Text 263, 466 rader
Skriven 2005-01-05 23:33:10 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0501053) for Wed, 2005 Jan 5
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Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 5, 2005

Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Collinsville, Illinois



12:24 P.M. EST

MR. McCLELLAN: All right, good morning, everybody. I've got a few world
leader calls to read out, and a few announcements to make to begin with.
First of all, this morning the President had three world leader phone
calls. He spoke with King Abdullah of Jordan about Iraq. Jordan is going to
be hosting the foreign ministers meeting of Iraq's neighbors on January
6th, and the President told the King that he hoped the conference would
encourage participation by all Iraqis in the upcoming election. And the
King agreed that promoting democracy in Iraq was a goal we all shared.

And then, following that, the President spoke with President Mubarak about
Iraq in advance of the Arab League ministers meeting, which is in Cairo on
January 12th. And one of the topics, obviously, they'll be discussing there
is Iraq. President Mubarak assured the President that he shared the United
States' support for the political process in Iraq. And the President
thanked President Mubarak for his leadership in the run-up to the
elections, the Palestinian elections on January 9th.

And the third phone call was with President Yawer of Iraq. The President
expressed strong support for the political process in Iraq, and the
President talked about the importance of moving forward on the elections.
The President also expressed his appreciation for President Yawer's
leadership during this important period in Iraq's history.

And so those were the three phone calls.

Q All from Air Force One?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, no, this was at the White House. This was this morning
before his usual intelligence briefings, which he then had.

Q How long were they?

MR. McCLELLAN: Each of them -- the first couple were around five minutes,
and then the last one was about 15 minutes, around 15 minutes. Let me
finish this, and we'll come back.

The Freedom Corps greeter in Illinois is Connie Bergmann, who has, for the
past two years, volunteered with the American Red Cross. Then the President
looks forward to going to Collinsville and talking about the importance of
acting to pass medical liability reforms this year. The President, when we
get there, will be meeting with some individuals to -- who have firsthand
experience with the problems in our current medical liability system. He'll
be talking with a neurosurgeon and a cardiologist, both who have had to
close part of their practices. He'll be speaking with a -- meeting with a
hospital administrator who had to shut down the OB/GYN unit. And he'll be
speaking with an OB/GYN doctor who was forced to leave the state.

And then he'll also be talking with, as I mentioned yesterday, a pregnant
mother who is now on her third OB/GYN doctor during this pregnancy because
the previous two doctors have moved out of state. And this woman is also a
labor and delivery nurse at St. Anthony's Hospital in Alton. And so she's
seen firsthand a number of doctors -- in fact, seen half the OB/GYN doctors
leave in the past year at that hospital. And one of the things that the
President will talk about in his remarks, I expect, is how, in the last two
years, about 60 physicians in the Madison County and St. Clair County area
have either shut down their practices or moved out of state because of the
liability crisis. And I expect in his remarks he'll also talk about some of
the other reforms we're working on for our health care system, as well,
many of which you have previously heard. And I expect at the end, as you
have in your fact sheet, he'll touch a little bit on class-action liability
reform and asbestos liability reform, as well. And you've got some
information on both those in the fact sheet.

Now, I'll do a couple of announcements, both on the personnel side, as well
as on the schedule for the President. First of all, on the personnel side,
you all are aware that our immediate focus after the election was getting
the Cabinet in place for the second term. We also -- I had also mentioned
back at that point that the President had asked Andy Card to continue
serving as Chief of Staff. We have been -- the President has been also
making other decisions about the White House staff, some of which will be
announced over the next couple of weeks.

In addition to Andy, for instance, the President has asked Karl Rove to
continue as Senior Advisor, which I know you all are aware of. And I think
you all are aware of, too, that the President asked Joe Hagin to continue
serving as Deputy Chief of Staff. I've been asked to continue serving, and
you all are aware of Harriet Miers new appointment and Steve Hadley's new
appointment. I think you're aware that Anita McBride will be -- has started
already as Mrs. Bush's Chief of Staff, replacing Andi Ball, who earlier had
indicated she was going to be returning to Texas after being in Washington
for the last four years.

And the President also decided to name Dan Bartlett Counselor to the
President. Dan will continue to oversee the communications operations in
his new role. This new position will allow him to focus more broadly on
strategic communications planning, and expand his role in the formulation
of policy and implementation of the President's agenda.

And the President has also asked Nicole Devenish to oversee communications
strategy and the day-to-day implementation of the strategy as
Communications Director. Nicole will also serve as the Principal Deputy to
the Counselor, and she is starting at the White House today, for her second
tour of duty in this administration, in addition to the great work she did
on the campaign during the reelection. And we'll have more on this, paper
on this later today. The President has a tremendous amount of trust in Dan
and Nicole and is pleased that they will be serving in these senior-level
positions.

Q Is it a policy role for Bartlet?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he has been involved in policy, and this will just
allow him to be more involved in the formulation of policy.

Q The Rove stuff is new, right? I mean, we didn't know Rove had been --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think everybody pretty much knew, and that's why I was
talking about -- since most of the announcements have really focused on the
Cabinet, I just wanted to point out some of those individuals, as well.

And finally, for today, the President has -- the President is naming Claude
Allen to be Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. As you all are
aware, Claude Allen is the Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services.
He's been serving there since May, 2001, and he's done a tremendous job as
the Deputy Secretary and the President is pleased that he will be serving
on the White House staff in the senior staff during the second term here.

Q Domestic Policy Advisor?

MR. McCLELLAN: Margaret Spellings' place. He will be replacing Margaret
Spellings. Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.

Q And Mrs. Bush is staying on this -- (laughter.)

MR. McCLELLAN: Mrs. Bush, the Vice President, yes, all continuing.

And then on the schedule -- let me update you on the schedule for this
week. Tomorrow, the President is going to be meeting with some bipartisan
members of Congress on class-action reform in the Cabinet Room. And we will
have some pool coverage either at the top or bottom of this. We'll get that
finalized, out later today. And then on Friday, we will be traveling to
Clinton Township, Michigan, where the President will participate in a
conversation on asbestos litigation reform. And we'll get you more details
on that as we finalize things.

The past couple of days, I know some of you or your colleagues have asked
about the President's contributions to some of the international relief
organizations in the Indian Ocean -- who are working in the Indian Ocean
region. The President has sent contributions totaling $10,000 to some of
the relief -- some of the international relief organizations who are
working in the region to help those in need recover from this grave
tragedy.

Q Which ones?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there are some from the list on the
usafreedomcorps.gov website. And the President --

Q -- a list of them?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into specific ones. The President, as
you heard the other -- as you've heard on a couple of occasions over the
last week, the President has said he encourages all Americans to send cash
donations as they're able to do so to these international relief
organizations who are working in the region and have a good understanding
of where the resources need to be directed to meet the needs of the people
in the region.

Q Do you happen to know when he wrote the check or checks?

MR. McCLELLAN: They are being mailed today.

Q In the mail -- check in the mail.

Q How many checks --

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll just leave it at "to some organizations on the list."
And I think that's all I've got to --

Q Did he divvy them up equally? Can you put a finer point on that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that, obviously, this information will be -- more
information will be available when his tax returns are released. But at
this point, I think he'd prefer to leave it at that and continue to
encourage others to look at -- go to the usafreedomcorps.gov website and
look at the list and participate to organizations of their choosing, as
well.

Q Is the President comfortable with Gonzales' role in developing torture
memos, approving torture policies?

MR. McCLELLAN: Approving torture policies?

Q Over the last couple of years.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what you mean by torture policies -- because
the President -- the policy of the administration has been very clear from
the beginning that we adhere to our laws and our treaty obligations. That's
the policy that the President set and that's the policy he expects to be
followed. And he made it very clear, previously, as well, that we do not
condone torture and he would never authorize the use of torture. So I want
to correct that characterization of any misperception that might be there.

Q It was his request, of course, in 2002, that elicited the controversial
August, 2002 memo, which the DOJ, last week, repudiated. That's the track
record I'm talking about.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I think one reason that you saw in that memo when it was
-- after it had been withdrawn and then updated last week, you saw the
Office of Legal Counsel talk about some of the reasoning behind that, and
they pointed out what the -- essentially what the President had said
previously, which is, we don't engage in torture, and he would never
authorize the use of torture. And so that's part of the reasoning for their
decision to update it. And we -- our Counsel's Office provided comment into
that updated memo. But it was the office of the legal counsel's decision.

And on the earlier memo -- you've heard the judge address this already. I
saw some stories that seemed to portray it as new information, and I didn't
see much new in these stories today, leading up to his confirmation
hearings that begin tomorrow.

Q -- the President more broadly is satisfied with Judge Gonzales'
performance in his role as --

MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely. Judge Gonzales has -- Judge Gonzales is a very
trusted advisor of the President who has done an outstanding job in his
role as Counsel to the President. And I know Judge Gonzales looks forward
to participating in the confirmation hearing tomorrow before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, and he looks forward to answering any questions that
may come up on this issue or other issues of interest to members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee.

And I would also point out that our policy relating to the detainees in
Guantanamo Bay was spelled out very clearly. The determination was made
back on February 7th, 2002. That information is all on our website about
the reason behind that policy decision.

Q It seems there's memos out there that lawmakers are asking for from the
Counsel's Office that the White House has refused to turn over. Do you know
why that is?

MR. McCLELLAN: We have provided a number of documents -- made a number of
documents available publicly, as well as to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And I know that the Counsel's Office has responded to letters from
senators, and will continue to do so and be responsive --

Q -- secrecy, are there security concerns about these memos that the White
House won't turn over?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know specifically what you're referring to. There
might be some memos that were not White House memos, that were outside the
White House. So I'm not sure specifically what you're referring to. But,
obviously, these will be questions that the Judge can talk about tomorrow
if the senators have questions about it, and he looks forward to doing
that.

Q There's a number that --

MR. McCLELLAN: But remember, the Judge -- hang on one second. Remember, the
Judge, I believe it was last summer, if I recall -- no, it's the summer
before -- it was 2003, if I recall correctly, when the Judge participated
in a briefing with some Defense officials on the policies and the -- some
of the interrogation methods, and went through a lot of these issues and
addressed a lot of these issues, and made very clear what his role was, as
well as the White House role.

Q Senator Leahy says there are a number of documents that he'd like to see
before the confirmation hearing, including, as I recall, the final version
of the so-called torture memo.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know --

Q Is it your feeling you've given them all the documents you're going to?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, this reference to a "torture memo," I don't know what
you're referring to. There's a memo you might be referring to about the
policies relating to the Geneva conventions applying to al Qaeda and
Taliban from Afghanistan, and that's why I pointed to that determination.
And the policy was outlined on the White House website and is on there now,
from February 7th of 2002, and it spells out very clearly what the policy
was.

Q Yes or no, have you got -- are you going to give --

MR. McCLELLAN: That was not -- that's not related to interrogation
techniques.

Q Are you going to give them any more documents that they're asking for?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what the latest is that he's requested.
Obviously, the Judge will be participating in the hearing tomorrow. We have
responded to previous letters from Senator Leahy and we'll continue to
respond to other letters that he's sent. I think he just sent another
letter and I think some of those memos are not White House memos that he's
referring to, but we've provided a number of documents. And the Judge looks
forward to talking about these issues during his confirmation hearings.

Q Should we expect more world leader calls, steady world leader calls, as
we get closer to the Iraq elections?

MR. McCLELLAN: We'll keep you posted. I mean, I think, the reasoning behind
these, I think were pretty clear, because of some of the meetings that are
coming up, as well as he spoke with Prime Minister Allawi the other day and
he spoke with President Yawer. Prime Minister Allawi -- I saw some of the
comments he made today, reaffirming his commitment to moving forward on the
elections, and the importance of moving forward on elections to helping the
Iraqi people realize a democratic and peaceful future.

Q In any of these calls this morning, did the issue of delaying the
elections from January 30th, did that come up at all, do you know?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I told you that with President Yawer, for instance,
the President talked about the importance of moving forward on the
elections, and Prime Minister Allawi -- this morning I saw some public
comments he made reaffirming the commitment and importance of moving
forward on those elections.

What our focus is on right now is supporting the Iraqi people as they move
forward on elections, and supporting them to -- and supporting the Iraqi
people as they work to -- and Iraqi leaders, as they work to encourage as
broad a participation as possible. And I think that's one thing that Prime
Minister Allawi talked about again this morning, too, was that he's
reaching out to all segments of society in Iraq to encourage everybody to
participate in those elections. And he will continue to do that, including
those that have said that they don't want to participate in the elections.
He's continuing to reach out to those individuals, as well.

Q Scott, does the President believe that the insurance companies bear any
responsibility for rising premiums? There was a --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President --

Q Let me finish the question. There was a CBO study that showed liability
settlements are a very small fraction of overall health care costs, and I
think 19 or 20 states have caps on awards, and they've actually seen their
premiums go up by more than states that don't have caps. Does the insurance
industry --

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know that that's accurate, that last part of that,
when you talk about some of the states that have implemented reforms in --

Q They've both seen increases, but the states --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's not an accurate picture of what has been done to
address some of the rising cost related to health care. I don't think
that's an accurate picture at all, and --

Q Does he believe that the insurance industry bears some responsibility?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President -- and he'll talk about this in his remarks --
believes that junk lawsuits and abusive litigation are the reason we are
seeing rising insurance premiums that Americans are forced to pay, and that
doctors -- or that Americans are forced to pick up the cost for, and
doctors are forced out of business because of, or have to move out of
states. And that's -- and one of the reasons -- and he'll be talking about
why this is a national problem, because you have doctors shutting down in
certain states and moving to other states. And he'll be talking about the
cost to the federal government of $28 billion per year, and he'll be
talking about how, by addressing this issue, we can reduce health care
costs for all Americans by $60 billion or more. And so --

Q So he doesn't think the insurance --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- the lawsuit abuse is the issue we need to address to fix
the medical liability system. We have too many frivolous lawsuits being
filed. And this area we're going to has been rated the top place to sue in
the country, and he'll talk about the problem there -- and as I mentioned,
some of the people he's meeting with. If we could -- and I think you've
seen in states where they've passed lawsuit reforms, that it has addressed
the costs, and it has -- and helped reduce costs, health care costs, and it
has also improved the quality of care. And he's talking about all those
issues.

Q I'm just wondering -- I mean, would it make it harder to give out large
--

MR. McCLELLAN: And California is an example. I mean, there are other
examples, as well.

Q The proposal on medical malpractice is to limit the amount of awards
mostly, right? I mean, as opposed to access to the courts?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q In other words, the proposal on medical malpractice is mostly to limit
the amount of these non-economic awards?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, I mean, if you look at the framework in the
fact sheet that we handed out, and this is what he -- he talks about the
framework that he's outlined, wants to make sure that those truly injured
patients are getting timely access to the courts and getting compensated in
a timely manner. And -- but, yes, I mean, in terms of -- he does believe we
should have reasonable -- there should be reasonable caps on non-economic
damages and reasonable amounts on punitive damages, as well. And we've seen
some states act on that, but --

Q This proposal doesn't change my ability to go to court, only the amount
that I might get if I were to go?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, the amount you're -- it's the amount that the personal
injury trial lawyers are receiving. They're the ones who are receiving
large amounts of money, while patients who are truly injured are having
their compensation delayed or their day in court delayed because they can't
get access to the courts because they're clogged with frivolous litigation.

Q -- stop somebody from actually going to court, still, under this proposal
if they wanted to?

MR. McCLELLAN: No. No.

Q The issue is --

MR. McCLELLAN: I wouldn't it view that way at all. But it would help --

Q The issue is about verdicts.

MR. McCLELLAN: But it would help stop some of the lawsuit abuse by putting
some reasonable caps on non-economic damages as well as punitive --

Q -- there's no new rule that says I can't go.

MR. McCLELLAN: All right.

Q You weren't able to get this last year. What makes you think you'll get
it this year?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean, there are some very powerful special
interests, personal injury trial lawyers, who are committed to stopping any
effort to reform our medical liability laws and other lawsuit reforms. But
the American people strongly support common-sense reforms to our legal
system. And the election did change the dynamic somewhat. The House has
been very supportive, and we'll work very closely with the new Senate, too.
The President believes that the election sent a clear message that the
American people want to see legal reform on these issues that he's talking
about -- medical liability reform, class-action reform, asbestos litigation
reform. And it's time for Congress to act before this problem gets any
worse, because we're seeing in parts of the country, in areas all across
the country, that doctors are shutting down their businesses, or they're
limiting what they practice, or they're moving to other parts of the
country because they can't afford to stay in business. And the reason why
is because of the frivolous litigation and unlimited number of lawsuits
that are being filed.

Q So will he travel this year for priorities like this, Social Security --

MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I would expect he'll, as he has done in the past,
continue to not only reach out to members of Congress to get things done,
but he'll travel the United States to talk to the American people about
these big priorities and the reason why we need to act on these priorities
now.

Q All right, thanks.

Q Thank you.

END 12:48 P.M. EST
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