STEPHANOPOULOS: President Clinton has said, has suggested that you urged him to intervene in Rwanda in 1994.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that true?
CLINTON: It is. It is true. And, you know, I believe that our government failed. We obviously didn't have a lot of good options. It moved very quickly. It was a difficult, terrible genocide to try to get our arms around and to do something to try to stem or prevent. It didn't happen, and that is something that the president has apologized for, and I think that for me, it was one of the most poignant and difficult experiences, when I met with Rwandan refugees in Kampala, Uganda, shortly after the genocide ended, and I personally apologized to women whose arms had been hacked off, who had seen their husbands and their children murdered before their very eyes and were at the bottom of piles of bodies.
And then when I was able to go to Rwanda and be part of expressing our deep regrets, because we didn't speak out adequately enough, and we certainly didn't take action.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You called President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan an unreliable ally. Should he step down?
CLINTON: I'm not calling for him to step down. I'm calling for him, number one, to agree with an independent investigation of Benazir Bhutto's death. I am calling on him to hold free and fair elections with independent monitors. I believe that it will take a little time to get that ready, because Benazir's party will have to choose a successor leader...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So we don't need the elections on the 8th?
CLINTON: Well, I think it will be very difficult to have a real election. You know, Nawaz Sharif has said he's not going to compete. The PPP is in disarray with Benazir's assassination. He could be the only person on the ballot. I don't think that's a real election.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Are we getting to the point, as the United States faced back in 1979, when we stood behind a leader who doesn't have the trust of his people, for too long?
CLINTON: Well, that's very possible. We don't know. We know that there is a very strong, pro-democracy, anti-Musharraf movement.
You know, when you have people demonstrating in the streets who are wearing coats and ties, you know, those are the people we should be standing with, the civil society, the middle class of Pakistan, that at this point, if Musharraf were to step down, who would take his place? How would that ever be worked out? This is not a country that has a history of peaceful succession.
This is an opportunity for President Musharraf to step up and actually fulfill many of the words and promises that he's made to me and to many others over the course of a number of years.
STEPHANOPOULOS: On the issue of experience, Barack Obama's taken to quoting Bill Clinton, 1992.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is Barack Obama as qualified for the White House now as Bill Clinton was then?
CLINTON: Well, you know, by the time Bill ran, he was the senior most serving governor in America, and he'd had tough elections every two years, and then two more after that.
But I'm running on my own qualifications and experience.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So the answer is no?
CLINTON: Well, I am going to let voters make that decision, because ultimately, voters are trying to weigh each and every one of us.
What people know about me is that I've been vetted and I've been tested. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of Republican incoming fire for 16 years, and I have, much to their dismay, survived and thrived. I don't think that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: And he hasn't yet.
CLINTON: I think I'm talking about what I've been through, and I don't think there's much doubt that I'm ready to go the distance.
CLINTON: You know, I have all of this support from officeholders in so-called red states. Now, they might like me personally, but they're not on suicide missions. They have assessed the field, and they have concluded, as Governor Strickland has said, I am the person who can win Ohio. I am the person best ready to run a winning campaign and to be the best president for America.
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