'The West Has A Lot To Answer For In Iraq'

Remarks made at the Labor Party Conference in Blackpool, England, on Wednesday, Oct.3, 2002

Bill ClintonI am trying to imagine what in the world I am doing here. I have never been to Blackpool before, I had neverbeen to the McDonald's in Blackpool before. I like the city, I like the weather, and I understand I may havebrought it; if so I will take credit for any good thing I can these days. I accepted when Prime Minister Blairasked me to come because he and Cherie are old friends, because I love this country and feel deeply indebtedto it. It gave me two of the best years of my life and I think my daughter is getting two of the best years ofher life here as well. (Applause).

I am sort of getting used to being the spouse of an election official instead of one, but it is flatteringwhen someone who no longer has a shred of power is asked what he thinks, so I thought I would show up and sayit. It is also fun to be in a place where our crowd is still in office and I am glad to be here. (Applause).But the real reason I came here today is because politics matters. It matters to the people whom yourepresent, and because we live in an interdependent world and what you do here matters to all of us across theglobe.

I have just come here from a trip to Africa which provided me with all kinds of fresh evidence of theimportance of politics. I spent a week working on issues that are central to the mission I follow now that Iam no longer in office and to the future of Africa; increasing economic opportunity for the continent's poor,fighting HIV and AIDS, building bridges of reconciliation between races, tribes and religions, supportingstill new democracies. Time and again I was reminded of the importance of politics to the lives of ordinarypeople.

(I visited) Ghana where a new president is working with a great Peruvian economist, Hernando De Soto, tobring the assets of poor people -- their houses, farms, businesses -- into the legal system so they can becollateral for loans and they can grow their own families' incomes and the nation's income. I met a womanthere who gave me a shirt made in a factory of 400 Ghanaians that came into being because of the trade bill Isigned in 2000 in Nigeria, where decades of corruption and poverty amidst all that oil wealth had led some ofthe states in desperation to adopt Shariya law, under which a young mother of three was recently sentenced todeath by stoning for bearing her last child out of wedlock -- and where I pled for her life.

(I also visited) Rwanda, where the government has established a reconciliation village and welcomed me withamazing evidence of new beginnings in the aftermath of the terrible genocide just eight years ago whichclaimed the lives of over 10 per cent of the country's population. I met a Tutsi widow in that village whosehusband died in the slaughter, standing right next to her neighbor, a Hutu woman whose husband is in prisonawaiting trial for participating in the slaughter. I saw Hutu and Tutsi children dancing together in aceremonial dance for me, for what the governor said was the very first time since 1994. These kids weresmiling again, they were young again, they were beginning to trust each other again because of a decision madeby the government to establish a village and to welcome them all to come and live together.

In Mozambique I saw the president, Mr. Chissano, who is struggling to fight AIDS, overcome the effects ofmassive flooding and build a modern economy. In South Africa I met with university students who are lookingpast all their problems with confidence towards a multi-racial democratic future. I saw President Mbekileading the continent to adopt Africa's very first home- grown economic plan called NEPAD: it is a third-waydocument because it calls on the developed world and Africa to work in genuine partnership and assume mutualresponsibilities; and I saw Nelson Mandela, 84 years young, still getting me to do things he wants me to do.(Applause)

On this particular day he got me involved in his effort to challenge young people to take personalresponsibility for reversing the AIDS epidemic through prevention and engaging in more citizen service. Sopolitics matters, and even if you are a former president there are some things that we can accomplish for thecommon good only through the common instrument of our elected officials.

It was a wonderful trip and I had such a good time, I asked one of my traveling companions to come with metoday, Kevin Spacey, who is over here. (Applause).

Since humanity came out of Africa eons ago, the whole history of our species has been marked by humanbeings' attempts to meet their needs and fulfill their hopes, confront their dangers and fears, through bothconflict and cooperation. We have come to define the meaning of our lives in relationship to other people. Wederive positive meanings through positive associations with our groups and we give ourselves importance alsoby negative reference to those who are not part of us. There has never been a person in any age, and I bet itapplies to everyone in this room, who has not said at least once in your life to yourself if not out loud,"Well, I may not be perfect but thank God I am not one of them." That has basically been the patternof life. But since people first came out of caves and clans, we have grown ever more steadily inter- dependentand wider and wider in our circle of relations. And that has required us constantly to redefine the notion ofwho was "us" and who is "them."

Yet the prospect for a truly global community of people working together in peace with sharedresponsibilities for a shared future was not institutionalized until a little less than 60 years ago with thecreation of the United Nations and the issuance of the universal declaration of human rights. Such a communitydid not even become a possibility until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

The history of civilization as we know it -- with writing and urban life -- is just a little over 6,000years old. Human beings have been on the planet, depending on how you read the evidence, somewhere between50,000 and 100,000 years. I say that to begin on a note of optimism. The world has a whole lot of problems,but we have not had a chance to bring it together for very long. You should be upbeat and grateful that yourparty is in power at a time that you have a chance to make all the difference in the world. (Applause).

So, here we are in this interdependent world of open borders, easy travel, mass migration, universal accessto information and technology, drenched in global media. I will just give you a stunning example that occurredto me on the way over here. When Kevin and I walked over to the hotel and got into our van to ride here, hiscellphone rang and two friends of ours were calling from Paris to say they had just watched us walk out of thehotel in Blackpool, and how nice we looked. So I said, "Well, it's a slow day for news in Paris,"but it is a good example of our interdependent world.

This world has brought great benefits to the British people and the American people and to peopleeverywhere who are prepared to make the most of it and have the right values, the right vision and do theright things. But there is a big problem with our interdependent world; it does not include a lot of us yet.

Half the world's people live on less than $2 a day, a million people live on less than a dollar a day,including people in three of the five nations I visited on my recent trip to Africa.

A billion people are hungry every night, a billion and a half people never have any clean water, 130million kids never go to school, 10 million children die every year of preventable childhood diseases, eventhough overall life expectancy is up and infant mortality down, even in the developing world.

One in four people this year who perish will die of AIDS, TB, malaria and infections related to diarrhea.And it is not just the economic, health and education divides; there are large numbers of people who simply donot have the values and vision necessary to be part of an interdependent world because they think theirdifferences -- whether they are religious or political or racial or tribal or ethnic -- are more importantthan our common humanity. They believe the truth they have justifies their imposition of that truth on otherpeople, even if it means the death of innocents.

What happened to us in September 2001, is a microcosmic but painful and powerful example of the fact thatwe live in an interdependent world that is not yet an integrated global community -- which means that peoplewho do not share the same values and vision and interests still have access to open borders, easy travel,technology and information that the al-Qaida network used to murder 3,100 people in the United States,including over several hundred Muslims and over 200 British citizens, among those from over 70 countries whoperished.

It would be boring if we were all the same. Britain and America are more interesting countries than theywere 30 years ago because they are more diverse. But the only way we can really live together is if we saythat the celebration of our differences requires us to say that our common humanity matters more. (Applause)

There are a lot of obstacles in the road towards that kind of world. There are terrorists, there aretyrants, there are weapons of mass destruction, there are all these people who are not part of our prosperity-- and there are a lot of people on our side who think that we can for ever claim for ourselves what we denyto others. There are a lot of obstacles in the way. But let us be realistic; none of you believe that we willever be completely defeated by terrorists. We will not allow ourselves to be defeated by tyrants with weaponsof mass destruction; that will not happen. But we could reduce the future that we can build for our childrenif we respond to the challenges in the wrong way.

Yes, we have to care for the security of our nation. This means, among other things, of course that we haveto fight terrorists. But we also have to build a world with more partners and fewer terrorists. Of course wehave to stand against weapons of mass destruction -- but if we can, we have to do it in the context ofbuilding the international institutions that in the end we will have to depend upon to guarantee the peace andsecurity of the world and the human rights of all people everywhere. (Applause).

You clapped when I made that comment about the United Nations and I am glad you did, but one of thechallenges we face today is that all the international institutions in which we place such hope are stillbecoming, they are still forming. We have only really had a chance to make them work for a little over adecade. The European Union is not what most people think -- and at least I hope -- it will be in five, 10 or20 years; it is becoming. The United Nations is not what I hope it will be in five, 10 or 20 years. There arestill people who vote in the United Nations based on the sort of old-fashioned national self-interest viewsthey held in the cold war or even long before, so that not every vote reflects the clear and present interestsof the world and the direction we are going.

I take it almost everybody in this room supports what Prime Minister Blair and I did in Kosovo. (Applause).It was a clear and present emergency; you had a million people being driven from their homes. But in the end,even though we had all the Muslim world for it and most of the developing nations for it, all of NATO for it,we could not get a U.N. resolution because of the historic ties of the Serbs to the Russians. So we went inanyway and as soon as the conflict was over, the Russians came in and did a very responsible job participatingwith the United States in an international U.N. peacekeeping environment. Why? Why did that happen? Becausethe U.N. is still becoming.

You also see the same thing when we, the United States, do not contribute in my view as much as we shouldto international institutions. (Applause) You know I have a difference in opinion with the Republicans aboutwhether we should be involved in the Kyoto protocol, the comprehensive test ban treaty, the internationalcriminal court, and all these things, but these things stand for something larger which is our largerobligation to create an integrated world. You cannot have an integrated world and have your say all the time.And America can lead the world towards that, but we cannot dominate and run the world in that direction. Thereis a big difference. (Applause)

So, having said that, do we want to strengthen these institutions? Yes. Why? Because they contribute to anintegrated global community. But if we cannot solve all the problems, what else do we do? One thing we know isthat whenever possible the outcome is likely to be better if Great Britain and the United States -- and if theUnited States and Europe -- are working together. We have half a century of evidence to support that.

I am profoundly grateful for the partnership that we enjoyed in the years when I served as president -- inBosnia, in Kosovo, in the Middle East, in Africa, in East Timor; in bringing China into the World TradeOrganization and the community of nations; in trying to build alliances with Russia between the United Statesand Europe; all of the things we did together for global debt relief, and a hundred other issues; whenever wewere working together the outcome was likely to be better.

I am profoundly grateful for Britain's involvement with the United States and with others in diplomaticefforts and where necessary in military ones. You were there when we turned back Slobodan Milosevic and thetide of ethnic cleansing which threatened every dream people had of a Europe united, democratic and at peacefor the first time in history.

You were there in 1991 when the United States and the global alliance turned back Saddam Hussein's invasionof Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein threw the weapons inspectors out in 1998 and we attacked Iraq, you were there.And when you were working towards peace in Northern Ireland, we were there. (Applause).

Whatever America did for Britain and Northern Ireland in the Irish peace process, you repaid 100 fold inthe aftermath of September 11. Prime Minister Blair's firm determined voice bolstered our own resolve, hiscalm and caring manner soothed our aching hearts; and the British people pierced our darkness with the lightof your friendship. In the aftermath of September 11th, we went to work against terror in a world rudelyawakened to its universal threat, and much more willing to support the actions necessary to prevail.

I still believe our most pressing security challenge is to finish the job against al Qaida and its leadersin Afghanistan and any other place that they might hide. I would support even committing war forces to that.We have only about half as many forces in Afghanistan today that we had in Bosnia after the conflict was overand we were keeping the peace. I applaud Britain's commitment to finish the job in not only the conflict butto winning the peace, to staying in Afghanistan with an international force and with the kind of supportnecessary to make sure that we do not have the disaster that occurred when the West walked away from them 20years ago. (Applause).

A few words about Iraq. I support the efforts of the prime minister and President Bush to get tougher withSaddam Hussein. I strongly support the prime minister's determination, if at all possible, to act through theUN. We need a strong new resolution calling for unrestricted inspections. The restrictions imposed in 1998 arenot acceptable and will not do the job. There should be a deadline and no lack of clarity about what Iraq mustdo. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime poses a threat to his people, his neighbors and the worldat large because of his biological and chemical weapons and his nuclear program. They admitted to vast storesof biological and chemical stocks in 1995. In 1998, as the prime minister's speech a few days ago made clear,even more were documented. But I think it is also important to remember that Britain and the United Statesmade real progress with our international allies through the U.N. with the inspection program in the 1990s.The inspectors discovered and destroyed far more weapons of mass destruction and constituent parts with theinspection program than were destroyed in the Gulf War -- far more -- including 40,000 chemical weapons,100,000 gallons of chemicals used to make weapons, 48 missiles, 30 armed warheads and a massive biologicalweapons facility equipped to produce anthrax and other bio-weapons. In other words, the inspections wereworking even when he was trying to thwart them.

In December of 1998, after the inspectors were kicked out, along with the support of Prime Minister Blairand the British military we launched Operation Desert Fox for four days. An air assault on those weapons ofmass destruction, the air defense and regime protection forces. This campaign had scores of targets andsuccessfully degraded both the conventional and non-conventional arsenal. It diminished Iraq's threat to theregion and it demonstrated the price to be paid for violating the Security Council's resolutions. It was theright thing to do, and it is one reason why I still believe we have to stay at this business until we get allthose biological and chemical weapons out of there.