
	     
	     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.
	     
	     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 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 
five 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.

				 END12:10 P.M. EDT

