Text 3986, 906 rader
Skriven 2007-01-23 23:31:08 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (070123) for Tue, 2007 Jan 23
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Press Briefing on the State of the Union Speech
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 23, 2007

Press Briefing on the State of the Union Speech
Room 450
Eisenhower Executive Office Building


˙˙˙˙˙ State of the Union 2007 PARTICIPANTS Counselor to the President Dan
Bartlett National Security Advisor Steve Hadley Deputy Chief of Staff for
Policy Joel Kaplan Press Secretary Tony Snow

2:01 P.M. EST

MR. SNOW: Welcome. This is an on-the-record briefing. The material before
you, these handouts -- the embargo is now broken on these, so these are
reportable.

What we're going to do is to give you a detailed overview of the
President's proposals in the State of the Union address. Steve Hadley will
lead off with a summary. Let me just give you a description of the address.
It roughly breaks down 50/50, domestic and foreign policy. The President
will have -- and I will allow Steve to characterize the foreign policy
aspects. Joel Kaplan, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, will run through
the policy items, what you're going to find in the State of the Union
policy initiatives book. Dan Bartlett also will do some communications
framing. We will have questions, and we have to be out of here promptly at
the top of the next hour.

So, with no further ado, Steve Hadley.

MR. HADLEY: The President had an opportunity to lay out his new approach,
new strategy for Iraq here two weeks ago Wednesday. As a consequence, he's
not going to replow that ground in the speech tonight. What he's going to
do is step back, make the point that the struggle in Iraq is part of a
broader struggle between forces of democracy and freedom and the forces of
extremism that support terrorism and tyranny. He's going to remind the
American people that that is the struggle we see in the Middle East, and
that Iraq is a part of that, and it is not just a military struggle, it is
a broad struggle that is an ideological struggle between two very different
views of the Middle East and what life in the Middle East should be about.

He, in that context, is going to talk about the consequences of failure in
Iraq, not only in Iraq for Iraqis, but also the consequences of failure in
the Middle East and beyond. He will make the point that it will strengthen
extremists and terrorists, potentially give them safe havens from which to
attack neighbors and also give them the capability to plan against targets
here in the United States. So the security of the American people is very
tied up with how we -- how the situation in Iraq plays out.

It would also strengthen Iran, an Iran already emboldened by diplomatic
success seeking a nuclear weapon, and the prospect that that could pose for
American interests in the region. And it would also undermine those in the
region who have stood on the side of freedom and democracy, and have taken
severe personal risks to standing up against the terrorists.

So it will be a lot about what is at stake. He will talk a bit about the
strategy. He will emphasize the point that it is time for the Iraqi
government to act, that he has made that clear, the kinds of things the
Iraqis need to do. He will also mention, though, and emphasize the fact
that security in Baghdad is essential if we are going to make progress with
our overall strategy in Iraq. That is really the key issue that is being
debated on the Hill today, and why he continues to believe that security in
Baghdad is the key for progress in the region.

He is also going to talk about the broader issues in terms of the war on
terror. He is going to mention the effort we are making, and both the
successes and challenges that have occurred in Afghanistan; the
undertakings to try and move towards peace in the Middle East and to
implement the vision of two democratic states living side-by-side in peace
and security. He's going to talk about the importance of maintaining the
commitment and a clear voice on behalf of freedom in places like Cuba,
Belarus, and Burma. He's going to talk about the importance of helping the
people in Darfur.

Finally, he's going to emphasize that the foreign policy of the United
States is not simply about war on terror, as important as that issue is,
but that it is also about confronting the ongoing challenges of hunger,
poverty, and disease. He's going to talk about his commitment to his
initiative against HIV/AIDS, about the malaria initiative. He is going to
call for Congress to continue to fund these initiatives, including funding
the Millennium Challenge Account, and make the point that the foreign
policy of the United States is not just about making the world safer, it is
also about making the world better, and the elements of his program that
are directed at that objective.

That's what he'll cover tonight.

MR. SNOW: Joel.

MR. KAPLAN: Thanks, Tony.

On the domestic side tonight, the President is going to lay out a positive,
comprehensive vision for addressing real problems, real challenges facing
Americans today, and he's going to provide real solutions.

I think you heard already in the past couple of days that the President did
not want to do a laundry list-type approach that's kind of become the
formula for State of the Union addresses. He wanted to focus on a handful
of the most serious, biggest challenges that we face where there's real
interest and real opportunity to work together across the aisle to come up
with good solutions to those problems on behalf of the American people. And
I'll just discuss briefly what those are, and then I guess we'll turn to
Dan and some questions.

First of all, the President, because he wants to focus on a handful of key
issues tonight, he'll note that he's going to address the state of our
economy in remarks next week. He'll focus on three economic reforms that he
does want to discuss very briefly related to the budget. The first is, he
will reiterate that because of the strong economic growth and the revenues
that that's generated, that we now have an opportunity to balance the
budget within five years, and to do so without raising taxes on the
American people, but rather to restrain the spending appetite of their
government.

He'll also touch briefly on the challenge of earmarks and the need to make
sure that the Congress reforms the process that allows special interest
provisions to be inserted into bills, and to call on Congress to expose all
earmarks to the light of day and to a vote of Congress, and to at least cut
them in half by the end of this session.

Finally, on the budget, he'll talk about how our improved budget position
gives us an opportunity to address the real, long-term fiscal challenge
that we face which is in our entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and
in particular, the opportunity to save Social Security.

The President will then turn to the four initiatives that he wants to
discuss in some detail. The first is health care. You've heard, I think, a
fair amount about that in the last couple of days, so I'll try to keep it
brief on that. The President will lay out his plan for ensuring available
and affordable access to health insurance for more Americans.

There are two related proposals to do that. The first is to reform the
incentives in the tax code that work against a fair and efficient health
system, in particular two things: The President will propose a reform that
-- the current tax code discriminates against those who purchase their
health insurance on their own, as in they don't get it through their
employer. He wants to eliminate that bias in the tax code. He also wants to
eliminate the bias in the tax code in favor of the most expansive and
expensive health insurance policies.

The way he'll do that is by proposing a standard deduction for health
insurance for anybody who has health insurance, whether they buy it from
their employer -- or rather whether their employer provides it, or whether
they buy it on their own, and regardless of how much it costs. The
deduction is $15,000 for a family, $7,500 for individuals.

This helps three groups of people. Today, if you get your insurance through
your employer, the President's proposal for 100 million people, 80 percent
of the people in that category, the President's proposal will result in a
substantial tax benefit. If you're in the category of people who currently
provide health insurance on their own, by eliminating the discrimination in
the code that group of people will get a substantial tax benefit. A family
of four making $60,000 will get a $4,500 tax benefit. And the proposal will
help millions of uninsured for the first time get a tax benefit that will
put health insurance within reach.

Now, I say within reach because, while it's a substantial benefit, there
are a number of low-income and chronically ill people for whom it will be a
big help, on average about $3,300 but still not quite enough. And the
President has a second proposal called Affordable Choices. And under that
proposal, the Secretary of HHS will work with states that are willing to
provide access to private affordable health insurance in their state -- if
they're willing to do that, the Secretary of HHS will provide assistance in
helping the state make sure that their low-income and uninsured can
actually get access to that private affordable health insurance. So that's
the health insurance proposal that the President will lay out tonight.

He'll also lay out a bold and ambitious proposal on energy. As the
President described in last year's State of the Union, we have an addiction
to oil, and he'll talk tonight about how that creates a national security
risk for our country because it leaves us vulnerable to hostile regimes and
to terrorists.

The President will announce a bold new initiative to reduce our gasoline
usage by 20 percent in 10 years, by 2017. We're calling it 20 in 10. And
the way he'll do this is with two proposals. To address our dependence on
oil, you have to address the supply side and you have to address the demand
side. On the supply side, the President will propose a new alternative fuel
standard of 35 billion gallons -- mandatory fuel standard of 35 billion
gallons by 2017. That's nearly five times the current renewable fuel
standard of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. So it's a very ambitious goal, but
it's one we think is achievable.

On the demand side, the President will propose that Congress authorize a
reformed and modernized CAFE, fuel economy system for passenger cars, that
will allow the Secretary of Transportation to increase fuel economy in the
same way we've done for light trucks, and by doing so, save up to 8.5
billion gallons of fuel. Together, the 35 billion gallons from the
alternative fuel standard represents 15 percent of our gasoline usage in
2017; the 8.5 billion gallons that we're assuming from the increased fuel
economy standards represents 5 percent of the gasoline usage in 2017.
Together that will allow us to save 20 percent of our gasoline usage in
2017.

Obviously, that's a very ambitious, but achievable goal. It will -- while
it will help address our dependency on foreign oil, it won't eliminate it.
And so the President will also call on Congress to step up our production
of domestic oil and resources in environmentally sensitive ways, and he
will call on Congress -- in order to protect from severe disruptions of our
oil supply in the future, he'll call on Congress to double the current
capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 1.5 billion gallons.

The President will also talk about education and immigration in the speech.
On education, the President will call on Congress to strengthen and
reauthorize the very successful No Child Left Behind Act, which was a
signature, bipartisan achievement of the President's first term. The No
Child Left Behind Act is working. It's closing the achievement gap. We've
raised standards for students across the country and improved
accountability. The President will insist that Congress, in reauthorizing
it, strengthen the law, but also make sure that Congress does not water
down the law or backslide and call it reform.

Finally, on immigration, the President will call tonight for Congress to
engage in a serious and conclusive debate on immigration, so that they can
pass and he can sign into law comprehensive immigration reform. He'll again
highlight that comprehensive immigration reform requires us to secure our
borders by doubling the number of Border Patrol and increasing our
investments in infrastructure and technology. It requires improving our
work site and interior enforcement. But even those measures alone will not
secure the border unless we have a temporary worker program which will take
pressure off of the border.

In addition to those three components, the President will talk about the
need to address in a rational and humane way the millions of undocumented
workers who are currently here, and he'll call on Congress to do that
without animosity and without amnesty. Finally, any comprehensive
immigration reform will include efforts at assimilation, to make sure that
new immigrants to this country share in the values that have made the
country great.

MR. SNOW: Dan Bartlett.

MR. BARTLETT: I'll just be real brief since most of this has been covered,
and get to the questions. But, in essence, the message to the American
people is, want to be a gracious President who welcomes and congratulates a
Democratic Congress, but also to speak directly to the American people and
say, hey, there are big things we can do together. There are big issues in
which the American people expect, regardless of what side of the aisle you
sit on, is to cross that aisle and work together. And the President --
through the policies he will outline tonight and what Joel has just
described, we believe gives us a really unique opportunity to try to get
some big achievements in the coming legislative calendar.

They're difficult issues. They're ones that have been attempted to solve in
the past and have come up short. We go into this process with no illusions
about the atmosphere in which we're operating in. But the American people
send a signal that they want Washington to act differently, they want their
leaders to try to find common ground. And we believe both -- when you talk
about the elements of the domestic agenda, as well as many elements of the
war on terror, obviously there is a very emotional and highly charged
debate when it comes to Iraq -- but there are many elements to this war,
there are many elements to this foreign policy in which there has been
broad bipartisan support. And collectively, if you look at the agenda the
President will outline tonight, we do believe it's one that can serve as a
basis for bipartisan outreach.

MR. SNOW: All right, what we're going to do is, as in a press conference,
we're going to group the questions by topic. We'll begin with the foreign
policy questions. Once we've exhausted those, then we'll march through the
policy items.

Q Thanks. How much will he talk about Iran tonight? And how specifically
and how tough will the language be about Iran?

MR. HADLEY: I don't think he'll break any new ground on Iran. He'll talk
about the challenge that Iran poses in the region. He'll also talk about
the extremist challenge, which is both a challenge from groups, Sunni
groups like al Qaeda. He'll also talk about the challenge of Shia
extremists. And, of course, a number of those are supported by Iran, as you
know.

So it certainly is a part of the context in the Middle East. It's one of
the things one has to consider about what our actions in Iraq and elsewhere
would do toward strengthening and empower Iran and feeding Iran's ambitions
in the region. But I think it will be things that you've heard from him
before, said in a broader context.

MR. SNOW: Let me suggest if you have questions, keep your hands up a little
bit so folks with microphones can identify you. That way we can move a
little more quickly.

Q How do you want to support freedom in Cuba and Belarus and Burma?

MR. HADLEY: Well, the President has been very clear. We think that there is
-- we hope there is an opportunity for a democratic transition in Cuba,
where the Cuban people will have an opportunity really for the first time
to take control of their own future and define the kind of government they
want going forward. We hope that is an opportunity that is going to come in
the imminent succession that we see there.

The President has been very clear about Belarus. He has hosted dissidents
and those who support freedom and democracy in Belarus in the Oval Office.
He's been very clear that it's time for the Belarusian people again to be
able to step forward and to find their own future.

And same in Burma -- I mean, we've been very clear. We were pleased to have
an opportunity to get a Security Council resolution. Sorry that it was
vetoed by two countries, but again, it put the issue of Burma as an issue
for the international community. So it's an ongoing effort.

Q Steve, if you could talk broadly about what he's talking about the global
war on terrorism and Iraq. Does he really say anything new in talking about
what effect it would have in the region and the world if there was failure
in Iraq? And also I know you said he wants to look forward in this, but
does he again acknowledge mistakes or failures in the past? Just basically,
is there anything new on Iraq and global war on terrorism and the mistakes?

MR. HADLEY: Well, I think it is. I think you'll find it's a very good
statement about the consequences in the region. We've been doing a lot of
outreach to members of Congress over the last two weeks. And one of the
things we've heard is that Americans don't understand the connection
between what is happening and the war on terror, and doesn't understand the
connection between the outcome of the war on terror and security here at
home. And what the President is going to do is sort of walk through those
connections. And I think you'll -- I'll let you hear it from the President
tonight.

Q Is he going to do the mistakes part? Is he going to talk about any
failures in the past again?

MR. HADLEY: Well, he's covered a lot of the specific issues about Iraq,
what our strategy was, what we've learned, particularly in terms of
describing how the new Baghdad security plan differs from what we did in
the past. This is an effort, really, to step back and paint a broader
picture. So in some sense, he did that in the speech he gave two weeks ago
Wednesday. I think it's a different speech with a different purpose
tonight.

MR. BARTLETT: I think just to amplify on that just for a second, Steve, the
way he will talk about the kind of -- how this war has transpired, he'll
talk about where we went from 2005 to 2006. In 2005, there were a lot of
advancements in the democracy agenda -- and Steve can talk more to this --
and in 2006, the enemy fought back across the fronts, whether it be in
Iraq, whether it be in Lebanon, whether it be in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
And it's a good way to have -- the President can use this as an opportunity
to discuss the nature of the enemy we're facing, why it is -- like I said,
the interconnectedness between Iraq and the other elements of extremism,
whether it be Shia-Sunni, as Steve described. So there will be some
difference, some new language and new context to something you've heard him
talk a lot about.

Q Steve, back on Iran, if I could. As you know, in the last weeks there's
been quite a debate over the degree of Iranian involvement in both the
insurgency and the militias in Iraq. Will the President produce new
evidence, new information about what Iran is doing in Iraq? And if not, why
not?

MR. HADLEY: Well, there's already a lot out in the public on that. You've
reported about the detention of Iranians in Iraq engaged in the movement of
equipment and other things into the country, and activities that threaten
our men and women in uniform, and also Iraqis. So a lot of that evidence is
already out. And what we're doing about it is something the President
addressed in his speech on Iraq. And you've seen some of the evidences of
that over the last two weeks. So I think that issue has already been pretty
well framed.

Dan, you want to add anything on that?

MR. BARTLETT: No, I think you're right. I think that, again, that was a
specific context to how the new Iraq strategy was going to be specifically
outlined. While the President will reiterate key elements of the
President's Iraqi strategy, talking about why we need to secure Baghdad,
the reinforcements needed to do just that, he'll make that case again, just
not at a level of granularity on Iran and other elements that you would
hear. But he'll talk about our diplomatic strategy in parts of --

MR. SNOW: And furthermore, Iran does fit into the overall picture of the
global terror threat.

MR. BARTLETT: Right.

Q Is the doubling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve tied to foreign policy
in that you are afraid that there's going to be an interruption of oil flow
from the Middle East?

MR. SNOW: No, it's merely a matter of providing for energy security. This
has been American policy for some time. As U.S. consumption has gone up,
the capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide a cushion has,
in fact, decreased over the years, and what we're doing is we're rebuilding
the cushion. In the -- it certainly does fit into the overall picture of
energy security, but it is not specifically designed for that.

Q Real quick follow-up, Dan. You were talking about 2006 being the year
when the enemy fought back. If you're listening to this speech, will you,
as a listener, get any context of timing in the President's mind, how long
Americans are expected his new plan to take, or how long we would expect
the enemy to fight back?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, I think -- what I meant when I said the enemy would
fight back -- in '05, we saw elections in Iraq, we saw advancements in the
Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, we saw Afghanistan, assembling of a
legislature made up in large parts of women. There were just huge advances
made in '05. And as the President will say, the enemy took stock of this,
adapted and struck back with quite a fury across-the-board in the Middle
East, and obviously, including mostly in Iraq.

And the President has made clear in his speech two weeks ago that a
commitment in Iraq is not open-ended, that we have to have a willing party,
because, ultimately, Iraqis have to solve many of the difficult problems
facing their country. He made the assessment that as they demonstrate their
intent to take these on, we have to make sure they have the capability to
take them on, and he will speak specifically to that, as well.

But the President has also made very clear, and so have many of the
generals and others who have been testifying, to talk about the specific
elements of the military campaign it would not be appropriate to say that
this is a 90-day or a 120-day campaign, 180-day campaign, because those
types of operational predictions feed into the hands of the enemy. But this
is going to be a sustained, forceful effort, as General Petraeus testified
to this morning.

Q Can you tell me, will the President make any mention of North Korea? And,
if so, what will he say? And, also, will he ask for the international
community to reach out with regards to Iran or Iraq?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, he will definitely talk about the fact that in order to
advance American interests in the world, we can't do this alone, that the
civilized world plays a key role. And we have a diplomatic strategy on many
fronts, including the six-party talks with North Korea; where it talks
about our diplomacy through the United Nations; when it comes to Iran,
talking about working with our allies and friends in the region to bring
about peace in the Middle East, two states living side- by-side. So he will
talk extensively about, and comprehensively about, our diplomatic strategy
across many different fronts.

Q But he'll only make a mention, a quick mention of the six-party talks?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, as you know, those six-party talks are underway and
he's not going to be doing real-time analysis of that. But he's going to
talk about the importance of having many voices speaking to make clear our
intentions when it comes to North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Q Will the President respond to the Senate resolutions that are opposing
the troop increase?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q Is there any mention in the speech of a strategic arms control agenda?

MR. BARTLETT: That is not a part of the speech.

Just to amplify a little bit on what Tony just said there in his answer --
(laughter) -- is that the President is going to articulate why he made the
decision he made with this new strategy, why he believes it has the best
chance for success, what the ramifications of failure would be. And he's
going to ask this Congress to give it a chance to work and to support our
troops. And that's an important message, not only for the United States
Congress, but there's an important audience with the American people.

He understands and will acknowledge the fact that there is skepticism. He's
listened to their views. He understands that there are disagreements when
it comes to the decision he made. But he did -- and our administration is
doing -- what many people, including the new top military commander who is
going to Iraq, has the best chance for success. And he'll make that case
tonight.

MR. SNOW: It's important to realize, as the President stressed before,
there seems to be substantial agreement on a lot of things: Number one, you
can't afford to have a failure in Iraq -- and he will explain more clearly
to the American people exactly what that would entail and why it would be
disastrous; number two, people want to support the troops; and number
three, people want Iraqis in the lead -- all of which he will address. And
then he'll make the further point that it is his view -- and he'll explain
why -- that having a larger troop presence is essential for success in
Iraq.

But there will not be direct engagement on resolutions on the Senate floor.
There will be, as Dan pointed out, a forceful and clear argument of why the
President, after a very exhaustive process of looking at all options,
including some that have been raised on the floor of the Senate and
elsewhere, has chosen this particular way forward.

Q Dan, the 2002 State of the Union was, of course, when they used the "axis
of evil" phrase for the first time, and it suggested a connection of some
kind between the various terror forces and enemies. Is the President going
to do anything tonight to suggest that the forces in the Mideast are in
some way allied against us, that there is interaction beyond what we've
seen in Iran and Iraq?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, I think as you've heard the President articulate, it's
more about the forces of extremism against moderation in the Middle East,
and that the American -- United States of America has an interest to see
that the moderates prevail; that it is a brutal and determined enemy that
wears more than one face -- it's not just al Qaeda and Sunni-based
extremists like we're facing in many parts of the world, as well as in
Iraq, but also a Shia extremism that has to be just as concerning to the
American people -- who their agents are, Hezbollah, Hamas; who they rely
upon, state actors. Those are things of real concern. But both of those
extremist elements are trying to snuff out the moderate forces in the
Middle East, and we have a stake in seeing for our own security interests
that the moderates prevail. And that's the argument he will make tonight.

Q Nothing about an Iran-North Korea linkage?

MR. BARTLETT: Not in that context, no.

Q Will the President say anything tonight to convince skeptics that Prime
Minister Maliki has changed his heart and he is willing to fulfill his end
of the deal, and stop political and sectarian interference?

MR. BARTLETT: He'll make very clear that a key element of the new Iraq
strategy requires an active and willing partner in the Iraqi government,
that they have to take steps to achieve concrete benchmarks that everybody
recognizes have to be achieved in order to get political progress on the
ground. The President also has made clear that there's not a military
solution alone to this problem, that there has to be the type of
reconciliation and reconstruction in that country for them to advance
toward a more mature democracy that can meet the goals we all have and
require less support from the United States.

I think the interesting thing -- and the President won't go into these
details tonight -- but that there have been some preliminary but
encouraging signs by the Maliki government. If you look at reports talking
about Jaish al Mahdi and other extremist elements that have been taken down
in the last several weeks, you look at some of -- it looks like there's
more progress being made on the oil law and those things. So we're seeing a
clear recognition out of Baghdad that the Iraqi government must make these
types of advances in order to continue to have the support of the United
States.

Q Thank you. Will the President elaborate more on the benchmarks for the
Iraqi government and the consequences of not meeting those benchmarks?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, we've talked extensively, and he will list,
specifically, many of the benchmarks that not only the United States
expects them to meet, but the Iraqi people expect them to meet. And this
has been a topic of conversation for the last two weeks, about linking and
consequences for benchmarks. I think the Iraqi political system, the
democracy you have on the ground there, as well at the democracy here,
demonstrates that there will be consequences if these benchmarks are not
met.

Everybody recognizes -- the President said that our commitment is not
open-ended. So he'll make clear there are specific, measurable benchmarks
both on the security front, and the political and economic front that the
Iraqi government must make progress on. And the good thing is they
recognize that, too. Their own electorate expects them to make similar
progress.

Q Dan and Tony, the President made, I believe, five speeches in the runup
to the election in which he cast the global war on terror as the decisive
ideological struggle of our time. He talked about Iraq as the central front
in that war. Now you're saying that the public does not get the connection
between what's happening over there and what might happen here. So why do
you think, after all those speeches, the public still doesn't get that
connection? And what is the President going to say tonight that is
different, that he believes will change the public's mind?

MR. SNOW: Well, I think what the President understands is that the public
wants to see progress. And he is going to talk about the way -- not only in
the context of the way forward in Iraq, but also, once again linking up --
because there does seem to be a sense that the war in Iraq somehow can be
segregated, for instance, from al Qaeda. Quite often you'll hear people
say, well, why don't you go after al Qaeda, as if that is a separate
threat, where, in point of fact, it is part of a larger war on terror and
Iraq does remain the central front. He will talk about that. He will cast
it as the defining ideological struggle of our time.

But it is important from time to time to go through and talk with the
American people about what the stakes are and how it fits into a larger
strategy of keeping America safe and defending American interests. Just
because -- he gave speeches in September and they were well received, and
it's important to talk about that again.

MR. BARTLETT: Just to add to that, Sheryl, I think where the disconnect
comes, or where people may lose sight of that is because of the increased
nature of the sectarian violence that has taken place in the last quarter
-- half and quarter of this past year, is that appearance to the American
people that this is just Iraqi-on-Iraqi, this doesn't have to do with the
war on terror. And what is incumbent upon the administration and others is
to explain how very much it has an element to the war on terror because the
instigators of the sectarian violence, the ones who have a stake in seeing
one extremist side of the sectarian violence prevail -- whether it be al
Qaeda or former Saddamists on one side, or Shia extremists on the other
side -- who are using innocent Iraqis on both sides of the sectarian divide
as essentially cannon fodder in a much broader extremist movement. And it's
a very unsettling development in Iraq.

And the calculation the President had to make is that, should we help in a
sustained way the Iraqi government to break this current level of sectarian
violence going on in the capital? And our judgment is, yes. And if we
didn't, it will have severe consequences on every element of the war on
terror, both inside Iraq and outside of Iraq.

But that is, I think -- some of the things that have happened over the
course of the last several months is because of the sectarian nature of
this violence, is almost expected to think that the American people would
lose sight of the broader context of this war.

MR. SNOW: Okay, let's do a couple more on foreign, and then we need to get
to domestic.

Q I was going to domestic.

Q Just a follow-up --

MR. SNOW: Well, first, let's let -- Elaine I think has a question.

Q To kind of follow up on Sheryl's question, is he going to use the phrase
"the new way forward" tonight in describing the strategy? Because as I
recall -- I could be wrong, but I don't believe he used that phrase during
his Iraq prime-time address. It was on all the fact sheets, correct?

MR. BARTLETT: You're stumping me here. I'll get back to you on that.

MR. SNOW: Yes, we'll have to go back and look. It's still -- we're still
talking about the same, it is a new way forward. I don't know if it appears
in the speech.

MR. BARTLETT: We thought that was an important point -- there was a lot of
-- in the confirmation hearing for General Petraeus, there was a lot of
talk about what is just 21,000 more troops to do, that's not -- and General
Petraeus I think eloquently talked about it's not just how many, it's how
you use them, and underlined the fact that this is a different strategy,
expecting different results.

MR. SNOW: And also with a different role for the Iraqis, which is the key
and pivotal element.

Q I guess I'm describing it as sort of the certainty. By using that phrase
or not using that phrase, is that reflecting the lack of control that the
--

MR. SNOW: No, you're reading too much into it.

Q Dan, that's the strongest I've heard you talk about actual benchmarks. In
fact, I think you and the President have kind of gone out of the way to not
say there were specific benchmarks, other than there were to be
consequences if some troops didn't -- will he use the word "benchmarks,"
there are benchmarks in this?

MR. BARTLETT: Yes, as he did two weeks ago.

Q He did two weeks ago?

MR. BARTLETT: We used the term "benchmarks" two weeks ago.

Q But specifically, will he say, this has to happen by this date, that has
to happen by that date? I think I'm still vague --

MR. BARTLETT: He's not going to use dates, no, but he's going to talk --

Q But that's your line you won't cross -- he won't talk about dates, but
are there dates?

MR. BARTLETT: Oh, sure.

Q Specific dates, and specific benchmarks?

MR. BARTLETT: He used a date two weeks ago, when he said that of all --
handing over the security of all the provinces to Iraqi lead by November of
2007. That's a specific date.

Q But that's sort of a vague -- if troops don't -- right, handing it over
by then. But if troops don't arrive by X date, this date, if we don't have
an oil deal by X date -- are they that specific?

MR. BARTLETT: We are not doing what others have done, is say, if this
doesn't happen, we're going to withhold this funding, or if this doesn't
happen, we're going to withdraw troops from here. And that is not a part of
our strategy.

Q Okay, so I don't get what the difference between that and benchmarks. I
don't --

MR. BARTLETT: To clearly articulate, and very publicly, in a very
transparent way, the indicators and the measurements we will use to see if
the Iraqi government is succeeding in doing the things that the Iraqi
people and the American people and the international community expect them
to do, as I said, on the military front, on the reconstruction front, the
reconciliation front -- this goes to the oil law, it goes to the provincial
elections, it goes to reconstruction dollars being evenly distributed, even
to Sunni provinces. It goes to a lot of different -- reform the
de-Baathification law. These are things that everybody recognizes as the
benchmarks that need to be met.

And the President generally has said, this is not an open-ended commitment,
you have to make progress in these. There are others who say you should get
more specific, and tying specific consequences to specific benchmarks. The
President won't do that tonight.

MR. SNOW: We are not doing ultimatums.

Deb, Jim and then we go domestic.

Q Why was the decision made not to directly address the resolution? This is
a huge issue before Congress. Did he deliberately decide not to --

MR. BARTLETT: I think what you're seeing is that there is multiple ideas,
multiple resolutions. There's a

-- the House of Representatives has ideas; the United States Senate has
ideas; there's five senators here, there's seven senators here. There's a
lot of debate going on in the United States Congress, which is important.
And they have a role to play and they're going to make their views known.

But what the President feels obligated to do, not only speaking to the
Congress, but to the American people, is to articulate the strategy that he
has chosen and explain why he believes it will work and what he thinks will
be the consequences if we fail in Iraq.

Q I just want to follow up on what Martha was asking, because maybe I took
the wrong note here, but I thought you said the President will list
specific benchmarks and consequences. So what consequences are we talking
about?

MR. BARTLETT: I apologize if I misspoke. What I was saying was that there
will be specific benchmarks he will articulate, as I just said --
reconciliation on the side of reform, de-Baathification laws, talking about
an oil law; those things.

The consequences I said will be the fact that the Iraqi people and the
United States of America do not expect an open-ended commitment to a
government that is not meeting these goals. In a general sense, I am trying
to make -- to clarify to both of you -- and I'm not saying that there are
specific ultimatums or consequences tied to each of these benefits -- these
benchmarks. But what I am saying is that everybody recognize that this is
the decisive period for the Iraqi government. This is the period where they
have to step up and make key advancements on the political front, the
reconstruction front and the security front. And their own elected people
are going to hold them -- their own political process is going to hold them
to account and the President has made clear to the American people that we
expect them to make progress on those accounts.

MR. SNOW: And to add to that, there have been some signs -- one does not
want to leap to conclusions based on those -- you have seen more aggressive
and forthright action against Shia militias. We all not only have the
captures, but we also have movement. You have changes in behavior on the
part of Muqtada al Sadr in terms of the kind of public stance he's taking
in also telling his people to go back to the Council of Representatives.
That made possible a quorum that's going to enable the legislature to move
toward passing such things as oil laws and de-Baathification reform.

So again, we don't want to make too much of it, but on the other hand,
you're starting to see some movement. There have been reports of brigades
beginning to make their way toward Baghdad. All of those things that the
American people ought to keep an eye out for.

Q Dan, I wonder if you could talk about the overall political context for
this speech. He's arguably in worse shape than he's ever been for one of
these speeches. How is that reality reflected in this? How does it change
his goals? Does he have to show he's relevant, especially on domestic
issues?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, I think it demonstrates that the power of ideas can
transcend partisan differences in Washington. And if you talk about the
issues the public cares about, and you put forward innovative, bold ideas
that the American people, regardless of what the polls say that day, will
say, this is worth study, this is worth engaging the Democratic Congress
on. And the Democratic Congress, understanding its new responsibilities to
demonstrate that they can be just not the party of opposition, but to reach
out and govern, that these are areas we think that you can find common
ground. If you peel back all the rhetoric and all the campaign talk, these
are issues on education, immigration, energy and health care, that the
American people expect to see progress made by their leaders in Washington.

What the President will do, I believe in a very gracious way, is say,
congratulations, now here are some big -- you know, it doesn't matter what
side of the aisle we sit on, let's come together and work on these issues.
Here are my ideas to how we can advance our goals in these areas.

MR. SNOW: And furthermore, the assumption in the question is talking about
being in bad shape, he understands that as President, he has the ability to
articulate issues and he's got a responsibility for dealing with them. And
he's doing so, I think, in a refreshing and innovative way. These are bold
proposals. You take a look at the health care and energy proposals, and
they really do have incredible potential for transforming two areas of
concern for the American people.

And as the debate proceeds and as people begin to grasp precisely what he's
talking about, I think they're going to get a sense of a President here who
really is being bold and visionary when it comes to dealing with these
issues. And it's going to place -- it's going to create an opportunity for
members of Congress who came to town saying, we want to demonstrate that we
can work with the President and we can get things done -- you can get some
very serious and constructive things done. And the President doesn't lay it
out as a challenge or a confrontation, but in fact, as an opportunity to
work together.

Q This is for Joel on the energy question, one factual question and then a
broader question. The factual question: Is it your position that Congress
needs to pass legislation on CAFE standards? That's not something that you
guys can do on your own, that the Secretary of Transportation can't just
order an increase in the standards?

And number two, just philosophically, are you able to discuss to what
extent the President has -- in sort of the first part of his presidency, he
really focused a lot on supply, on energy and drilling in ANWR and stuff,
and this speech obviously seems like it's much more of a focus on the
demand side. And if you could just explain how the President
philosophically has shifted on that issue.

MR. KAPLAN: Thanks, Mike. It's been such a long time since I spoke, I'm
just going to do my whole presentation again as a refresher. (Laughter.)
But, no, the two issues --

MR. BARTLETT: Don't scare them. (Laughter.)

MR. KAPLAN: On CAFE, our understanding of the law and the Department of
Transportation's understanding of the law is that we could, today, simply
increase the fuel economy standards for cars, but we couldn't reform the
program in the way that we did for light trucks. And it's been the
President's view for a long time -- it was the National Academy of
Sciences' view when they looked at this issue that it would be a mistake to
try to increase fuel economy within the current broken CAFE system that we
have. It's not cost-effective. It encourages gaming. And most importantly,
if you look back historically over the life of the program, it's
contributed to a number of -- a very significant number of fatalities on
the road.

So it is important to reform the system, and once we do so and Congress
gives us that authority -- which we don't believe exists under the law --
then the President believes we'll be able to increase fuel economy on the
demand side, and do it in a way as to save up to 8.5 billion gallons, which
is a very significant increase. We've proven the effectiveness of this type
of reform in the light truck context over the last couple of years. We want
to extend that into the passenger car fleet.

The second issue, look, it doesn't seem to me that the President is just
discovering this issue. He's the one in the State of the Union last year
who said that we're addicted to oil. In his national energy policy five
years ago he proposed a whole suite of tax incentives for renewable energy.
We've spent billions of dollars -- I think it's $12 billion -- I'll have to
check my figure on that to be sure -- $12 billion through this budget year
on all kinds of advanced energy technologies. And as a result of those
investments, and as a result of investments in the private sector, most
importantly, we're on the cusp of some very exciting technological
breakthroughs that will help us achieve the President's goal of reducing
our gasoline usage by 20 percent.

So this is something the President has been focused on for a long time, and
as a result of that focus and the ingenuity of the American people, we're
very close to being able to do something we haven't in the past.

MR. SNOW: But, Mike, just to make a second point, when he talks about
innovation, that's also talking about supply. It's simply talking about
supply of alternative sources. He will also talk about environmentally
responsible extraction of resources, such as ANWR. This also follows on --
this is an administration that has twice raised CAFE standards on light
trucks. The President is not new to either of these and this really is an
extension of principals he's been talking about for some time.

Q On the CAFE standards, the one measure you've got in here aimed at
consumption is a measure that will impact a struggling industry and a
struggling sector based in a struggling state. And I wonder, A, whether or
not there was any consideration of looking at other industries or other
ways at affecting energy consumption, and B, whether or not there's
anything either in the speech or coming later that might soften the
economic impact that that's going to have on the auto industry.

MR. KAPLAN: A couple of points. First of all, the President is talking
about this issue in the terms of national security and what our dependence
on oil -- what the impacts that has for our national security. As opposed
to 30, 40 years ago, where we used oil in lots of sectors in our economy,
right now transportation sector is the one that uses 97 percent of the oil.
So if you're trying to reduce your dependence on foreign oil, you've got to
deal with the transportation sector.

The President obviously recognizes some of the challenges the domestic
automakers have been facing. He had a very productive meeting with CEOs of
the Big Three a couple of weeks, a month or so back. And the President has
got very bold economic policies that -- from his tax policy to,
importantly, his health care policies. One of the big challenges that all
businesses have these days is rising health care costs. That's particularly
true in the manufacturing sector, and the automotive industry in
particular.

The proposal the President is discussing -- proposing in the health care
area will have a dramatic effect in reducing the overall cost of health
care by reversing the inflationary pressures that exist today because of
the incentives in the tax code to purchase the most expensive health care
policies possible.

So there are a number of policies in place -- opening up markets overseas
-- there are lots of policies the President is pursuing that address the
concerns of struggling industries. We do think it's important, if you're
going to address a dependence on foreign oil, that you've got to address
both the supply side and the demand side.

Q Tony, yesterday you were a little reluctant to divvy up the pie about how
this speech will break out. Can you talk a little bit more about the
structure of the speech, domestic and foreign policy?

MR. SNOW: Yes, it begins with a section on -- first he will great the new
Speaker -- it is an historic opportunity, so there will be some comments on
the new Congress and the new Speaker. Then he will talk about the domestic
policy sections. And then the back half of the speech -- roughly 50/50 --
the back half of the speech will be on Iraq, but also on the larger war on
terror.

In addition, the President will be talking about diplomatic efforts; as Dan
was pointing out earlier, that's an enormously important part of what we
do. And the President also will talk about humanitarian elements, whether
it be with regard to addressing malaria or AIDS, also is an important
national security concern. So it's going to be a broad and thoughtful
discussion of foreign policy. It is not simply half the speech on Iraq.
Iraq certainly will come up, but to give people a sense of how all the
pieces of