Perot Lashes Out at Clinton and His Haiti Invasion Policy

Ross Perot said Saturday that President Clinton has “no concept at all of what combat is like” and suggested that the President threatened to invade Haiti to win crime bill votes from black members of Congress.

Continuing a pointed attack he launched Friday night in Denver, Perot also told a St. Louis rally that Clinton was inclined to invade Haiti because “history teaches us that you get a bump in the polls if you have a little war.”

Perot urged members of his United We Stand, America, Inc. organization to write Congress to oppose any military action to restore democracy in Haiti, saying history had proven that residents of the island nation prefer dictators and that, in any event, the country was not worth a single American life.

But he said he believed that Clinton was hellbent on restoring deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide without getting advance approval from Congress.

“Unfortunately, we have a President who was unwilling to serve in the armed forces and risk his life when he was a young man,” Perot said. “I think in his case he has an enormous obligation to go to Congress and get their approval.”

Perot offered no documentation to back up his suggestion that Clinton promised an invasion to win votes for the recently passed crime bill from the Congressional Black Caucus, saying only that he had heard that was the case.

“They are not Dixie cups,” he said of U.S. military personnel. “They are not to be used for political purposes, and they are not to be used to trade votes, and they are not to be used to get a bump in the polls.”

In addition to citing Clinton’s lack of military service, Perot said mistakes during the military mission in Somalia “shows that this Administration has no concept at all of what combat is all about.”

While Perot’s goal was to rally his backers for the coming elections, he left the unmistakable impression he was still fighting the last fight--over the North American Free Trade Agreement--and hardly ready to concede defeat.

Clinton’s NAFTA victory was a major setback for Perot, who had put his political prestige on the line in vowing to defeat the pact. Now, with government data suggesting it is benefiting the United States as well as Canada and Mexico, Perot had a simple retort for the Administration: “I am sick and tired of you lying to the American people.”

He said jobs were rushing across the border to Mexico and that Canada was getting a much better deal too. “The giant sucking sound is alive and well,” he said, reviving a familiar campaign slogan.