Experience
101 Clinton - How She "Opened the Borders
of Kosovo"
1996 Clinton Bosnia Trip (CBS News)
Hillary Clinton's 1996 trip to Bosnia is
at the center of a dispute over her statements that her plane
came under sniper fire. This report by Sharyl Attkisson makes no
mention of dangerous conditions. (CBSNews.com)
During her
speech at George Washington University on March 17th 2008,
Hillary Clinton described the dangers she faced during her trip
to Bosnia, where she was met with immediate sniper fire and
forced to race to safety. Video footage of her arrival there in
1996 clearly shows how harrowing this experience was for the
former first lady.
Not content to
"let sleeping dogs lie", Bill Clinton has once again
brought Hillary's phony Bosnia claims to the forefront by
repeatedly lying about the circumstances of both the trip and
Hillary's multiple references to it, just as she was beginning
to put the "misstatement" behind her. He claims she
mentioned it only "once" despite repeated references
documented by news crews. He also claimed she'd made the single
reference at 11 pm when she was exhausted - even though the
comments were actually made in morning speeches.
Hillary Clinton
actually made the exaggerated comments numerous times, including
at an event in Dubuque, Iowa on Dec. 29th, in Waco, TX on Feb.
29th, and twice -- bright and early in the morning -- on March
17.
CBS News producer
Ryan Corsaro, who covers Senator Clinton, reports she made the
claim in mid-morning on St. Patrick’s Day. Bill Clinton also
said the trip was in 1995 when, in fact, it was 1996.
CBS also has aired
videotape of the senator making the claim on at least two other
occasions. The Eleanor
Roosevelt claim also has been questioned, since Pat Nixon
traveled to Vietnam in 1969.
Sen. Clinton did not
apologize, as Mr. Clinton asserted. His wife did say she had
made a mistake and said that she had misspoken when describing
the Bosnia incident.
Sen. Clinton also
wasn't as quick with her apology as President Clinton may
remember either. In fact, it took a week for her to eventually
correct herself, first talking to the Philadelphia Inquirer
editorial board on March 24 and again the following day in
Greensboro, N.C.
President Clinton
then later in the evening told the story again in Jasper, Ind.,
saying the press was treating his wife like the Mata Hari.
"She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days
because she was exhausted at 11 o'clock at night and she started
talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under
which she landed in Bosnia. Did you all see all that?
And oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari - like she
was making up all this stuff."
During his
"official conversation" with Clinton, Bosnian
President Egupt Ganic also recalls receiving "an impression
that she had an agenda for her own advancement".
... and later
Clinton's Pilot in Bosnia Tells His Side of the Story
In 1996, Retired Colonel William "Goose" Changose
flew Hillary Clinton to Bosnia. He says he performed no evasive manuevers
during landing, and that there were "no bullets flying around."
Colonel Hunt Says Clinton Lied
Former Colonel David Hunt, who was
in Bosnia when Hillary Clinton visited the country, says she lied about her trip
there, and that candidates should not embellish their experiences.
Last night (Mar. 26, 2008), Hillary Clinton was interviewed
by Greta Van Susteren on Fox
News.
More on Clinton's Bosnia Trip
This video by an Obama supporter, contrasts Hillary Clinton's comments last
week about her Bosnia trip with newsclips from the 1990s reporting on her trip.
The pictures seem to tell a different story.
From the Fact Check Desk:
Former President Bill Clinton's Defense of His Wife's Bosnia Sniper-Fire
Story
April 10, 2008 9:35 PM
Former President Bill Clinton offered this bit of revisionist history
of his wife's Bosnia story in Jasper, Ind., today, one riddled with a
veritable sniper fire of errors -- ones necessitating footnotes.
Watch the former President's misstatement-riddled explanation for his
wife HERE.
"She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days," he
said, per
ABC News' Sarah Amos, "because she was exhausted at 11
o'clock at night (1) and she started talking about Bosnia and she
misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. (2)
"Did you all see all that? And oh, they acted like she was
practically Mata Hari," he said -- referring to the
Dutch exotic dancer accused by the French of spying for the
Germans and executed by a firing squad during World War I -- "like
she was making up all this stuff.
"And then the president of Bosnia said, 'Well, it was quite
dangerous when she came, there were snipers in the hills all around,' (3)
And then Gen. Wes Clarke, who was there trying to make the peace among the
Bosnians, said 'Yeah, it was dangerous, let me remind you three of the
Americans who were on my peace-keeping team were killed because they had
to take a dangerous road 'cause they couldn't go the regular way.'
"And she had to go up into the cockpit with our daughter, in a
bullet-proof area, and all the other people had to sit on their
bullet-proof flak jackets (4) because it was dangerous. So she
immediately (5) said 'OK, I misremembered that, they didn't cancel the
welcoming ceremony, but it was pretty dangerous.' "
In Boonville, Ind., also today, he told a different version, saying his
wife, "one time late at night (1) when she was exhausted, she
misstated and immediately (5) apologized (6) for it, what happened to her
in Bosnia in 1995. (7) Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up. Let me
just tell you.
"The president of Bosnia and Gen. Wesley Clark -- who was there
making peace where we'd lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a
dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular,
safe way -- both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane
landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane,
in the front. Everybody else had to put their flak jackets underneath the
seat (4) in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were
covered by Apache helicopters.
"So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony. Now I say that
because what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in
our troops. And I think she was the first First Lady since Eleanor
Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. (8) And you woulda thought, you know,
that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this."
(1) Her most glaringly wrong telling of the tale, on March
17, 2008, was in the morning.
(2) She actually told versions of the story several times. (And none was
at night.)
(3) In an e-mail to journalist
Eric Jansson, former acting Bosnian president Ejup Ganic
said "we didn't expect snipers," though, "we still
believed that some positions on the hills were occupied by radical
Serbs, so I was worried about the overall safety."
(4) Not
according to the pilot Colonel William "Goose" Changose (Ret.),
who said, "nobody under my watch has ever directed anyone to sit on
their flak jackets. ... We do not direct people to sit on their flak
jackets."
(5) It wasn't immediate at all -- it was 11 days later, first in an editorial
board meeting with the Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia
Daily News, then later in a press availability.
(6) She never apologized.
(7) It was 1996, not 1995.
(8) He qualified it with "I think," but then-first
lady Pat Nixon went to a combat zone in Saigon, Vietnam, in July 1969.
- ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper, April
10, 2008
In a March 5 interview on CNN, Clinton said that she "negotiated
open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo."
Clinton is referring to her May 14, 1999, trip to Macedonia, which
shares a border with Kosovo. According to her Web
site, Clinton "traveled to the international border on the edge
of the war zone" before meeting with Macedonia’s president and
prime minister.
We note, first, that Clinton’s claim that the refugee camp was
"on the edge of a war zone" gives an exaggerated picture of
the risk involved. Traveling to the Kosovo border was more dangerous
than remaining in Washington, and the trip did involve some risk. But
Clinton did not land in the middle of an active combat zone, and the
risks that she did take were not exceptional: Prior visitors to the
refugee camp included Richard Gere and Bianca Jagger. For that matter,
much of the "war" in Kosovo consisted of NATO airstrikes
against the Yugoslav troops who had forced thousands of ethnic Albanians
to flee Kosovo, and the nearest NATO ground troops were deployed in
Albania, more than 100 miles away from Clinton.
More significantly, Clinton did not in fact "negotiate on matters
such as opening borders for refugees during the war in Kosovo."
Macedonia had reopened its border to Kosovar refugees the
day before Clinton’s arrival, as has been widely reported. Clinton now
says that she pressed for opening the borders "much
wider." In a written statement that the Clinton campaign has
circulated widely, Holbrooke, the Clinton administration’s chief
negotiator on peace in the Balkans, says that there is "no
doubt" that Hillary Clinton's actions saved lives.
So how much "pressing" did Clinton actually do? According to
her official travel schedule, Clinton was in Macedonia for less than
nine hours, nearly half of which she spent touring refugee camps.
Clinton was scheduled for photo ops with the prime minister at the
residence of the U.S. ambassador at 2:20 p.m. At 2:50 p.m., she had a
photo session with Macedonia’s president at his residence, followed by
a 3:20 photo op with the first lady. That would leave a total of 30
minutes for negotiations, minus time for photos. Indeed, at the time,
the New York Times reported that Clinton’s trip was so
scripted that "Administration officials chose which refugees Mrs.
Clinton would speak with." News reports on Clinton's own Web site
characterize the first lady's visit as "sweeping through
Macedonia" offering "publicity" and "aid."
