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Skriven 2006-12-15 23:31:10 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0612155) for Fri, 2006 Dec 15
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Press Briefing by Tony Snow
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 15, 2006

Press Briefing by Tony Snow
White House Conference Center Briefing Room

Press Briefing view


11:52 A.M. EST

MR. SNOW: Just a quick preliminary note, and then I'll be happy to take
questions.

Prime Minister Maliki tomorrow is convening another national reconciliation
conference for political leaders from across Iraq. As we've said many
times, reconciliation is obviously one of the key challenges the government
faces, so the Prime Minister has invited political leaders from inside and
outside the government from throughout the country, to work on a plan to
unite all Iraqis of all ethnic and sectarian groups, and to work together
not only to denounce violence and terror, but to work toward those goals.

The conference is going to provide a forum for leaders to discuss issues
central to the reconciliation initiative, which first was announced by the
Prime Minister earlier this year. It will build on initiatives by religious
and tribal leaders who have called on Iraqis to unite and isolate
extremists who continue to kill and harm innocents. It also provides a
forum for those who stand opposed to violence and murder, and asks them to
stand up and make their voices heard.

And the U.S., of course, stands with the Prime Minister and all leaders in
Iraq who move towards those goals.

Helen.

Q I have two questions. Since the President knows how many Iraqis were
killed in the two months period, how many were killed in the four years of
war?

MR. SNOW: Two things; I know you asked the question in the gaggle. What you
had was the President had a briefing on how many people were killed in
combat activities. The Iraqi government, itself, compiles its own
statistics on those who have died in the violence. I am sure that there is
a briefing paper that has that exact number on it, or at least their best
guesses on it.

Maybe the one important number is the nearly 27 million Iraqis no longer
have to live under the terror and despotism of Saddam Hussein. They have an
elected government, which many of them risked their lives to vote for. It's
a unity government. And one of the chief aims, as we've just pointed out,
is to get rid of the violence that is claiming lives unnecessarily and to
allow that democracy to move forward peacefully.

Q That isn't an answer.

MR. SNOW: Yes, it is.

Q Why? Why can't you count the number who were killed in four years?

MR. SNOW: Well, apparently it's a difficult task, and I would refer you to
the government of Iraq.

Q How do you know 5,900 were killed in two months?

MR. SNOW: I'm telling you, those are the confirmed kills on the battlefield
as passed on by commanders.

Q And what about going after ACLU, when you didn't go after the Hadley memo
--

MR. SNOW: We do not talk about any ongoing court activities. You know that,
Helen.

Q But you are going after the ACLU, aren't you?

MR. SNOW: As I said, we don't -- you could chase me around the table as
many times as you want on it, but we do not comment on ongoing court
activities.

Q That's not fair.

MR. SNOW: It may not be fair, but it's the policy of any administration not
to talk about ongoing court activities.

Q As a former newsman --

MR. SNOW: As a former newsman, I know when to stop chasing somebody around
the podium. This is a case where it has always been the standard of
administrations, Democratic and Republican, that you do not talk about
ongoing court issues.

Q Tony, in an interview with People Magazine, the President was asked about
Mary Cheney's pregnancy, and said he's confident -- he believes she'll be a
loving soul to her child. In the past, he said that he believes the ideal
is that a child be raised in a married family with a man and a woman. Does
he still believe that's the ideal?

MR. SNOW: Yes, he does, but he also believes that every human life is
sacred and that every child that comes into the world deserves love. And he
believes that Mary Cheney's child will, in fact, have loving parents.

Q Does he believe that children who are raised by gay and lesbian parents
are at a disadvantage?

MR. SNOW: He does not make comments on that, and nor will I.

Q Tony, in answer to Helen's question, were you confirming that there is an
investigation of the leak of the Hadley memo?

MR. SNOW: No, I wasn't. I was saying that you don't -- we don't confirm.

Q Would you?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Can I chase you around the podium? (Laughter.)

Q Tony, as far as this Iraq war is concerned, now there is a new chief at
the United Nations, South Korean foreign minister, and also now we will
have a new chief at the Pentagon. Do you think the strategy will change as
far as United Nations is concerned, and how you think the President will
work with the United Nations now? He has still (inaudible) in the United
Nations.

MR. SNOW: Well, we have expressed our desire that the United Nations work
vigorously and actively to support the ideals of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, and to serve as a cause for democracy and peace and to
work constructively in those areas. We also have a series of ongoing
diplomatic efforts with the United Nations, including in the Security
Council, working o the issue of Iran and the importance of getting the
Iranians to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.

So the United Nations can be an effective forum. The real challenge now is
to make it more effective in dealing with the issues of trying to free
people who are living under despotism, or to address situations like
genocide in Darfur, and work together in the causes that, again, are
reflected in the charter that first gave the United Nations life and
purpose.

Wendell.

Q Does the President's decision that it was time for a change at the
Pentagon mean it's time for a change in direction, or just time for a
change of the figurehead?

MR. SNOW: I think anybody who was a Secretary of Defense will tell you that
they are not figureheads; they run a large and very complex operation. With
Bob Gates, you get somebody who provides, as the President said, a fresh
set of eyes. And Bob will bring his talents and experiences to bear. He is
somebody who has long experience in the intelligence community and also as
an analyst. He's somebody who certainly has had an opportunity to study
some of these issues -- he was, earlier, on the Baker-Hamilton commission.

And he is somebody who understands, after having had experience in prior
administrations, that what you do for your President is you offer your best
advice and make the best use of your knowledge and talents knowing that the
President, ultimately, makes the decisions. You work in a subordinate, but
always supportive, role. And anybody who works for a President understands
the importance of giving it your best. And I am absolutely sure Bob will do
that.

Q In his testimony on Capitol Hill, he has suggested strongly that he would
offer some different advice than Donald Rumsfeld did. So should we expect a
change in direction at the Pentagon?

MR. SNOW: What the President has said is we need a new way forward. Donald
Rumsfeld, as you recall, had been putting together ideas about taking a
fresh look at the situation in Iraq. And he has said -- in fact, I believe
today he said his chief regret was we didn't do well enough fast enough.

So it is clear that there is going to be some change; but I will leave it
to the President to announce whatever changes may be in the offing. On the
other hand, Bob Gates certainly is going to be part of that process. He has
been in all the meetings, he's been getting briefed, he is drilling down as
rapidly as he can on these issues. And it's very important that he not only
be fully read in on the options, but that he have his opportunity to do his
own analysis and provide his own advice to the President as this process
continues.

Bill.

Q So where is the President in the process of determining the new way
forward? Are consultations continuing?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q With whom?

MR. SNOW: Well, with whomever he wishes to speak with. I mean, the point is
there is not -- this is not something -- the President now has got a lot of
people doing a lot of work. He's going to ask them to report back to him on
a number of tasks that have been assigned. This would include people at the
State Department, it will include people at the Department of Defense, it
will include those gathering information at the National Security Council.

There are also ongoing consultations with foreign heads of state and
foreign governments. So it is not -- I cannot tell you exactly who he's
going to be talking about on which day, because, frankly, that will evolve
in terms of the information he thinks he needs and the people he needs to
speak to.

Q Has he given them deadlines?

MR. SNOW: Not that I'm aware of.

Q And do you have anything further on when he, himself, is likely to make
an announcement?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q How much of the policy will reflect Donald Rumsfeld and how much Robert
Gates? Will we still see the fingerprints of Rumsfeld on this?

MR. SNOW: You've got to understand that the President is the person
responsible for making the decision, so it will be the President's
decision. And there will be many people who have input, so I think the most
important thing is the President does, of course, accept responsibility for
crafting a new way forward. And there are a lot of people who are going to
be involved in the process, but, ultimately, he is the one who has to make
the important decisions.

Q Has the President reached out to -- changing topic -- Senator Johnson's
family at all? Is he going to --

MR. SNOW: I know as of yesterday -- and I've not checked today -- there
have been a number of attempts to contact Mrs. Johnson. I do not know if
they have spoken. She, obviously, has been at her husband's side for quite
a while. We're very concerned. Tim Johnson is a wonderful guy -- that's my
personal opinion; I know him, he lives not far from us -- and we hope and
pray for his full recovery.

Q On a similar note, has the President or anyone else from the White House
had contact with Governor Rounds?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q No?

MR. SNOW: No. This is a time to pray for Tim Johnson's health, and I'll
leave it to others to start doing political calculations.

Q Beyond the Iraq speech, what is going to be the agenda for the
administration going into the new Congress? What kind of things are you all
going to propose? And will the relationship be conciliatory --

MR. SNOW: You want me to give the State of the Union right now?

Q Yes, pretty much. (Laughter.)

MR. SNOW: No. We will --

Q You have some idea, though.

MR. SNOW: Yes, I do. But, again, there are appropriate times, and the press
secretary, as I've said on a number of occasions, will not get the jump on
the President. We are looking at a lot of things. One of the things the
President did talk about today is earmark reform. Democrats have talked
about that. And it's certainly something where you've seen a profusion of
earmarks in recent years. There has been some trimming back this year.

But it's important that when you have a budget process, that things are not
tucked in without consideration by members of Congress. So this whole issue
of so-called non-transparent earmarks, things that are put in without
consultation or review by other members of Congress, there ought to be a
concerted effort to cut down on those and to allow people to have full
confidence that everything that's in the budget, that their money is being
spent in a way that reflects deliberation by members of Congress.

So there are going to be some of the issues, and we will discuss them --
you're absolutely right -- in advance of the State of the Union, but I will
follow rather than to precede the President in doing so.

Q How optimistic are you the two parties will be able to get along?

MR. SNOW: That's a good question. I think it's important to give everybody
the benefit of the doubt on this one, because there are a number of issues
where -- go back to the first term, what did you have? You had bipartisan
cooperation on No Child Left Behind, you had bipartisan cooperation on a
number of initiatives, and both parties have talked about the importance of
energy innovation and independence. You've had both parties talking about
fiscal responsibility and discipline.

And I think now Democrats also have an opportunity to step up in developing
ways of supporting efforts to create an Iraq that can defend, sustain, and
govern itself. So there are a number of opportunities. Also, you've heard a
number of Democrats say, this is a testing time for us; this is our chance
to show that we can come through, that we can produce.

So all of that provides an opportunity for the two parties to work
together, and we'll see what happens. I am not predicting that every moment
is going to be rosy; I suspect we'll have some moments of partisan dispute.
But on the other hand, it could be a very fruitful and productive two
years, and we hope it will be.

Q Tony, the Army Chief of Staff's testimony yesterday, essentially
appealing for more troops, is that a repudiation of Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld's approach of trying to do more with less?

MR. SNOW: No, if you go back and you look at General Odierno's testimony,
what he was saying is, if you have larger -- if you have greater
responsibilities you're going to need more resources -- okay, that seems
pretty obvious. But at this point, he is giving his testimony and I think
-- I'm not going to try to counterpose it for or against anything Secretary
Rumsfeld said. There's a lot of discussion now about the way forward, and
the General is responding honestly to questions posed by members of
Congress.

Q But when these top military officials are essentially saying the military
has been stretched thin under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld --

MR. SNOW: What he was saying is in the context of if you are going to have
-- I believe there was talk of surges and other things, and if you were
going to be demanding more troops, you're going to need more troops. And if
you're going to have expanded missions, you may need more equipment, which
seems to me to reflect the way things work.

Q Since we're out of Schlitz now --

MR. SNOW: "Out of Schlitz"?

Q "Out of Schlitz" was the line.

MR. SNOW: "Out of Schlitz"? I wasn't aware that that was part of the
rations, but it's a good phrase. I'm going to have to remember it.

Q (Inaudible.)

MR. SNOW: Yes, it got by one of those big conglomerates, so it's not the
same. (Laughter.)

I'm sorry, what?

Q Does he have any more specific proposals for earmark reform, or is he
just complaining about it?

MR. SNOW: I think what the President is doing is laying down some
benchmarks that both parties can work together to pursue.

Q Tony, many of those arguments that you just made against earmarks have
also been made about the way the administration handles war spending. The
Iraq Study Group was critical, said it was time for more honest
questioning. Any thoughts of --

MR. SNOW: Yes, and as you've seen in the last -- on a couple of occasions
this year, including most recently the Mid-Session review, we did, in fact,
put in fairly sizable, what they call plug-ins, to try to create within the
budget accounts. Now, we're in a complex situation here where the President
is contemplating a new way forward, but we believe in transparency and it's
important to have transparency in those expenditures.

Q So will we see any changes in this next budget cycle?

MR. SNOW: Well, as I said, we'll take a look at the budget, but we've
certainly -- you've seen the direction in the last couple of cycles of
trying to move away from emergency appropriations, but on the other hand,
now we're in a situation where we're thinking about a way forward, and I
don't want to prejudge exactly how that's going to work in the budget
process. But I will repeat what I said: It's important that the
expenditures be transparent, that people know what we're asking for and
what we're going to try to use the money for.

Paula.

Q One of the agenda items next year you said is reauthorizing the leave no
child behind act. Well, there is a fairly controversial report that came
out today headed by former Education Secretary under this administration.
Among the recommendations, it calls for mandatory college entrance exams to
all public schools and universities. It also would eliminate local funding
and control of public schools.

One of the criticisms of this report, as well as leave no child behind, has
been that the ultimate goal of both of these would be to end federal
funding of public schools and ultimately move them over to private
institutions. And I'd like to get your --

MR. SNOW: Well, I haven't seen the report, so I'm not even going to comment
on it. But this is an administration that has devoted unprecedented federal
resources to the job of trying to improve public education. I can't go any
further because -- you've at least read a precede of the report. This is
the first I've heard of it. It is certainly nothing on our desk.

Q But it's also been argued that the way leave no child behind act is
structured -- you have standardized testing, one size fits all testing, and
as a result, children that don't happen to test or don't happen to,
perhaps, learn the way this testing measures, that you end up with children
failing.

MR. SNOW: There are a couple of things. First, No Child Left Behind is
designed to make sure that there are education standards, those are still
set by states and they craft exams. You'll have to speak to states about
their particular ways of doing it. They are certainly aware of differences
in learning habits. On the other hand, they also understand the importance
of educational rigor, and they do not want children to be left behind under
the excuse that having received inferior educations, they can rely on other
explanations for why they didn't test well.

The important thing to do is to figure out the best way to teach kids so
that they will have the intellectual tools, and also the educational
background, that will allow them to succeed in a society where many people
have a variety of careers during their lifetime. They have to have the
capacity to learn over that lifetime. And so you not only have to have a
body of knowledge, but also the ability to continue learning through the
rest of your life, because many of us in this room have had multiple
careers, and many people around the country have a series of careers during
their lifetimes, and you have to have the ability to be able to adapt to
that kind of an economy.

Olivier.

Q Tony, are there any plans for Governor Richardson to share the content,
findings, results of the talks today with the North Koreans? And I have a
separate question, as well.

MR. SNOW: I don't know that. But certainly Governor Richardson can play a
very constructive role in reminding the North Koreans that they ought to
return to the six-party talks and be serious about what they agreed to in
the September accord, which is to go about the business of taking down
their nuclear programs in exchange for a series of considerations that are
very important to that government -- but even more significantly, to the
North Korean people, that offer them the opportunity to have some of the
basic necessities in life that they do not now enjoy.

Q And in the conversation, the telephone conversation this morning with
Prime Minister Abdullah, did the President and the Prime Minister discuss
the Prime Minister's warning that Christian relations -- Muslim/Christian
relations are in trouble? Did that come up at all?

MR. SNOW: I do not have a readout on that. I'll have to get a readout --
Gordon, can I just -- he'll let you know what we can say about it. And if
the answer is nothing, Gordon will tell you that, as well.

Q Tony, two questions. Does the President believe that Israel, which has
Arab Muslims as elected members of the Knesset, is guilty of apartheid, as
charged in the title of a new book by President Carter?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q WorldNet --

MR. SNOW: I finally found one I can answer. This is great. (Laughter.)

Q WorldNetDaily notes that in previous years the President has been
criticized for sending out generic holiday cards at this time of the year,
and thus downplaying the celebration of Christmas, a holy day celebrated by
a majority of Americans. And my question: Does the President believe that
the majority of America's Jews, Muslims or Hindus would be offended if the
card sent by this practicing Christian President were to mention Christmas,
instead of just the season, unspecified?

MR. SNOW: I don't know, Les. The thing is the President celebrates
Christian -- he's made no secret of his Christian faith. He also believes
in religious tolerance. And --

Q Doesn't he think that they would be tolerant of him? I mean, as a
Christian President sending out a Christmas card --

MR. SNOW: Again, here's the -- you're always asking me, does the President
believe, on wonderfully provocative questions that no sensible press
secretary would waste time asking the President about. So the fact is that
I don't have the opportunity to ask him about Christmas cards. (Laughter.)

Q Do you think that Christmas cards are a waste?

MR. SNOW: I think that on the priority list today, it's kind of far down.
And I've got to ration my time in front of the President. So it's -- what
the President believes is that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior. He also
believes that in this time and age it is important to welcome the freedom
of all people to worship in accordance with their faith.

Ann.

Q When the President was at the Pentagon on Wednesday, did the Army Chief
of Staff tell him that the Army "will break" if they don't expand size?

MR. SNOW: That, unfortunately, I don't know because, as you know, we were
not in the meeting.

Q Has the President ever been told that the Army "will break" if it isn't
expanded?

MR. SNOW: No, and I'm not sure, again, that the testimony -- I'll have to
go back and read the testimony again, but it sounds to me like that was in
response to a change in status and change in mission. But I don't know what
he's been told in all the briefings.

Q Is the size of the overall American military force part of his review in
looking --

MR. SNOW: All such issues are a part of the review. I mean, there have been
proposals to expand and contract, and obviously -- if you take a look, Ann,
at the conversation, there have been all -- we now have a wide range from
expanding to contracting the mission and the military and everything else.
So all those things are certainly going to come across the desk.

Q But changing the size of the overall of the current standing Army --

MR. SNOW: As I said, I'm not going to tell you exactly what the roster of
options before him may look like, but those certainly -- again, the range
of discussion now is pretty broad, so I suspect each and every one of those
things at some place has been reviewed.

Q Tony, can you give us, please, a little more on the President is going to
sign the U.S.-India (inaudible) nuclear agreement on Monday (inaudible). Is
that a big thing as far as U.S.-India relations are concerned, after
signing this --

MR. SNOW: Of course it is. It's hugely important. I think it reflects not
only the growing importance of India as a partner and ally with the United
States, but I think we hope the growing importance of the United States
also as an ally with India. You've got an expanding economy; you've got the
largest democracy on the face of the Earth. It is a nation that has a
democracy that accommodates a wide variety of religions and cultural groups
and racial groups. And so it's very important to us that we continue to
deepen our relationship with India.

Q What's the difference between what Bill Richardson is doing in North
Korea and what Senator Nelson did in Damascus?

MR. SNOW: Well, number one, you have -- Bill Richardson is not acting in
any official capacity and he's talking to visitors. The second thing is --
and you'll have to ask Governor Richardson about this, because, again, he's
not doing official work for us -- but if you take a look at his record, it
would be likely that he would be encouraging the North Koreans to abide by
the six-party -- by the agreements at the six-party talks and to return in
good faith. And if so, that would be in accordance with U.S. policy.

You see, the six-party talks resume Monday, and it's important that the
North Koreans hear loud and clear what their responsibilities are.

Q Thank you.

MR. SNOW: All right, thanks.

END 12:16 P.M. EST
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