</p>
Bill misstates Hillary's tale of Bosnia
WASHINGTON (AP) - April 11, 2008 In Indiana on Thursday, Bill Clinton defended his wife's mistake
in claiming that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia, accusing
the media of treating her like "she'd robbed a bank" for
confusing the facts.
The New York senator had repeatedly described a harrowing scene
in Tuzla, Bosnia, in which she and her daughter, Chelsea, had to
run for cover as soon as they landed for a visit in 1996. Video
footage of the day instead showed a peaceful reception in which an
8-year-old girl greeted the first lady.
Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that she got the facts wrong in
retelling the tale. Bill Clinton's inaccuracies don't involve
long-ago memories, but misstatements about how his wife has handled
the story.
THE SPIN:
"A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has
amused me," Bill Clinton said in Boonville, Ind. "But there was a
lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she
was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what
happened to her in Bosnia in 1995.
"Did y'all see all that? Oh, they blew it up," the former
president continued. "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 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," he said. "And I think she
was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a
combat zone. And you would of thought, you know, that she'd robbed
a bank the way they all carried on about this. And some of them
when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11
o'clock at night, too."
THE FACTS:
Bill Clinton has many of the facts wrong.
His wife didn't make the sniper fire claim "one time late at
night when she was exhausted." She actually told the story several
times, including during prepared remarks on foreign policy
delivered the morning of March 17.
It's also not true that she "immediately apologized for it."
Clinton has never apologized for the comments and only acknowledged
that she "misspoke" a week after the March 17 speech when video
of her peaceful tarmac reception emerged.
It's also not true that she was the "first first lady since
Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone" - a claim that Hillary
Clinton has also made when talking about the trip. Pat Nixon
traveled to Saigon during the Vietnam war and Barbara Bush went to
Saudi Arabia two months before the launching of Desert Storm.
The trip also was not in 1995, but 1996.
Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded to the former
president's remarks Friday by saying, "Senator Clinton appreciates
her husband standing up for her, but this was her mistake and she
takes responsibility for it."
She's also told her husband to quit talking about it.
"Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You
weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am,"' Bill
Clinton, who was in Indiana campaigning for his wife Friday, told
reporters.
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By Nedra Pickler
