Clinton Pushes Interdependency At U.N.

An unprecedented gathering of world leaders Wednesday gave President Clinton a chance to burnish his legacy as a peacemaker, CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante reports.

The U.N. Millennium Summit — the largest ever gathering of world leaders — brought 189 world leaders to New York to deal with problems of war, poverty, refugees, disease and environmental destruction in the new century.

In his opening address, Mr. Clinton focused on the quest for peace. At one point, he singled out two of the delegations at the summit, pleading with Israel and the Palestinians to clinch a final peace deal.

"They have the chance to do it. But like all life's chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is not a moment to lose," the president said.

But the opening of the summit was clouded by a faraway reminder that myriad challenges face the international body: the killings of three U.N. aid workers in West Timor.

At the urging of the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the leaders held a minute of silence at the start of the meeting to commemorate the deaths of the three aid workers slain Wednesday after an angry pro-Indonesian mob and militiamen attacked and burned the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Annan announced the attack to the summit, telling leaders it was a "somber" reminder of the dangers U.N. staff face every day.

Mr. Clinton said he was deeply saddened to learn of the "brutal" slaying of the three workers and told that the United Nations must be better prepared to confront such hostilities.

"Increasingly, the United Nations has been called into situations where brave people seek reconciliation but where the enemies seek to undermine it," Mr. Clinton said, citing U.N. peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Sierra Leone.

"But in both cases, the U.N. did not have the tools to finish the job. We must provide those tools, with peacekeepers who can be rapidly deployed with the right training and equipment, missions well-defined and well-led, with the necessary civilian police," Mr. Clinton said.

"The problems seem huge," Annan said, listing poverty, the AIDS epidemic, wars and environmental degradation. "But in today's world, given the technology and the resources around, we have the means to tackle them. If we have the will, we can deal with them."

While Annan is hoping for new commitments to the U.N. goals of ending poverty and wars, some heads of state are expected to use the three days of speeches, discussions and meetings to push their own agendas — including those critical of the United States.

Washington is expected to come under fire from Cuban President Fidel Castro, who arrived in New York on Tuesday for the first time in five years. Castro, who has traded his familiar combat fatigues for a dark suit and tie on only his fourth visit to the United States since taking power in 1959, is expected to argue forcefully for an end to the nearly 40-year-old U.S. economic embargo on his island.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attended a speech by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Tuesday and the Iranian leader was expected to be in the chamber for Mr. Clinton's address.

The United States also can expect an earful from more friendly countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, both of whom speak after Mr. Clinton on Wednesday, are likely to use the gathering to continue rallying international support against U.S. national missile defense plans.

Mr. Clinton's announcement last week that he would leave it to the next administration to decide whether and when to deploy such a system will be welcomed by many leaders who have criticized the U.S. plans as a threat to 30 years of arms control treaties.

But analysts have predicted that Jiang will use the summit — and a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Clinton — to pressure the United States to cancel the proposal altogether.

Jiang, however, will have his own controversies to deal with as members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement stage continuous demonstrations against the Chinese leader for Beijing's crackdown on the sect — part of the 91 demonstrations planned this week.

Other protests have been aimed at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, including a demonstration Tuesday outside Iran's U.N. mission by a coalition of Jewish groups protesting the prison sentences handed down to 10 Iranian Jews convicted of espionage.

"I have no breakthrough to report," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said after Clinton's meetings. "I don't have anything on further meetings except that we will remain in the process as they move forward."

The Israelis had said the meeting with Arafat was crucial because Clinton wanted to see signs that the Palestinian leader was willing to give ground on Jerusalem — the main obstacle to a peace deal at the Camp David summit in July.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will brief Barak on that meeting late on Wednesday, an Israeli official said.

Lockhart said Clinton and the two leaders went over a number of ideas for trying to bridge the differences.

"I'm not going to get into what those ideas were nor am I going to try to forecast how successful or unsuccessful these approaches might be," the spokesman added.

The United States had tried to play down expectations from Clinton's meetings, his first with Barak and Arafat since the 15-day Camp David meeting broke up without agreement.

But all the parties say the need for progress is urgent, as the United States goes into elections and Barak faces the prospect that his government will collapse in October.

Security at the summit is the heaviest anyone at the U.N. can recall: the Secret Service has more than 1,200 agents protecting 145 of the leaders and 81 of their spouses.

Every time one of those motorcades zips through the Big Apple's normally crowded street, everyone else waits.

The city's police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, advised grumpy New Yorkers to "walk and get some exercise. It'll be over in a couple of days."