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Skriven 2006-08-11 23:31:26 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0608111) for Fri, 2006 Aug 11
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Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 11, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Crawford Middle School
Crawford, Texas



3:18 P.M. CDT

MR. SNOW: First we'll begin with the week ahead. The President will depart
Crawford on Sunday and return to the White House via Marine One, after
arriving at Andrews Air Force Base.

On Monday, there will be meetings with the Secretary of Defense and the
defense policy program team, a lunch with experts on Iraq at the Pentagon;
then to the Secretary of State and foreign policy team at the State
Department, and he will make a statement at the State Department at the
conclusion of that set of meetings.

Tuesday, the President will participate in a National Security Council and
Homeland Security Council briefing -- that's at the National
Counterterrorism Center in McLean. He'll have a meeting with the
counterterrorism team, attend lunch with the counterterrorism and homeland
security teams, and also meet separately with the homeland security team.

Wednesday, the President will travel to York, Pennsylvania, where he will
participate in a tour of Harley Davidson vehicle operations there; also
participate in a roundtable on the economy and attend a Lynn Swann for
Governor reception.

On Thursday he will sign the pension bill, HR4, the Pension Protection Act
of 2006, and head at some juncture to Camp David, where, on Friday, the
President will participate in a meeting with economic advisors, and at the
conclusion of which there will be a press availability with economic
advisors. He will spend the day Saturday at Camp David and return to the
White House on Sunday, the 20th.

As you know, there's activity ongoing at the United Nations. The members of
the United Nations Security Council, within the last few minutes, have
received the language of a draft that's been worked out today that the
United States, France, England, and others hope is going to provide the
basis for a sustainable cease-fire and a lasting peace in Lebanon. The
United States has been in contact with allies, particularly Israel and
Lebanon. It is anticipated that there will be a vote, but probably not
before evening, at the very earliest, on the resolution. But, obviously,
now members of the Security Council are studying the resolution and there
will be debate for some period of time.

Also, just for your edification, at some point we believe that there may be
an advance call by the Secretary of State's office, somebody at State,
doing a more detailed briefing. As I become aware of details on that, I'll
let you know. There may be a call on that within the next hour or two.

And with that, I will take questions.

Q Is this now one resolution, Tony, instead of two? Are we combining it
into one?

MR. SNOW: It's one resolution -- the way it's written right now, it's one
resolution with mention of a second to follow.

Q So how is that split up? Is that still how the President described it, as
the first resolution with a, I guess, the immediate cessation of violence,
but then the conditions for a sustainable cease-fire is the second
resolution?

MR. SNOW: Many of the conditions are also in there, but I think what
happens is that the follow-on forces specify that there are conditions that
sort of describe what would happen there.

Rather than getting ahead of it, I think probably the best thing -- hang
on, let me just take a quick look here and see.

Q You can just pass that around. (Laughter.)

Q Yes, could you make copies? (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: Let's see here -- you know, I'll get back to you on that. But, I
mean, it basically operates according to what we were saying before, which
is it's laying out, as they say at the State Department, the modalities of
how they're going to handle the security afterward.

In any event, some of these things are still in a bit of motion. And one of
the reasons I don't want to get too far ahead is that they are debating it
within the Security Council, so not each and every word is fixed. But, so
far, there is a -- Ambassador Bolten had said he thinks they've been moving
in the right direction. And I would expect there to be a little more detail
available when people who had stayed up in New York are going to be ready
to comment on it. And I think that's going to be fairly soon.

Q Can you characterize, Tony, your confidence today as opposed to when some
of your other representatives have stood up there and told us we'd have a
vote the following day and it didn't come?

MR. SNOW: Well, notice that actually, none of us have made a hard
prediction, because it is diplomacy, and a lot of times diplomacy is a bit
like a taffy pull, in that you think you may have something that seems to
be right on the verge of being completed, and it just gets extended a bit.
As the President has pointed out, diplomacy can be a little bit messy and
unpredictable.

Having said that, there's a certain amount of optimism. I won't
characterize it. I have spoken with Ric Grennell, who obviously works for
Ambassador Bolten, and I've spoken with Sean McCormack, and I've talked to
other people who have been involved in the diplomacy on this, and they all
seem to think that things are moving in a very positive direction. But I
would be loathe to make hard predictions because, sort of like the weather,
I just don't want to try to do that. But, again, I think that there will be
probably a little more detail available to you within the next hour or two.

Q Is Israel on board with this?

MR. SNOW: Again, I'm going to let the Israeli government speak about it.
The Israelis have been consulted on it. Let me put it that way.

Q Does President Bush hope that this will stop the expanded ground
offensive that Israel has been talking about?

MR. SNOW: I don't think the President looks at this in terms of what the
Israelis are doing. Again, it's very important to remember that the key
concern here is that Hezbollah stop being the instigator of violence and
instability in the region. Israel has acted in a manner that it says is
necessary for its own self defense, but also, as part of a U.N. resolution,
you know that there would be language where an international force would
come in and the Israelis would withdraw.

You still have a situation in Israeli politics where I believe the Israeli
cabinet would vote on it over the weekend. So rather than trying to
prejudge or get myself involved in internal Israeli politics about what
they are and are not saying, I will simply say that the United States is
consulting with the Lebanese, the Israelis, and others, and believes that
we've got the basis here for something to be very constructive toward
getting at the goals that the President has stated from the outset -- which
is something that's going to create a sustainable peace.

The resolution does, once again, make mention of the conditions outlined in
Security Council Resolution 1559, among others. So this is an attempt now
to try to take the words that were in 1559 and make sure that there are the
assets on the ground to ensure that the government of Lebanon has full
control of the territory and that Hezbollah no longer can operate as an
independent force.

Q What's driving the counterterrorism meeting next week?

MR. SNOW: It's a regular meeting. I mean, if you go back and look through,
the President regularly meets with advisors. And I think this is in no way
related to the news that came out of Britain yesterday. This has been on
the books for quite awhile.

Q The Democrats are yelling that you're trying to play politics with our
security. And I'm just looking at a Harry Reid letter here in which he's
pointing out a Dick Cheney comment, that victory would embolden the al
Qaeda types.

MR. SNOW: That's true. I don't know how that's politicizing it. It sounds
to me like Senator Reid is trying to accuse us of politicizing while he,
himself, is politicizing the issue. I think the most important thing to do
here is, rather than trying to play politics with it, and to try to see
some sort of advantage or try to cast doubts on either the President or
members of the other party, let's just ask a simple question: What's the
best way to win the war on terror? The goal is to win the war on terror,
and what are the consequences of losing.

General Abizaid last week -- I don't think anybody is going to accuse him
of politicizing it -- said, if we walk out of Iraq, they're going to follow
us. The fact is that the perception of weakness has always been -- and has
been cited by bin Laden and others as an act of encouragement and
inducement for people to commit acts of terror and to work more
aggressively to kill Americans.

Now it's pretty obvious that when you have aircraft that are headed from
Britain to America that there would be the anticipation of significant
American casualties, should the alleged operation have taken place. The
comments that this administration has been making, including me, have been
aimed at simply trying to get people to think seriously about how do you
achieve the goal of winning the war on terror. When you're in a war, the
goal should not be how to get out; it should be how to win and then to get
out.

And the President thinks about this every day. His advisors think about it
every day. The stakes are enormously high and enormously important. And we
hope that Senator Reid would seize this as an opportunity to work
constructively within the administration. After September 11th, everybody
said, yes, we want to win. And we certainly would like to rekindle that
spirit of cooperation in a way that moves constructively, not merely toward
going after al Qaeda, but also realizes that the war on terror is now
something, and even then was something, that was spread across the world.

Remember, September 20th, 2001, the President, in a joint session to
Congress said that there were 50 or 60 nations in which terror
organizations had already set down roots. And we have begun to see some of
the grim harvest of that in India, in Pakistan, we've seen it in Bali. You
know the litany, it goes on around the world. And, obviously, there was an
attempt now to take it over the high seas, as well.

So this is an absolute commitment on the part of this administration not
only to win the war on terror, but also to look forward to a very positive
end state -- which is not merely Americans returned home, but Americans
returned home to a safer world in which democracy has begun to set down
roots and to set an example in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and
the Palestinian areas. We are confident that once it starts to catch on,
everybody is going to want it.

Q Tony, could you give us a little more of a tick-tock about the White
House's role in monitoring the investigation in Britain? I mean, I know you
talked some about the President yesterday, but what about the NSC and some
other --

MR. SNOW: I really don't -- I don't think it's appropriate to tick-tock all
the things. I think it's safe to say -- and I'll go back to reiterate what
I said yesterday, Mike, which is that in terms of detail, you've got to
keep in mind, every day the President, as part of the PDB, gets many threat
assessments and constantly receives threat assessments. And it's important
for security and operational reasons not to go into who knows what, when,
where, and why.

But we do feel comfortable in saying that there have been detailed
briefings of the President about an impending operation in Great Britain,
and those began Friday, continued through the weekend and continued on
through the day before yesterday, when, in sort of mid- to late afternoon,
the President was advised that the operation was going to move forward.

Q Is there a chance we might here from the President either tonight or
tomorrow on this?

MR. SNOW: I don't think you're going to hear from the President tonight. If
there is -- at least the plan is if there is a U.N. resolution passed
today, that there will be a statement. Again, it appears now that the
earliest time for a vote would be what I would just characterize as
dinnertime, 6:30 p.m. or so. And that would be the earliest anticipated
vote time. So unless you guys want to skip the lavish dinner that CNN has
laid out for one and all, I think probably we can reach you through the
magic of email with a presidential statement.

Q What about tomorrow?

MR. SNOW: Don't know. I don't anticipate anything, but, you know, I mean --
if you can tell me exactly what's going to happen tomorrow, maybe I'll be
able to predict. But right now there's no anticipated presidential
appearance. But I don't want to say -- I don't want to give you a hard
"no," because lots of things could happen.

Q Can you flesh out Monday a little bit, where -- what areas are these
experts coming from? Are they academics, are they military, are they --

MR. SNOW: Olivier, I don't have the list with me, so I don't know. I'll
tell you how it normally works, which is that you get people who represent
different points of view and take different angles on what's going on in
Iraq. But without having seen the list, I don't want to prejudge it. But
what you do have is a vigorous and interesting multifaceted discussion that
involves people who have -- who have established credentials in the region
and on the subject matter.

Typically what happens is they'll make presentations and the President will
ask a lot of questions, and sometimes he'll invite people also to go back
and forth. It tends to be interesting and vigorous, in terms of the
conversations. We have, in a couple of cases, as you know, released the
names of people involved, but generally have kept those secret simply --
"secret"-- we have not publicized them for the purpose that we really do
want people not to be -- sort of have people say, what did you say, because
that immediately colors the kind of advice that they may give. The
President wants people to be completely honest and open with him.

Q But this -- I'm sorry, this is going to look like the Camp David
consultations, the Russia consultations? It's that kind of outside expert
conversation?

MR. SNOW: Again, I haven't seen the list, but I would anticipate that, yes.

Q How much detail did the Vice President have about the timing of what was
going to happen in Britain on Wednesday, when he did that conference call
with reporters?

MR. SNOW: He did not know.

Q He didn't know anything? Or he didn't --

MR. SNOW: He did not know that there was an operation that was to take
place. There was no anticipation of an operation that day.

It's important to recognize that the comments that were made after the
Connecticut primary were in response to the Connecticut primary, and they
were not in anticipation of a British action. I can say that with absolute
assurance not only with regard to me, but also the Vice President. That's
why I mentioned the notifications took place after he had done his phone
conference.

Q -- did say that he had been part of the briefings over the weekend.

MR. SNOW: Yes, but the briefings gave nothing about timing. They were
general discussions of threat. There were -- well, I don't want to go into
it, but let me just say that he had no reason to believe, I don't think --
and this is based on my conversations -- there was no strong reason, at any
rate, to believe that something was imminent. And, therefore, that was --
again, for me, it wasn't part of my comments, and I strongly suspect it is
the same. The email traffic I've seen with Leanne McBride backs that up,
but you may want to call her just to get an accurate readout, because I
don't want to put words in her or his mouth.

Q Tony, in terms of the plot, what's the President asking of his agency
heads as of now? I guess, there are some reports that apparently there was
no plotting in the U.S., but what is he telling Chertoff to keep an eye out
for? What's he instructing TSA? How long is he willing to have this red
alert in place? How long should we expect the toothpaste to be handed in
and --

MR. SNOW: You're going to have to get somebody else to reveal state
secrets; I'm not going to. That's all kind of sources and methods stuff. I
do know that today I saw a press avail where Secretary Chertoff was saying
that they're trying to figure out ways at least to make it a little more
user-friendly at the airports, and reiterated that travel is safe.

But in terms of the President's precise instructions to people in terms of
how to respond, we're simply not going to give that out. To give out
information like that, among other things, gives people who want to do us
harm things that they can work around, and we don't want to provide a road
map to our own security measures.

Q How much of his day has been spent today, though, talking with Chertoff
and talking with TSA and just kind of plotting out security measures?

MR. SNOW: Well, the President doesn't sit down and plot out in great detail
what the security measures are going to be. That's one of the things that
he delegates to Secretary Chertoff and others. I honestly don't know how
much he's had in the way of conversation. I know that there have been
operations, obviously, on multiple fronts today, not merely responding to
the allegations out of Britain, but also looking forward to the United
Nations resolution.

The President has been active on all those, and I will try to get a more
accurate readout of precisely how the day has been, but I don't have any
really firm information for you on that.

Q Tony, you were saying that Harry Reid was politicizing these arrests and
Democrats are saying that the White House, President Bush is politicizing
this. There's a bunch of issues coming up in Congress pretty soon. Is there
a way to have this debate without it getting overwhelmed by politics?

MR. SNOW: Well, it strikes me -- by the way, I said, it sounds like Senator
Reid, I believe, is politicizing, because, look, it seems to me that the
name-calling doesn't get us anywhere, does it? It's getting kind of boring.
And I think what you want to do here is answer the simple question: How do
we make America safe, strong and secure? What is the best way to do that?

I think one of the things that came to the fore was that surveillance
activity played a very important role in revealing what was going on in
Great Britain. It is important to figure out how to do surveillance
properly, how to be able to get information out of people who are
threatening to do us harm, and it is important to use every asset at our
disposal to fight the war on terror effectively.

I don't know, in today's congressional climate whether we can do this. I
hope we can, because there have been times where Democrats and Republicans
have worked together very constructively to get things done that are going
to make it possible for law enforcement and other officials to be able to
track down bad guys and to respond to them in a way that saves American
lives, and also to discourage terror. That is the ultimate goal, and that's
what the President has been pushing all along, and that's certainly
something that we hope is going to continue to be the case.

Again, it's a political year, so I expect people to make statements. But I
hope -- the most important statement people can make is to work together in
harmony to demonstrate to the American people that all hands are on deck
when it comes to fighting and winning the war on terror.

Q Can I follow on that? In terms of what would you -- what does the
administration place as the number one priority in Congress, in terms of
tools for fighting the war on terror? And did yesterday change the kind of
momentum?

MR. SNOW: I don't think so. Again, yesterday simply reiterated the
importance of the approach that the administration has taken, whether it be
with the Patriot Act and the Patriot Act extension; whether it be with
various surveillance techniques, of which members of Congress have been
made aware. I mean, a lot of these things are ongoing.

I think what it did was reiterate once again that members of terrorist
organizations around the world have not given up. They haven't laid down
their arms, they haven't decided that they're simply going to pursue a
different calling. It is pretty clear that a lot of people have been
inculcated with a political ideology that leads them to believe that they
have a holy obligation to kill innocent people. And we have to work in
every way possible -- through diplomacy, through law enforcement means,
through public diplomacy, and every tool in the tool kit -- to make sure
that we can make this a safer world by defeating terrorism and holding out
hope to everybody for the gifts, the fruits of liberty.

Final note here: When I find out about any sort of phoners that they may be
doing, or conference calls from State, what we'll try to do is just get
everybody pinged and let you know, give you a number onto the bridge. I
think it's going to work that way. Otherwise, we'll have to get somebody to
do readouts. But I think that's probably the next step on the diplomatic
track today -- and just to try to keep you all apprised as this thing chugs
forward.

Q Would the call out news conferences by State be available for recording,
or would they be backgrounders?

MR. SNOW: My guess is they're backgrounders. Secretary Rice is going to be
doing some television appearances this afternoon. So there will be tape
available to one and all, but it will be through various networks. So she
will be making some appearances.

Q You said there's going to be something at Camp David with a press
availability. Was that with the President?

MR. SNOW: That's economic advisors. It's the President and the economic
team.

Q At Camp David?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q Is that for the pool or the full press; do you know?

MR. SNOW: Yes, that's pool.

Q He said it was a press avail.

MR. SNOW: Yes, but that will be pool coverage --

Q (Inaudible.)

MR. SNOW: Like a typical thing. We're not going to clear the full press up
at Camp David. That would create the mother of all traffic jams.

All right. Thanks.

END 3:39 P.M. CDT

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