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Skriven 2007-03-08 23:31:04 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0703082) for Thu, 2007 Mar 8
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Press Gaggle by Steve Hadley, Dan Bartlett and Tony Snow
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 8, 2007

Press Gaggle by Steve Hadley, Dan Bartlett and Tony Snow
Aboard Air Force One En route SÆo Paulo, Brazil

˙˙Press Briefings

˙˙˙˙˙ President's Trip to Latin America

PARTICIPANTS
Steve Hadley, National Security Advisor
Dan Bartlett, Counselor to the President
Tony Snow, Press Secretary

12:56 P.M. EST

MR. SNOW: Okay, nothing special on the President's schedule. You understand
what it is -- we're flying to Brazil. As you may also know, earlier today
House Democrats have come up with a proposal for the supplemental
appropriation. It would include a series of benchmarks and timetables. It
is apparent, once you look at the details of this proposal that the chief
aim of Democratic leaders was to get Democrats happy, rather than the more
important goal of providing the funding and flexibility generals need to
succeed in their mission in Iraq.

And I'll just leave it at that for a brief opening statement. I don't know
if my colleagues want to revise and extend -- anything else, guys?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, if you don't know about the details of this plan is
that it appears -- and we don't have specific language, but if you go by
their public statements -- is that they have tied specific troop
withdrawals, whether the Iraqis fail or whether the Iraqis succeed. It
underlines the basic premise that their first goal is to pull all the
troops out, regardless of the conditions on the ground, which would be in
direct contradiction of the 16 intelligence agencies and the National
Intelligence Estimate that said that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq
would be harmful to the security of the country, and obviously harmful to
U.S. interests in that country and the region.

For particular details, they said if the benchmarks -- and we haven't seen
all the benchmarks, but it's, like, the oil law, it's, like,
liberalization, deBaathification law, the $10 billion, provincial elections
-- if those are not met by July 1st of this year and not certified that
they've been met, they would have all troops pulled out by the end of this
year, 2007. They said if they do meet these benchmarks, they'll give us to
October to have a specific withdrawal of all troops by September of 2008.

So what this is, is a political compromise in the Democratic caucus of the
House, aimed at bringing comity to their internal politics, not reflective
of the conditions on the ground in Iraq. It would unnecessarily handcuff
our generals on the ground, and it's safe to say it's a non-starter for the
President.

Q What is your all's strategy going to be now?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, the leader of the Republicans in the House, Boehner,
Leader Boehner, has already had a press conference declaring their
opposition to this legislation. Obviously, the administration would
vehemently oppose and ultimately veto any legislation that looked like what
was described today. Again, we don't have all the details, there's as lot
of definitional purposes, but what we're seeing here is an artificial,
precipitous withdrawal from Iraq based on, unfortunately, politics in
Washington, not on conditions on the ground in Baghdad, Iraq.

MR. SNOW: And, again, just to add a little, tiny bit to that. The purpose
is to succeed in Iraq so we can make America safer. The purpose of a
resolution should not be to get disparate factions of the Democratic Party
to be able to agree on a resolution. As Dan has just pointed out, what
they're really talking about is internal party politics. What the President
is proposing is a way forward that is going to strengthen American security
and also make the world a safer place.

Q Does it look like the Democrats have enough support to pass this thing?

MR. BARTLETT: Well, that's up to them to decide whether they have the votes
or not. I just think they'll be, you know, a solid number or Republicans
who would not want to handcuff our generals on the battlefield in the
middle of a decisive security mission. And we'll see whether any Democrats
within the caucus give pause to such an approach.

MR. SNOW: There's also a game of charades going on, which is to say we will
fully fund the President's supplemental request, then we will order the
troops to leave on a date certain. It's an attempt to say that they're
supporting the reinforcements. You can't do that by saying we're going to
support for a certain period of time and then order folks home.

Q Are you in touch with the Republican leadership?

MR. BARTLETT: Absolutely. We've stayed closely coordinated with the
Republican leadership. It's been a -- it has required almost hour-by-hour
communication, because the Democrats' position has changed by the hour. But
their latest proposal -- and we'll see if it has enough staying power; we
don't think it does, because I think it's in direct contradiction to what
they American people want, they don't want 535 members of Congress
micro-managing our generals on the ground who are trying to fight a war --
but, yes, we are in close coordination.

Q -- yesterday, when the President met with the Democratic leadership?

MR. BARTLETT: Not in this type of detail, no. I think it's safe to say even
at that hour they didn't have a final solution.

Q Last night -- or through the night -

MR. SNOW: It must have been. It obviously became known publicly, but it was
not a part of the discussion yesterday.

MR. BARTLETT: It's one of the few benefits of the 24-hour news cycle, seven
days a week, is you can keep up actually with the position of the
Democrats. (Laughter.)

Q Can you describe the situation on the ground in Baghdad, how the surge is
going? Are you satisfied with the progress?

MR. HADLEY: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question.

Q Can you describe the situation on the ground in Baghdad and whether
you're satisfied with the progress of the troop deployment there?

MR. HADLEY: Well, I think it's too early to draw particular conclusions. I
think the best assessment of the situation on the ground you can get from
the briefing that General Petreaus gave here just this morning, you can get
a look at the transcript.

I think the important thing to remember is we've talked about some
encouraging signs. We're at the early stages of the rollout of the Baghdad
security plan. The additional Iraqi forces are nearing the completion of
showing up. We still, of course, only have about two of our five brigades
in place. So this is early on, it's still getting organized. There are some
positive signs. The Iraqis seem to be showing up and stepping up. But I
think at this point it's -- you've heard it from General Petreaus, and I
think the main thing is just to remember we're in the early stage of this,
as the President said many times. Yes, there are some encouraging
indications so far, we're at the early stages, and we're going to have some
good days and some bad days, and that's the way this is going to unfold.

Q Can I ask you about final U.S. troop numbers going into Baghdad? There
seems to be some question about whether 21,500 was an accurate estimate of
how many American troops would actually end up on the ground in Baghdad.

MR. HADLEY: It was an accurate estimate of the combat troops that were
going into Baghdad. That's what the President talked about. He said that
there would be five brigades that would be going into Baghdad. He talked
about 22,000-23,000 troops, something like that, the bulk of which would be
going into Baghdad. So what he was talking about is combat troops.

Secretary Gates and General Pace, a couple weeks ago, noted that there
would be some combat support troops. Any time you send in combat troops,
you're going to need, of course, combat support troops. The burden is less
because we've got, of course, 140,000-plus folks on the ground. But he did
indicate here a couple weeks ago that he thought the increment of
additional combat support troops would probably be 10 or 15 percent, and
he's talked publicly of a number around 2,400, something like that.

In addition, General Petreaus is on the ground and he's been, of course,
told that if there are additional requirements he needs to get the job
done, he should come back and indicate what they are. And, again, I think
in his press availability today he indicated that there might be an
additional increment for detainee operations and that sort of thing.

So this is not unexpected. It's about the right size of how we're coming in
and the fact that, as the General says, he's got a plan, we're executing
the plan; as you get into the execution of the plan, you learn a lot,
conditions change and you make adjustments, and that's what we're going to
be doing. But, you know, again, we're in the early stages at this point.

Q But if it's in the early stages, how long do you give it before you can
tell whether it's really working or not? At this point, it seems like these
suicide bombers are confounding it by moving north.

MR. HADLEY: I think what you can say at this point is, you know, we're at
the input stage -- getting organized, getting commands organized, getting
commanders in place, getting troops in place; we're at the input stage. And
that seems to be going pretty well. As I said, the Iraqis are showing up
and standing up, and we're bringing our own troops in.

There have been some briefings from the theater that have talked about some
early signs of positive developments on the security. Again, my answer to
you is, it's pretty early, we appreciate those positive signs, but it's
pretty early -- there's going to be good days, there are going to be bad
days. And, remember, the bad guys are going to try and defeat this thing
early, because the longer it goes, the more confidence citizens of Baghdad
have that it's working, the harder it's going to be for the bad guys. So if
you're them, you're going to try and knock this out early. And that's why I
think you're going to see these efforts to have spectacular attacks, with
VBIEDs and car bombs and suicide bombs -- heavily al Qaeda, to try and,
again, touch off Shia on Sunni violence.

So I think you can expect in the near-term -- and I think you heard this
from the President and you heard this from General Casey-- that the bad
guys are going to try and derail this thing through violence. And that's
why I think people have to let this plan unfold. As we've said, as each
months go by, we will know more and we will learn more about how it's
doing. But I think it's going to be some months before we're really going
to know how this is working.

Q Will you have a good feel for it by June or July?

MR. HADLEY: Conditions on the ground, it depends on so many different
things. I think what I would say to you is we're going to be learning more
month to month, we're going to have briefings that will be available to the
press, to try and give people a sense of how it's going. And we're going to
evaluate it in terms of what we see on the ground, in terms of the progress
--

Q So no month --

MR. HADLEY: I've answered your question to the best of my ability.

Q What evidence are you seeing that the bad guys are simply leaving Baghdad
and regrouping elsewhere?

MR. HADLEY: I did not say that; you said that. I think one of the things we
have seen is there are questions -- and you see them in the press -- about
what the JAM, the Mahdi army are doing, reports that Sadr is in, and some
of the senior leadership may be in Iran; reports that there seems to be a
decision by some of the JAM elements, that they're going to go underground
for a while. You've seen that in some of the Shia neighborhoods. You saw in
the press that our military is moving into Sadr City, which, of course, has
been a JAM stronghold.

But, again, one of the reasons I urge people that we're in the early stages
is we're getting our leadership, our troops in, our operation underway, and
the bad guys are actually making their own calculations, and the Iraqi
people are making their own calculations. And I think one of the things
that we can say is the anecdotal evidence, that the Iraqi people in Baghdad
are glad to see someone coming and trying to bring some security to their
neighborhoods. That's a good thing.

MR. BARTLETT: I'd just note that General Petreaus is briefing this morning,
and that there are several elements of the enemy that are not going
underground, unfortunately -- mainly al Qaeda based in Iraq, are inspired
by the VBIED attacks and other spectacular attacks to try to derail the
security plan before it has a chance to work. That's been a strategy
they've used in the past, in some cases successfully. And we can expect
there to be continued type of violence. As General Petreaus briefed this
morning, the aim of the security plan is to reduce that significantly. But
if somebody is willing to take their own life, and kill innocent men, women
and children, it's a very difficult proposition.

MR. HADLEY: One other thing -- I agree with everything Dan said -- not that
he needed validation from me -- (laughter) -- the focus in Baghdad,
remember, is sectarian violence. And if listened to the President's speech
before the American Legion that, of course, is what we're really focused
on, because it's that sectarian violence that could destabilize the
situation, make the reconciliation among the various groups that has to
come more difficult.

So, again, we're working on that sectarian violence. And you can see, then,
as Dan said, since that is the focus, if your strategy is al Qaeda, it is
to use suicide attacks, VBIEDs directed against coalition and Iraqi forces,
but also against Iraqi civilians, to try and encourage and accelerate that
sectarian violence, which is really the focus of our end.

Q Is there anything that you could do to nudge Maliki to do something else?
What would it be, at this point?

MR. HADLEY: Well, what we need him to do has actually been pretty clear,
and we've been pretty clear on it with him and the President has been
pretty clear with the American people. One, move forward on the Baghdad
security plan, which as I said, Iraqis seem to be showing up and stepping
up. We've emphasized the oil law, for example, which, as you know, has been
approved by the cabinet and will be submitted to the Council of
Representatives. We are trying to move forward on narrowing and revising
and reforming the deBaathification legislation.

So the things that we've asked him to do and that we think would help send
a clear message of a desire for reconciliation are the things that we've
asked him to do. The President is public about it. And the good news is
that Maliki has been public about it, and he's established an agenda. These
benchmarks people keep talking about, remember, are largely Iraqi
benchmarks that they have set for themselves and that the President has
endorsed, because they are the key elements of a national reconciliation
among the groups.

Q So you don't think he's dragging his feet on any particular issue at this
point?

MR. HADLEY: I think there's a lot of work to do, that needs to be done. And
I think, look, we have to recognize it's a challenge, particularly when you
say that you want legislatures or parliaments to pass legislation. I mean,
that's a difficult thing to do. It's a difficult thing for our Congress to
do on a timetable, and our Congress is the most powerful and the most
sophisticated legislature in the world. In Iraq, you have a legislature
that is new, in the midst of sectarian violence, in the context of a
country where Sunni, Shia and Kurds are trying to live together as partners
for the first time in their history -- and in some sense, for the first
time in the Middle East. This is a tall order.

So one of the problems with these, you know, time lines and due dates for
legislative action is, you know, we know and our Congress knows in the
heart of hearts how difficult those are to keep if you're the United States
Congress. Think about how difficult it is for the Council of
Representatives.

What we can ask is the Iraqis to commit to benchmarks, which they have, and
make every effort to achieving them and show progress towards that. And
that's what the President has called for.

MR. BARTLETT: Yes, I would just say that's why today's announcement is so
disappointing, because it has all the hallmarks of a political compromise
and none of the coherence of a military and political strategy that would
help you win and accomplish your goals in a very important theater of this
war. And that's why we feel so strongly that at this time and this juncture
in the mission in Iraq, that we don't need to be handcuffing the generals
on the ground.

MR. SNOW: Furthermore, it's a kind of impatience that our Founding Fathers
would not have been able to meet. The United States has a real commitment
and people in that region understand it's a serious commitment to a freedom
agenda, to having a democracy succeed in Iraq -- and Dan is absolutely
right, you do not hamstring generals, you don't put them in handcuffs --
it's a good day for Dan. (Laughter.) You don't handcuff them. You give them
the funding and flexibility they need to get the job done.

Q On the diplomatic front, what are the -- there has been some criticism of
the administration for engaging -- for agreeing to engage Iran and Syria in
the regional diplomatic talks. What are the short-term goals for the U.S.
in participating in those talks?

MR. HADLEY: I think it's a mischaracterization of what we're doing to say
we're engaging Iran and Syria in the context of the regional talks. I would
flip it. What we are doing is supporting the Iraqi government in organizing
a regional conference of neighbors, of the P5, and, ultimately, when it
gets to ministerial levels of the G8 countries, as well.

What is the purpose of that regional? Why does Iraq call it? They are
trying to get additional diplomatic support for what the Iraqis are trying
to do, to get the neighbors to provide what assistance they can, in terms
of alleviating the security situation by using their efforts with some of
the parties within Iraq to reconcile with the government, to end the
violence. It's an opportunity for us to put pressure on a number of the
neighboring countries -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and others -- to do more
to help Iraq. And we hope it is an opportunity for those same neighbors to
put pressure on Syria and Iran to stop destructive activity and be
constructive and to be supportive of bringing security and peace to Iraq.

So that's the purpose. The purpose -- it is about Iraq. It so happens that
Syria and Iran are neighbors of Iraq. The Iraqis have invited them to this
conference. We have no objection to that. We have participated in these
kinds of meetings where Iran and Syria have been present before. Secretary
Colin Powell did it in 2004, at the first meeting of the international
compact, the U.N.-sponsored activity. We've had subsequent meetings of the
international compact where we have been there, along with Iran and the
Syrians. This is not about engaging Iran and Syria. It is about getting the
countries of the region and the broader international community to support
Iraq.

MR. SNOW: Also, just to add one other level of detail. Also, it talks about
Afghanistan afterward, also. You had -- I know the Iranians were involved
in those talks, as well. So it's important to remind people that this is
not unprecedented. The United States has been at multilateral meetings on a
number of occasions over the last five or six years, at which one or both
of those nations was also present.

MR. HADLEY: I'd just say one other thing. And the other thing, of course,
that we will do, I'm sure, in that meeting -- as we have in our public
statements -- is send a clear message to Iran that they need to stop
activity in Iraq that is putting at risk innocent Iraqis, Iraqi security
forces and our men and women in uniform -- and that is training, that is
providing equipment by elements in Iraq that are using it against Iraqis,
using it against our forces. So we are also in this press conference and
other avenues sending that message to Iran: it is time for them to knock
this off and play a constructive role. And we hope that the neighbors in
this regional conference will send that message to Iran.

Q Just a question about the trip that we're on. Hugo Chavez is going to
hold a rally in Argentina. What do you think he's up to here?

MR. HADLEY: I don't know. You can ask him. What the President is about is
coming to the region to emphasize that our agenda for the region is the
agenda the region has for itself. That is to say, democracy, there is a
consensus for that in the region, these are democratic governments. There
is increasing openness to free trade. But why democracy and free trade?
Because they are the best way to raise people out of poverty and have them
have a better life.

So the President is going to be emphasizing that is the focus of our
efforts -- democracy, trade -- but also supporting these governments that
are making right decisions to fight corruption, to invest in their people
by education and health care; and that it is our priority, as a good
neighbor with this hemisphere, to work together with them to show that
democracy and free markets and a willing and a devotion to the good of your
people can take those abstract principles and translate them into a better
life for the people of Latin America.

Q Your critics on Capitol Hill are saying that in the 2008 budget support
for Latin America actually goes down. How do you justify the message that
the President is trying to send, that we're emphasizing these programs that
are continuing in Latin America, but not getting much attention when the
2008 budget actually cuts.

MR. HADLEY: There are a lot of different programs, and one of things you
need to do is sum them all together. The President has increased the sort
of traditional development assistance to Latin America from about $800
million to, I think it's close to $1.6 billion. Now, I'm told that in this
budget there is some diminution of that amount. The other thing you need to
look at, for example, is programs like the Millennium Challenge
Corporation, which has already made four grants to Latin American
countries. As countries in Latin America become eligible for compacts,
those are big dollar items. So you need to look across, in terms of U.S.
government assistance.

But the other thing people need to remember is that American engagement
with Latin America is much bigger than just what the government says. And
the statistics are overwhelming and they dwarf, really, anything anybody
else is doing in that region -- remittances, $45 billion every year sent
from men and women working in the United States back home; trade, $180
billion a year of duty-free trade from Latin America into North America;
private -- foreign investment by American companies in Latin America, $350
billion, resulting in generating directly 2 million jobs. Large numbers of
church, faith-based groups, NGOs and others -- private businesses -- that
are very active in Latin America, and thousands of people going there,
doing things at the local level to help this hemisphere develop in the way
they want and that we want them to develop.

So I would ask people when you think about the American assistance to the
people of Latin America to look at the full, broad gauge of American
engagement, not just what the government does, but what business does, what
the NGO does, what trade does, remittances, all the rest. It is a huge
project and it is all aimed at helping the people of Latin America realize
their aspirations for freedom and a better life.

Q It's pretty likely that Chavez is going to mention the President, he
speaks about him very frequently, and in harsh terms. Will we hear the
President acknowledge the tour that he's doing, in contrast to this agenda,
that he's coming down -- I mean, will the President talk about Chavez at
all?

MR. HADLEY: The President is going to do what he's been doing for a long
time: talk about a positive agenda, that we want to help; his vision for
Latin America, which is the vision of Latin Americans for themselves. And
he's going to be focusing on those countries and those leaders that have
the right model and the right ideas for a better Latin America. That's what
he'll be doing.

Thanks very much.

END 1:21 P.M. EST
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