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Ärende: Press Release (0611152) for Wed, 2006 Nov 15
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Press Gaggle by Tony Snow and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 15, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley
Aboard Air Force One
En route Singapore



10:04 A.M. EST

MR. SNOW: Hello, hello. I brought a guest. I think you already know what's
coming up, but I'll run you through the events today in Singapore.

Upon arrival, we're going to visit the Asian Civilizations Museum. That
will be followed by an embassy greeting. There will be a little bit of down
time, followed by a courtesy call with the acting President of Singapore; a
meeting with the Prime Minister.

The President this evening will be making remarks at the National
University of Singapore. And the days' events will close with a social
dinner with the Prime Minister of Singapore and Mrs. Lee.

Questions.

Q Does Steve want to readout the meeting in Moscow?

MR. HADLEY: The President and Mrs. Bush met with President Putin and Mrs.
Putina. It was a social meeting, as we said it would be. This was a
refueling stop. The President and President Putin will have an opportunity
to meet on the margins of the APEC meeting. So this was -- the Russians
were kind enough to allow us to refuel here. Once they knew we were going
to do that, President Putin decided he and Mrs. Putina wanted to come out
and greet their friends, the Bushes, and they did. So it was a social
meeting between the two, and there will be an opportunity for them to talk
business when they meet together on the margins of the APEC meeting.

Q Did they get into any substantive issues?

MR. HADLEY: I don't think so. They talked a little bit about, sort of,
proliferation, generally, as you might expect them to, with things about
Iran and South Korea. But it really wasn't about business -- it was about
social, it was about personal, and that was the subject of much of their
conversation.

Q What do you think the prospects are for a WTO signing over the weekend?

MR. HADLEY: I haven't talked to Susan Schwab recently. As you know, they
made an announcement last Friday that it looked like we had the contours of
an agreement; there was more finalization of text and lawyers' work to do.
I'm not advised that any of that has gotten off the track at this point, so
I would expect that we will try and get a signing here soon. I have not
talked with Susan to know exactly the ins and outs of it.

Q Have you gotten any sense that Russian opposition to a harder-hitting
U.N. Security Council resolution has weakened at all, or are they still
fairly opposed to the U.S. draft?

MR. HADLEY: Well, I, on the margins of this meeting, talked to Igor
Ivanoff, by counterpart, as some of you saw me come in to do. We had a good
discussion about that. I think basically the strategy that all of the
countries who are working together on this have come up with is sound. I
think the Russians think it's sound. We have to have a Security Council
resolution to show that there are consequences for the Iranians not
responding and not meeting the requirements of the international community,
as reflected in the Security Council prior resolutions and as reflected in
the resolutions of the IAEA board of governors. And that's why we're
working on a resolution.

The issue is just what should be in the resolution, how much do you do in
this resolution, how much do you save for a second resolution if you need
one down the road? These are largely tactical considerations. But the
strategy, I think, there is agreement on: We need a resolution; we need to
show that there's some consequences; we also need to keep the door open to
negotiations if the Iranians are willing to come and suspend and be willing
to talk about the very, I think, forward-leaning offer that was put by the
EU3 plus three, with the support of all the rest of us here months ago.

So it is common strategy, push the Security Council resolution, keep the
door open for negotiations if the Iranians are willing to do that, and the
rest of it is basically tactics. Look, we have these struggles on these
resolutions all the time, and they result in a lot of press stories about
disarray among the international community. But I would remind you that
over the last two or three years, when the time has come, the international
community is able to pull together -- whether it's been the IAEA board of
governors, whether it's been the U.N. Security Council.

So I think this is just part of a diplomatic process, you know. It's a
little bit like sausage making -- it's not pretty, and a lot of it spills
out into the public. But I think the international community has held
together on this issue and I think we will again. The issue is the tactics,
how much do you do in this resolution now, how much do you save for a later
time. And, you know, those are issues on which we'll work out.

Q Does the IAEA finding of trace amounts of plutonium and highly enriched
uranium -- does that add to the urgency of this?

MR. HADLEY: Well, it's troubling. It adds to the reason we're in this,
which is suspicions by the international community that Iran -- contrary to
what they say -- is not pursuing a civil nuclear program, but has something
more nefarious. It's further evidence of -- the finding of plutonium is
troubling, because it has weapons implications. But equally troubling is
the fact that so much of this keeps spilling out, so much of it is not in a
forthcoming way disclosed by Iran. If they have nothing to hide, you would
think they would want to make a full disclosure. Yet, as the IAEA report
indicates, the IAEA is unable to close the door on the questions they have,
which raises a question about Iran's intentions and whether they might have
a nuclear weapons program. And this recent discovery just adds to the
concerns and to the real reservations and suspicions the international
community has that something more is going on here.

Again, I want to say, as the President said so many times, a civil -- we
are not opposing Iran having a truly civil nuclear program. This President
is a big apostle of civil nuclear energy. That is not the problem; we are
not trying to hold back Iran or hold back the Iranian people. The problem
is, as the IAEA report shows, there's a lot of suspicion that what is going
on here is a cover for a nuclear weapons program. And that's why we're
worried so much about the enrichment, because the enrichment is the
capability that is a route to weapons grade material -- and that's why --

Q This all comes at a time when there's a lot of discussion about Iran
being a potential weighing-in in Iraq, and perhaps try to lower the
temperature there. Is it possible to have conversations on, sort of, two
separate tracks at the same time with Iran?

MR. HADLEY: Look, I think the interesting thing is we'd have this
conversation, we have a structure for dealing with Iran on the nuclear
issue; we have offered, as you know, to join those discussions if they will
suspend their enrichment program. There's not a trade-off between the two.
Iran needs to respond to the will of the international community and find a
way to resolve these suspicions about its program. Similarly, Iran ought to
have an interest in having a unified and a stable Iraq, and a good
relationship with the Iraqis. They ought to. It is in their interest. And
the Iraqis have been talking to the Iranians very clearly about that, that
it's time for Iran to stop activity that destabilizes the government and
try and take steps that stabilizes the situation in Iraq. It's in Iran's
interest. It is a message we send; it's a message the Iraqis send. And the
Iraqis, quite frankly, think they're the ones who ought to be saying that
message, because it is their country, after all.

So I think these are two separate issues. I think it's clear what Iran
needs to be doing in both of them. And the issue is not really one of
talking; the issue is one of decisions by Iran to change their policies.
And that's what is lacking here.

Q But in the past, you were willing to talk to Iran about Iraq. It sounds
like you're not willing to do that now.

MR. HADLEY: Well, we've talked about that in the past. We had an offer to
do that, in a kind of discreet discussion that would be productive. The
Iranians went public with it, clearly had an objective or an agenda to do
something else with it. And, therefore, it was clear that it wasn't going
to serve the purposes we had in mind, so we pulled it down. There's been a
lot of talk now -- some people say Iran wants to talk; we're hearing from
other channels Iran doesn't want to talk. What I would say to you is, look,
it's not the -- what we need is less talk and more action by Iran.

May I say a word, by the way, about the press reports today about looking
-- and reviews, with respect to the way forward on Iraq? I just wanted to
set that in a little broader context.

We have been doing, within the government, reviews on the way forward in
Iraq: where we are, what have been the barriers to success, what do we need
to do to have a way forward. As the President said, things are not going
well enough or fast enough. That's been clear for a while. So for many
weeks we have been doing a series of reviews, fairly discreetly. JCS has
been doing a review, State has been doing a review, NSC has been doing our
own internal review, as well, to try and get a sense of where we are, where
we need to be and how to get there.

Not surprisingly, the President has met with his national security
principles yesterday; thought it was high time that these reviews be
brought together and put in an integrated form so he can get a look at it
and begin getting in his own mind what the way forward needs to be in Iraq.
And that's what he's asked to get done. And he chartered yesterday. And it
will be, obviously, coordinated within the NSC, because that's what we do
-- we coordinate inter-agency activities. And it will draw on the work that
will be done.

The point I want to make though, of course, is this is not -- this is to
try and figure out how we can support the Iraqi government and Maliki in
his view of the way forward in Iraq. We think we have a common view on the
way forward strategically. We've been hearing from Prime Minister Maliki
some of the things he thinks: he wants more control over security forces,
he wants to move more aggressively to stabilize the security situation, he
wants to accelerate training and maybe enhancing the capabilities of
forces. All of these are good things. So he's beginning to articulate what
he thinks is the way forward; we need to figure out how we can support, as
a partner with Iraq, an agenda for achieving our common objectives in Iraq.
And that's what we're trying to do.

Q -- so you may adopt your own recommendations, instead of those of the
Iraq Study Group?

MR. HADLEY: No, this is not a competition with the Iraq Study Group. The
administration has been supporting the Iraq Study Group from the get-go, in
terms of facilitating their travel, facilitating interviews, providing
access to people they wanted to talk to, to providing information.

The President has said for months that he thought the review was important,
he was going to support it -- we are going to support it, and, obviously,
he will look very carefully at what is coming out. But when you have a
President who says, in his view things are not going well enough or fast
enough -- surprise, surprise, as a government you would want us to be
responding to that, and we have and we've been doing our own reviews,
obviously, for a number of weeks. This is now a time to pull those
together. These aren't competitions, they're, in some sense, part of a
pattern that is a good thing -- the country figuring out where we are in
Iraq, figuring out a way forward that we can do in partnership with Iraqis
and that will be supported by Republicans, Democrats, the executive and the
Congress. That's what we'd like to do. This is a part of the process of
getting there.

Q Steve, can I ask you a couple of things? On Vietnam, how much does the
trade vote in Congress kind of cloud the President's meetings in Vietnam?
And then, secondly, separately, the speech in Singapore, is there an
element to that that's a bit of -- the democracy part is a bit of a poke in
the eye to China in some of the same sort of subtle way that maybe his
speech in Japan was last year?

MR. HADLEY: This isn't going to be -- the speech isn't going to be a poke
in the eye, but it's going to be -- a poke in the eye, period. It's going
to talk a lot of themes. It's going to talk about the freedom agenda and
what freedom and democracy since the end of the Second World War have done
to help transform Asia. It's going to talk about common security
challenges, how we are working together to deal with those challenges in
Asia, and working with Asia to deal with those challenges more globally.

He's going to talk about the things that make for prosperity and to raise
people out of poverty -- things like free trade and free markets. He's
going to talk about those things. He's also going to talk about the
importance of what we've called the Millennium Challenge Account strategy
or approach, that the way you provide a better welfare for your people is
good government fights corruption, invests in their people by health and
education, uses free trade, free markets. These are the themes.

But a lot of it is going to be a celebration, because there has been
enormous progress in Asia. And, quite frankly, Americans -- the American
people ought to take some pride in that, because they have been part of
that enterprise here since the end of World War II, by providing diplomatic
support, by providing economic support and by providing a security
framework. So it's in some sense a celebration between Asia and the United
States of a partnership that has worked for the people of Asia and, quite
frankly, has worked for people of the United States.

Your first question?

Q Trade.

MR. HADLEY: Look, it is unfortunate that it could not have been done before
the President arrived. But I think the message for the Vietnamese people
will be: This is going to get done. There was a trial vote, you know, in
the House of Representatives. It failed to get a two-thirds; it clearly got
more than a majority. We believe the votes are there. The House has said
that they will take it up again in December. We think that -- there have
been some concerns in the Senate, a lot of those have been resolved. We
think that there are the votes to pass it in the Senate, as well.

It's a function of the need, in light of our elections, to reorganize the
leadership and the organization in the Congress. And it, I think, has
gotten a little bit in the way of our ability to get this through.

But I think the message to the people of Vietnam is they will -- it will be
announced that they will be going into the WTO, that is a good thing, and I
think they can be assured that we will do our part, in terms of getting
PNTR out through the Congress.

Q Steve, can I just ask more broadly on trade, how confident are you that
you can make any progress on advancing the Doha round? And is the U.S.
bringing any other inducements, any additional subsidies to help that --

MR. HADLEY: This wouldn't be a forum to do that, for the President to come
and bring some additional concessions and try and negotiate. These are very
--

Q -- trade comes through the speech, and why would this not be the perfect
forum?

MR. HADLEY: Because the President isn't going to sit with 45 leaders and
try and negotiate something like that.

What the President can do, and what the leaders can do -- and we think they
hopefully they will do -- with a strong statement that the leaders believe
Doha is a priority, that they will then all put pressure on their trade
negotiators to find a way forward. We can do that politically. And,
secondly, Susan Schwab can use behind-the-scenes conversations with her
counterparts here to use that political impetus to put some pressure on
them.

You know, we've been, as you know, pretty forthcoming on agriculture. We've
not seen a similar kind of response from Europe or from, quite frankly,
some of the advanced countries in the developing world. And if we could see
some movement there, then we can move forward. But I think it's -- this is
not a negotiating forum, but it is an opportunity for the President to make
clear how it's important to him, and to give some leadership to all the
other leaders in the region to make clear at a political level that this is
something that needs to happen.

Q Back to Iraq, when is the presentation that you're supposed to give the
President?

MR. HADLEY: Look, this is all kind of a work in progress. Obviously, he's
asked that a lot of the work get done while he's traveling. He's going to
want to check in on the status of that work. My guess is we'll come to him
several times, as he does, churns this stuff over and makes up his own
mind. So I think it's going to be a -- what we've done is sort of
formalized an informal process that has been going on, and I think he'll
have a number of cuts at this. And, again, this needs to be done in
conjunction with the Iraqis, because at the end of the day, it's Iraqis who
are going to get Iraq right. We can support them -- and we will support
them, and we can do that in crucial ways. But we've got to come up with
something that we and the Iraqis can embrace as the way forward.

Q Steve, let me ask --

MR. HADLEY: -- something is going to be imposed on the Iraqis, that's the
point. This is going to be something that we're going to work on in ways
that we can help and support the Iraqis, as together we work toward a
common agenda, which the President has talked about: a democratic Iraq that
can govern itself, defend itself, sustain itself; is an ally in the war on
terror; in which all the communities view themselves as a part and
partnership of a unified Iraq. That's what they want, that's what we want.
And what we're doing is trying to find better ways to move more quickly and
more effectively in conjunction with the Iraqis to that goal.

Q My question was more on timing, though. Is there a -- there's no
deadline?

MR. HADLEY: The President said, look, I want to know where we are when I
get back from Asia. And then, of course, there's Thanksgiving and there's
some more travel he'll be doing. So he'll be checking in with this effort
I'm sure several times.

Q Excuse me, Steve. Thank you for doing this. Why wouldn't you want the
President to have the benefit of this information before he met with the
ISG?

MR. HADLEY: Well, he has had the benefit of a lot of this information and a
lot of this thinking before he met with the ISG. As I said, these things
have been going informally for some time. So he has some interim thinking.

But one of the things we wanted to do was to develop this over time. A lot
of work has been done; it now needs to be done in a more formalized way. I
think the timing is pretty good. You know, he had a few other things he's
been doing in the last couple months.

Q Quickly, any update on North Korea, Steve? Any update on the status --

MR. HADLEY: I don't really have anything more on that, at this point. We're
still hoping to find a way that they can come back to the talks. We'll come
back to the talks -- come back to the talks with the idea of implementing
that September 19th agreement, which is still the way forward.

Q Steve, you mentioned the JCS. Could you walk through who the other
entities are that are preparing these informal reviews that you're now
going to pull together?

MR. HADLEY: I don't have, really, anything more to say. JCS has been
working it in the Department of Defense, it's what you would expect. The
State Department has been doing a lot of work. We've been working closely
with them. We've had, of course, our own folks cranking away on this issue.
Obviously, the intelligence community has an important role to play. And
the folks in the field -- Ambassador Khalilzad, General Casey, the command
at CENTCOM -- all, of course, need to be heard from on this matter, and
we're going to do that.

Q Well, aren't you just covering the same tracks as the Iraq Study Group?
Is that --

MR. HADLEY: Well, I think the issue is, obviously, they're going to operate
at a level that is appropriate and will be useful. But, you know, for the
Pentagon, you need to be getting down into a level of detail about how are
you going to do these things, what kind of options you look at, what would
those options look like, what forces would go where and do what? The kind
of thing that a blue ribbon panel could never do. And it's exactly the kind
of thing that you want your military planners to be doing. Similarly,
there's a lot of nuts and bolts on the State Department side of how you
would implement some of these options that people are looking at. All that
work needs to be done. You've got to have some options and you've got to
have a pretty good plan for how you're going to implement those options.

Okay.

Q Thank you very much for doing this.

END 10:28 A.M. EST
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