My Life, by Bill Clinton: on Homeland Security
Bill Clinton:
Proposed more funding for terrorism defense
I asked for funds to guard computer networks against terrorists, and to protect communities from chemical and biological attacks and to reverse the decline in military spending that had begun at the end of the Cold War.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.843
Jun 21, 2004
Bill Clinton:
2000: Warned Bush that biggest problem was Al Qaeda & Osama
President-elect Bush came to the White House for the same meeting I had had with his father 8 years earlier. We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican
administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last 8 years, I thought his biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the
absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear powers in India and Pakistan; and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden,
that we still might achieve an agreement in the Middle East, and that we had almost tied up a deal with North Korea to end its missile program.He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.935
Jun 21, 2004
George W. Bush:
2000: Warned by Clinton that problem was Al Qaeda, not Iraq
President-elect Bush came to the White House for the same meeting I had had with his father 8 years earlier. We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican
administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last 8 years, I thought his biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the
absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear powers in India and Pakistan; and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden,
that we still might achieve an agreement in the Middle East, and that we had almost tied up a deal with North Korea to end its missile program.He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.935
Jun 21, 2004
Rahm Emanuel:
U.S. citizen but served in Israeli army
In 1991, we also persuaded another young Chicagoan, Rahm Emanuel, to join our campaign. Rahm had worked with Wilhelm in the successful campaigns of Mayor Richard Daley and Senator Paul Simon. He was a slight, intense ma who had studied ballet and,
though an American citizen, had served in the Israeli army. Rahm was so aggressive he made me look laid-back. We made him finance director, a job in which an underfunded campaign needs an aggressor.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.376-377
Jun 21, 2004
Sam Nunn:
1992: Honor military culture; no gays in military
In early 1992 I met to discuss gays in the military with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Senators Sam Nunn and Robert Byrd. Nunn, while opposed to my position, had agreed to the six-month delay.
Some of my staffers were upset with him for his early and forceful opposition, but I wasn't; after all, he was personally conservative, and as chairman of the committee, he honored the military culture and saw it as his duty to protect it.
He was not alone.Senator Byrd took a harder line than Nunn. He believed homosexuality was a sin; said he would never let his grandson, whom he adored,
join a military that admitted gays; and asserted that one reason the Roman Empire fell was the acceptance of pervasive homosexual conduct in the Roman legions from Julius Caesar on down.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.484
Jun 21, 2004
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019