For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 30, 2003
Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer
12:32
P.M. EDT
MR. FLEISCHER:
Let me give you a President's schedule today, and then I have
several announcements for you and a statement by the President I'd like to read
to you.
The President
began with an intelligence briefing, then an FBI briefing. And then he convened a meeting of the
National Security Council. The President
also met for 45 minutes earlier today with the elected leadership of the
Republican House and the Senate to talk about a series of actions that are
pending on the Hill, including the growth and tax plan to create jobs, the
importance of getting prescription drugs to senior citizens, the global
HIV-AIDS initiative, energy legislation, and a number of other areas they
talked about. The President also made
remarks, as you know, to the 2003 National and State Teachers of the Year.
Later today the
President will have lunch
-- or he's actually having
lunch now with the Vice President. He
will also welcome Congressman Rob Hall to the White House on the occasion of
the Congressman's 80th birthday. And
then later today, the President will sign into law the National Amber Alert
legislation. He will welcome to the
White House the families of many of those cases, prominent cases where children
have been missing. And later this
evening, the President will meet with the President of Colombia in the Oval
Office.
President Bush will
also welcome Prime Minister Kjell Magne
Bondevik of Norway to the
White House on May the 16th. Norway is a
close ally and good friend of the United
States, and the President and the Prime
Minister will discuss important challenges on the global agenda, including the
war on terrorism, reconstruction of Iraq, and the
transatlantic relations.
I have a lengthy
statement I want to read to you by the President, which will be distributed
immediately after the briefing, on the release of the road map in the Middle
East. This is a
statement by the President:
On March 14th, I noted the important steps
taken by the Palestinian Legislative Counsel toward the creation of an
empowered, accountable office of Prime Minister. The PLC has now confirmed a new Palestinian
Prime Minister and cabinet. Today the
road map for peace, developed by the United
States over the last several months in
close cooperation with Russia, the
European Union, and the United Nations, has been presented to the Israelis and
to the Palestinians.
The road map
represents a starting point toward achieving the vision of two states, a secure
state of Israel and a
viable, peaceful, democratic Palestine, that I set out on June 24, 2002.
It is a framework for progress toward lasting peace and security in the Middle
East. Implementing the
road map will be dependent upon the good-faith efforts and contributions of
both sides. The pace of progress will
depend strictly on the performance of the parties.
I urge Israelis
and Palestinians to work with us and with other members of the international
community, and above all, directly with each other, to immediately end the
violence and return to a path of peace, based on the principles and objectives
outlined in my statement of June 24,
2002. Both Israelis and
Palestinians have suffered from the terror and violence, and from the loss of
hope and a better future of peace and security.
An opportunity now exists to move forward.
The United
States will do all it can to seize this
opportunity. To that end, I've asked
Secretary Powell to travel to the region to begin working with parties so that
we may take advantage of this moment."
End of
statement. That will be released in
print to you immediately following the meeting.
And, finally, yesterday, Senate Democrats
announced that they will filibuster another one of President Bush's very
qualified nominees -- in this case, Texas Supreme Court Justice
Priscilla Owen, who is the nominee for the 5th Circuit. Miguel Estrada has also been the subject of a
Senate filibuster. They were both
originally nominated on May 9,
2001, and have been waiting almost two years for a vote. Both were rated well-qualified from the
American Bar Association. That is the
highest possible rating that the American Bar Association gives. It is also, according to Democrats, the gold
standard that they would use to judge whether nominees were qualified. Both enjoy strong bipartisan support within
their states. Both have majority votes
available, bipartisan, on the floor of the Senate if the obstruction were to
cease.
The Senate has a
constitutional responsibility to hold an up or down vote on all judicial
nominees within a reasonable amount of time.
But some Democrats have abandoned that responsibility in favor of
partisan politics and obstructionism.
The Constitution is clear: A
majority is required to confirm judicial nominees. A minority of Senate Democrats are
effectively changing the law with their obstructionist tactics. The President's nominees are highly-qualified
and not only do they deserve a vote, they deserve to be confirmed. The President again calls on the Senate to
end these obstructionist tactics and to allow a vote on these two nominees.
And with that,
I'm happy to take questions. Helen.
Q What has been the original -- not original
-- initial reaction to the road
map?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, it's just been received
this morning. I would allow the Israelis
and the Palestinians to speak for themselves and not express their thoughts for
them, they're capable of doing that. From the President's point of view, he
welcomes their contributions to this, whatever ideas they have, and he looks
forward to working with them on it.
The State
Department can give you information about the Secretary's itinerary, future
travels. It's not an immediate trip that
the Secretary will be taking, but the United
States, the President, and the Secretary of
State will devote considerable time and energy to helping the parties to
achieve peace.
Q What does he hope to accomplish when he goes to Syria?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I would refer you directly to
the State Department on it, but the message to Syria is that Syria is a
terrorist country, that Syria has
supported terrorists, Syria occupies
a considerable portion of Lebanon through
the Hezbollah, and Syria needs to
reassess its role in the world. We hope
that Syria, under
the relatively new leadership of a relatively untested leader, will choose a
different direction than it has in the past.
Syria also -- it's important that they continue to receive
the message that they have been receiving in regard to not harboring anybody
who is trying to leave Iraq.
Q Does the President support the idea of
lifting sanctions against Iraq, vis-a-vis its status as a terrorist state?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Yes,
and Secretary Powell discussed that up on the Hill today. Iraq no longer
is a terrorist state. The chief
terrorist and his cronies have been removed.
Q How quickly can you lift the sanctions?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Through the United Nations
you're asking about?
Q No, no, no, terrorist
state.
MR.
FLEISCHER: That's, I believe --
I don't know if that's a legislative matter or an administrative matter,
so I'd have to refer you to the experts at State for that.
Q You're saying now the President was trying to build up support
for his tax cut with the Republican leadership.
Alan Greenspan was on the Hill again expressing opposition to it, saying --
MR.
FLEISCHER: That's not what he said.
Q He said his position hasn't changed --
MR.
FLEISCHER: That's correct.
Q -- since he testified the last time. The last time he was not encouraging it when
it passed. Does the President --
MR.
FLEISCHER: That's not a fair
characterization of what the Chairman has said about the question of providing
tax cuts. He has had a very nuanced statement about it, but certainly he never said
he was opposed to it.
Q He's expressed that this is probably not a
good time to pass a tax cut of that magnitude, is my understanding of what he
said.
MR.
FLEISCHER: You have to take a look at
what he said in its entirety, because he has expressed his concerns about
spending and he has said that tax cuts have a stimulative
effect on the economy, and he has expressed support for stimulus of a nature of the tax
cut, without defining specifically what should be in it. So, again, I think you have to take a look at
what he said in its entirety, but that's not a fair characterization.
Q Does the President feel that his case is
somewhat undercut by the Fed Chairman's position, especially since the Fed
Chairman, as the President suggested he will reappoint him --
MR.
FLEISCHER: No, because that's not the
Fed Chairman's position, as you've expressed it. So, no.
Q Can I go back to the road map and Helen's question? There has already been some initial
reaction. Abu Mazen,
the Palestinian Prime Minister, has said he would accept it with no
changes. The Israelis have suggested
about a dozen changes they would like to see to the document, itself. Is the administration encouraging the
Israelis to accept it as is, or are you willing to play with it a little bit to
make whatever changes the Israelis want?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, now the difficult
process begins again, in terms of finding a way for the parties who have
differing approaches to come together.
And what the President is hopeful is there's been such a changed
environment because of the last several years, a new, more optimistic, more hopeful
environment can take hold.
And so we
received preliminary comments from the Israelis; the document has now been
formally released to the Israelis. And
as the President said, we welcome their contributions to the document. The Palestinians have made similar
preliminary comments about it. We look
forward to hearing more detailed comments.
If the current
comments hold, then it's no surprise, the work will begin of trying to help the
Israelis and the Palestinians to bridge their differences about the
document. What's important is that they
both share the outcome of the document, which is the path to peace and the path
to statehood for Palestinians, and security for Israel.
Make no mistake,
it will be hard work. There will be a
lot of hand-holding required. The
President is prepared to invest the time and the energy into it. Still, it does fundamentally come down to the
two parties. But nobody would expect
that the initial comments one hour after release is
going to be the final comments.
Q But fair or not, there has been somewhat of
a perception up until this point that the President wasn't really committed to
this. Is there a --
well, not willing to send the Secretary of State to the region and show
the level of commitment we're seeing now, after the war in Iraq. Is it fair to say that the success in Iraq has given
Israel another
level of security so that the administration would expect them to be willing to
make the sacrifices that both sides are needing to
make in order for this to work?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I think two points; one is
the biggest holdup was the fact that Yasser Arafat
was still in charge of the Palestinian Authority. The administration was unequivocal; President
Bush said repeatedly that the road map would be released upon a confirmation of
Abu Mazen's cabinet and as reforms in the Palestinian
Authority move forward. That just took
place this very week. So the
administration has been timely in its release of the road map.
The fact that
one of the lead sponsors of violence has been removed from the scene, Saddam
Hussein, is an important piece of the prospects for peace in the Middle
East, but it's not the only one. Certainly, there are indigenous issues
between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There are root causes of violence and historical differences between the
Israelis and Palestinians that have to be resolved, that are, indeed, separate
and apart from a successful completion of the war. But make no mistake, the fact that Saddam
Hussein has been removed from power does remove one source of instability that
paid for suicide homicide bombers to cross into Israel and take
innocent lives.
Q When does the President expect to see
results as the road map lays out the mutual steps that each side should take,
the cracking down on militancy and freeing up of the hold that Israel has had
on the Palestinian community?
MR.
FLEISCHER: It's a process. And the process began this morning as the
parties formally received the road map for the first time in the formal sense. From here, it will be a question now of the
willingness of the parties to face a different type of future; the willingness
of the Palestinians to forego violence as a way of settling disputes; the
willingness of the Israelis to reach out and work with the Palestinians to
resolve political disputes, land disputes, and enter into a permanent era where
two states can live side-by-side. And
that process will now move forward.
I'm not going to
put an artificial time on any one element of that process. Certainly not today, the day the plan has
just been released to them. But
hopefully, today will mark the beginning of a new way of doing business between
the Israelis and the Palestinians, with the release of the road map which
focuses them on peaceful settlement of disputes, not violent settlement of
disputes.
Q And to follow up on Tom's question on
Greenspan's comments. He wasn't
only focusing on the problem of spending.
He was saying long-term deficits will impact long-term interest rates,
and he said that while he has favored a dividend tax cut, he believes it's very
important that there's a pay-as-you-go or discretionary spending restraint in
order not to increase the deficit. And
the Congressional Budget Office is saying this tax cut and the spending
together will cause deficits long, far into the future. Doesn't that undermine the case of a tax cut?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, the President believes
very strongly that we need to reduce the deficit. His budget focuses on doing that. But the President also is very concerned
about the state of the economy here and now, today, for the unemployed, for
people who are looking for work and can't find it. And certainly, as unemployment still is at
about a 5.8 percent level, what we've seen increasingly is people who are
leaving the labor force and not even looking for work, which doesn't show up in
the unemployment statistics.
The President
has a lot of concern about those families, those people who want a job. And there are different issues to be approached, they're both important, about how to make sure
there is no deficit. But his first focus
is helping people to find a job. And he
knows we can reduce the deficit over time.
He also knows that the best way to reduce the deficit is to hold the
line on spending. And he's very pleased
that the budget resolution that was just passed does have a good, tight control
over domestic discretionary spending.
And the meeting the President had with congressional leaders today, they
did talk about adhering to the spending discipline of the budget resolution.
Q So you disagree in the emphasis that
Chairman Greenspan has put on get control of the deficit before you do anything
on spending or taxes?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President wants to focus
on growth, on creation of jobs for the American people, and on deficit
reduction.
Q And then, on the judicial nominations, where precisely in the
Constitution is the Senate required to hold an up or down vote on every
judicial nominee?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I said that the Constitution
is clear, a majority is required to confirm judicial
nominees. The Senate process has now
moved to a point where it's becoming almost a matter of routine --
Q You said that they were required to hold an
up or down vote.
MR.
FLEISCHER: I said, the Constitution is
clear, a majority is required to confirm --
Q Just prior to that, you said that they are
required to hold an up or down vote.
MR.
FLEISCHER: You can check the transcript,
but when I cited on the Constitution, I said just what I said verbatim on the
Constitution.
Q Ari, what would
the President like to see the Israelis and the Palestinians do first, now that
the road map has been presented?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President would like to
see them study the road map. We'd like
to see them demonstrate a willingness to work with each other to bridge the
differences between their opening points of views about the road map. And he would like to see the Palestinians
provide security so that homicide bombings are, indeed and in fact, stopped; a
crackdown by the Palestinian Authority on those who would seek to oppose peace
from within Palestinian ranks. And the
President would like to see the Israelis work with the Palestinian Authority to
promote political agreements and political settlements of disputes.
Q What about settlement activity?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Absolutely, the President
believes that as security is improved, settlement activity must stop.
Q How much personal time
will the President invest in this? And
do you see an early Middle East conference?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I'm not going to speculate
too far down the line. As the President
says in his statement, Secretary Powell will travel to the region shortly, so
there will be any number of opportunities to have conversations. You may want to talk to the Secretary about
any contacts he may have had today in the region.
The Secretary is working the phones. This is important. And this administration, this President are
dedicating to helping the parties find a new way.
Q And his own time?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President?
Q Yes.
MR.
FLEISCHER: Absolutely, he's going to
spend considerable time on it. And I
want to remind you that in the run-up to the war, in many of the meetings the
President had, he always brought up the subject of Middle
East peace with European leaders. And the President has invested considerable
time with Arab leaders in the region, working to advance peace between the
Israelis and the Palestinians, which also is another hopeful sign, because
there are Arab nations in the region that would like to see progress be made
and are working, actually, very diligently and quietly to help achieve those
goals.
Q Republicans on the Hill are talking about a
variety of mechanisms or gimmicks, some might call
them, to keep the size of the tax cut down to a level that can pass the
Senate. Among them is making some
aspects of this temporary. Would the
President be prepared to accept a tax cut package that made, for example, the
dividend exclusion temporary or less than 100 percent?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, there are a number of
ideas that are now starting to publicly float off of Capitol Hill. I anticipate that there will be a markup in
both the Ways and Means Committee and the Finance Committee next week, and so,
obviously, this will come to some form of a concrete proposal prior to
that. And that's one of the reason the President met today with the leadership. He'll have continued conversations. He's spoken with the leaders; many meetings
take place.
And I'm not
going to be able to negotiate the President's position publicly, but there are
a variety of different ways when it comes to tax policy to achieve the
President's goals and the President is going to work productively with the
Congress to find those ways.
Q So he's open to these kinds of ideas?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I'm not going to negotiate in
public, but there are a good variety of ways to accomplish all of the
objectives of the President's proposal --
including a 100-percent dividend exclusion.
Q You talked a moment ago about the problem of unemployment being
an immediate problem and suggested that the deficit is something that would
have to be dealt with a little bit further down the road. At what point does the deficit become an
immediate problem? It's reaching levels
that some economists say over the next year or two could even be 5 percent of
GDP, which is typically a level at which other countries would be told they
have a huge, major, immediate problem.
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, first of all, the trend
line in the deficit is that it is going down.
Second of all, you have to examine what caused the deficit. And it still remains numerically and
empirically the fact that the deficit has been caused by the recession that
took place beginning in January of 2001 as a result of the slowdown in the
economy that began in the summer of 2000, or the stock market decline, which
began in March of 2000. That, combined
with the September 11th attacks and the war and the subsequent spending
required to fight the war and to react to September 11th, is what caused the
deficit.
That is
empirically the case. Even if there had
been no tax cut, for example, we would still have a deficit today, without the
tax cut. So first things first is what
caused the deficit. And clearly, the
international situation, as it increasingly improves, helps to reduce the
deficit.
But the greatest
factor is the economy is emerging from a recession. Nothing hurts revenue growth more than a
recession. And what's particularly
interesting to note is that the greatest source of revenues from the dramatic
upswing in revenues in the late '90s was something that people started to refer
to as the market factor. The dramatic
surge in the stock market led to a dramatic surge in revenues. And so much of this was the result of factors
that are now increasingly fading from the economy. We hope the deficit will react to this.
Q But this, again, is $400 billion, $500
billion an acceptable level for this economy?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, clearly, when it comes
to fighting the war, whatever it took to fight the war was necessary to protect
our force, to protect our troops and to achieve our objectives. The war is now --
as the President has said, the major combat operations -- the
President has been told major combat operations have ended. So all these factors, the recession and the
war and 9/11, have helped to drive the deficit to where it is.
Q Ari, critics are
saying that the atmosphere for this road map would have happened
earlier if President Bush would have sat down with Yasser
Arafat a long time ago.
MR.
FLEISCHER: No.
Q Why?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Because Yasser
Arafat was not a party to peace. Yasser Arafat was a part of the problem. I think Yasser
Arafat had his chance and he walked away with it --
walked away from it when he walked away from an agreement that President
Clinton worked very hard to reach. That
was Yasser Arafat's moment of truth. And then the moment of truth became even
worse when Yasser Arafat lied to President Bush about
the Karine-A and actively worked on behalf of the
terrorists, lying to the President of the United States about Palestinian
support, led by Yasser Arafat, for terrorism.
Q But once again, the critics are saying Yasser Arafat was reaching out. The White House has said he talked to Colin
Powell and talked to other people instead of President Bush. Do you think that interaction with two
leaders could have helped at all in anything, resolve any type of --
MR.
FLEISCHER: I think the best, most
accurate way to describe Yasser Arafat's manner of
reaching out was he reached out to terrorists to import weapons for the
Palestinian terrorists. That's what the
lesson of the Karine-A was.
Q Another thing, on another subject. The NRA, Charleton Heston has left.
Many are wondering about a statement that was said that the assault
weapons ban will not continue once it expires.
The administration has said something different. How is this meshing with a group that is
friend to the Bush administration?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I think the administration is
already on record about the assault weapon ban.
The President has said that he supports the current assault weapons ban,
and he would support the reauthorization of the current assault weapons ban.
Q So the NRA is just out in left field then?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President approaches
every issue on the merits of the issue.
Sometimes he agrees with different people on different issues, but I
think when it comes to virtually all the issues that have been presented, the
President has strong agreement with the National Rifle Association. The President's position on the current
assault weapons ban is known.
Q Ari, tomorrow the
President is going to announce that major combat operations are over
in Iraq. At what point is it appropriate criteria to meet -- to
legally declare that the war with Iraq is over,
and in doing so, under international law, meet requirements as an occupying
force?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, number one, as the
liberators of Iraq, the
administration has, you should note, been releasing POWs. The administration continues to address
exactly what the President promised, the security concerns, the health and the
welfare concerns of the Iraqi people. All that continues.
I can't make a
prediction about the legal matters, about when, from a formal, legal sense,
hostilities will be deemed to be over.
That will be something the President, again, gets guidance from, from
the commanders in the field. So that
will be driven by events on the ground, and the
reaction of the commanders on the ground to those events.
Q But why isn't this the time to legally
declare that it's over?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Because as events are very
visible, as you all have covered this morning, hostilities remain. There are pockets of resistance. There continue to be Iraqis who shoot at America's Armed
Forces. It happened again in Fallajah.
Q Can you speak to the significance of the capture of the al Qaeda, half a dozen out of Pakistan, one believed
to be responsible for perhaps the bombing of the USS Cole?
MR.
FLEISCHER: It's been another strong day
of Pakistani cooperation in the war against terror, with a helpful and
significant capture. And the President
is appreciative to President Musharraf and the
Pakistani people for their continued strong efforts to fight terror.
Q Is there any information on this alleged
handwritten note from Saddam Hussein in this London Arabic paper, whether it's
legitimate or authentic?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I have no way --
I've received no evaluations from it.
You can take it for what you want.
Q Ari, on judicial
nominations, it seems the issue is utterly gridlocked. Does the President have some ideas of how to
get this thing kind of moving again, beyond just having tantrums?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President will continue
to speak out and make the case. He will
continue to stand strong, shoulder-to- shoulder, by his nominees, because he
believes they are qualified. But if you
really want to measure what's going on here, I think you have to measure the
will of a bipartisan majority versus the role of a slender obstructionist
minority. And that's the problem when
people want to employ the 60-vote device that the Senate makes available to its
members to force their ideology on a majority.
And what's
happening now is that there are a few liberal Democrats who want to enforce
their ideology on a bipartisan majority that can govern, that can appoint
judicial nominees. There are a
bipartisan majority of votes for Priscilla Owen. There are a bipartisan majority of votes for
Miguel Estrada. They are being blocked
and obstructed by a liberal, partisan, obstructionist minority.
Q Why is the President giving this speech now? What significance should we read into this?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, the President is giving
the speech now because of the successful operations that have been carried out,
the significant accomplishments in achieving the mission, and because he wants
to explain to the American people, having risked lives and treasure in pursuit
of our goals in Iraq, what the
present results are. And that's
something that the President began with his speech to the country about, and he
wants to, again, now bring it to a conclusion with a
speech to the country. The war on terror
will continue. Iraq was a
phase in the war on terror. And the
President wants to discuss all of this with the American people.
Q Why not just declare victory?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, I would urge you to
listen to the President's words tomorrow night.
But the President knows that while major combat operations have ended,
and while the next phase has begun with the reconstruction of Iraq, there
continue to be threats to the security and the safety of the American
people. And he will describe that. There continues to be great progress in
protecting the American people from those threats. But threats do indeed remain.
Q Full victory, you've indicated before, I
believe, would include all of the President's objectives having been met,
including finding weapons of mass destruction and rounding up all the
leadership of the previous regime. Is that --
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, I'll let you judge the
President's words tomorrow for what they represent, what topics he covers. Certainly Deputy Secretary Armitage's speech this morning about weapons of mass
destruction covered much of that ground.
Q But the President's not going all the way.
MR.
FLEISCHER: Again, I'll urge you to
listen to his remarks tomorrow, and you'll form your own basis.
Q One other thing. Do this have --
do his remarks have any legal impact whatsoever?
MR.
FLEISCHER: No, the remarks tomorrow will
be -- as the President has a habit of doing --
speaking in direct, plain English to the American people, so they can
understand what was at stake, what has been accomplished, and so we can all
join together in saying thanks to the men and women of our Armed Forces who
helped achieve this remarkable success with so little loss of life. From a legal point of view, the remarks
tomorrow do not change any legal matters.
Q Getting back to the Greenspan testimony. Greenspan, as Terry pointed out, has said he
would like to see offsets for any dividend tax cut. You all did not propose offsets. So getting back to Tom's question, do you
think that his testimony today, in the way of not changing his position, has
undermined you all's argument on the Hill to pass the dividend tax repeal
without offsets?
MR.
FLEISCHER: No, I think that members of
Congress always enjoy and benefit from hearing from Chairman Greenspan. They use their own independent
judgments. And we are --
the President remains confident that at the end of the day a majority
will be assembled in the House and the Senate to pass his proposals.
Q Does the President intend now to get -- he's obviously shown that he's -- in
the last two meetings, he is getting more personally involved. Are we to see more of that, when it comes to
the tax plan?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, the President has long
been directly and personally involved, and he will continue to be. The President met for an hour and a quarter
on the Truman Balcony last night with the Speaker of the House and the Majority
Leader of the Senate. Then he had the
45-minute meeting today with the elected leadership. I think you can anticipate the President will
travel the country to continue to make his case. He will continue to work the phones and meet
with members.
Q Did he, in either of those meetings, give
the leadership of Congress some insight into whether he wants phase-ins, he
would accept phase-ins
--
MR.
FLEISCHER: No, they didn't get into that
level of detail.
Q Why not?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Because it's not that type of
meeting. They had a broad agenda to cover,
including prescription drugs for seniors, Medicare --
Q But aren't we at the point where -- the committees about to meet, these decisions
will be made soon. So when will the
President tell them what he would like, how he'd like those decisions --
MR.
FLEISCHER: It's all part of a process
that involves the President, that involves others in
the administration working directly with Chairman Thomas and Chairman Grassley,
as well as the leadership. So I think
you can anticipate that process will continue between now and when the markup
is revealed.
Q Two questions. One a follow on your
colloquy with Terry. Your exact
words at the top were, "The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to
hold an up or down vote."
Q Thank you.
Q Are you now walking yourself back from that,
and saying that you didn't mean to say that?
Or are you saying that there is --
are you saying that there is something in the Constitution that requires
the Senate to hold an up or down vote on every judicial nomination?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I said --
you're correct, I said, the Senate has a constitutional responsibility
to hold an up or down vote on all judicial nominees within a reasonable time,
and that's because advice and consent is the prerogative of the Senate, and it
is to be given.
Q Prerogative of the
Senate. They're a co-equal branch
of government that interprets their own constitutional responsibility.
MR.
FLEISCHER: Clearly, if the Senate made
the decision that they do not want to seat anybody in the federal court system,
it would be a constitutional crisis.
Q That's not the decision they're making.
MR.
FLEISCHER: But there is a vacancy crisis
in the Senate. It is uniquely the role
of the Senate, under the Constitution, to confirm judges. And if the Senate engages in filibusters for
the confirmation of judges, then clearly the nation would not be well served.
Q The question is, is there something in the
Constitution that requires an up or down vote on every nomination, because as
you know, there are many judicial nominations that --
MR.
FLEISCHER: Only the fact that if the
Senate doesn't do it, nobody else will.
And so, therefore, the President calls on the Senate to exercise its
constitutional prerogative to confirm his nominees.
Q But it's not in the Constitution,
correct? There's nothing in the Constitution --
MR.
FLEISCHER: They have a responsibility to
hold an up or down vote. Nobody else,
other than the Senate, per the Constitution, has that responsibility. Now, it is certainly the right of the Senate
to walk away from their responsibilities.
But I don't back off at all from saying that under the Constitution, the
Senate has that responsibility.
Q That's different from saying they have to
hold an up or down vote on every nomination --
MR.
FLEISCHER: They have a responsibility to
hold an up or down vote.
Q It all depends on what your definition of
the word, "responsibility" is.
Q On Iraq, the United
States went to war -- this
administration went to war in Iraq for the
very specific reasons that the President is very clear. One of them was weapons of mass
destruction. One of them was alleged
links between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorists. A third reason which the President stated
many times was that Iraq's
military strength and Hussein's use of it posed a threat to its neighbors in
the region. We're now, as you say, at
the end of major combat operations. No
significant finds of weapons of mass destruction have been found to date. No significant evidence has been found
linking Saddam Hussein's regime to al Qaeda beyond
what we knew at the start of this war.
And Saddam Hussein's military looks like --
hardly looks like a threat to anyone.
Is the President
going to address this in his speech tomorrow?
And beyond that, is there any sense of embarrassment in the
administration that the three major prongs of a policy haven't, at least as
yet, haven't really been
--
MR.
FLEISCHER: Heavens no, on your last
point. And certainly the President has
said, and you've heard him say it many times, that we continue to have high
confidence that the weapons of mass destruction will be found. Iraq is a
regime that was a master at hiding it, and there are thousands and thousands of
sites where it could be hidden, and they will be pursued as increasing evidence
comes along.
On the ties to
al Qaeda, I think that's been well-documented and
known. And when you talk about the
military threat, they may not have been much of a military threat for our Armed
Forces as the war was engaged, but for the neighborhood, they were one powerful
military threat, and they proved that by attacking their neighbors multiple
times.
Again, tomorrow
the President will give the speech, and you'll be able to hear it all in its
entirety.
Q Ari, going back to
the Middle
East, is there any
plan by the President to nominate or name a new Middle
East envoy to the peace talks?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Nothing that's crossed my
radar.
Q General Zinni, is
he still the Middle East envoy?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Let me try to get an update
on that. Nothing has crossed my radar,
though.
Q Ari, back on the
judicial nominations, now.
A new controversy may be cropping up because the two Maryland senators
are concerned about the Claude Allen nomination. Grant you, they might not have voted for Owen
and Estrada anyway, but they're upset about the Claude Allen nomination because
he's a Virginian, and they consider that to be a Maryland seat on
the 4th Circuit. Does the President have
any feeling of obligation to hold to those kinds of gentlemen's
agreements?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, we always try to work
with various changing types of requests from senators for consideration. And it's a process that we try to work very
collegially with the Senate. So we'll
just continue to work on behalf of all the President's nominees with all those
involved.
Q Would he not consider that to be a Maryland seat?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Let me take a look at the
specifics of it to see if I can offer you more on it.
Q Back on the road map, isn't the goal to have
the first phase completed by next month?
And is that really a realistic expectation considering that you're
calling for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian occupied territories?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the framework and the road map does
outline certain time periods, the key one being the creation of an independent
Palestinian state in 2005 that lives in peace and security with their neighbor,
Israel. And all events leading up to that help to
support that goal. What's going to
happen now is we'll see how actively and how quickly the parties can work
together to make all of this happen.
We'll see what the exact time table is.
Q So you're not necessarily firm in the
insistence that Israel withdraw by next month?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Today is the beginning of the
process. And let's wait and hear how the
parties react to it. Let's see what
efforts they undertake. And we're going
to continue to work with them toward the achievement of those goals.
Q Was the deadline always the end of May, or
was that changed because of the delay in the appointment of Abu Mazen?
MR.
FLEISCHER: No, I don't --
this road map was prepared late last year, and it was released today as
is from late last year. But this is
where we welcome the contributions from the parties to it.
Q The visit to the ship tomorrow, can you describe some of the
logistics for us, and tell us if the President is looking forward to or
dreading his first carrier landing? (Laughter.)
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President is eagerly
anticipating this trip. I think he's
very excited about the process of being directly with many of the sailors and
the Marines who helped make the success of the mission possible. He's also looking forward to addressing the
nation from the deck of a moving aircraft carrier. That's a wonderful metaphor for the return of
our troops from combat back to their families.
The President
will fly out to the aircraft carrier on Navy One, after he departs Air Force
One, lands in San Diego and then
transfers. And it's a very exciting
voyage, a very exciting trip, but nowhere near as exciting as the voyage that
the sailors and the Marines are taking, because they're coming home to see
their families.
Q Obviously, the President's a former
pilot. Can you talk about the plane
itself and where he's going to be?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The President will be sitting
in the front seat, next to the pilot of the Navy aircraft. He is a former pilot. For the sake of the landing, I'm sure he will
be doing no piloting. (Laughter.) I hope he's not watching today's
briefing. (Laughter.)
Q Ari, two more
Colombian journalists have been assassinated in Colombia. What does the President plan to do to try and
restore security in that country?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The United States is working
directly with the Colombians. And we
have a presence in the region authorized by the Congress to help with the narco-terrorist war that the government of Colombia and
President Uribe are fighting. The President looks forward to his meeting
this evening to talk to President Uribe about the
steps that are being taken to fight the terrorism there. And it's important. The people of Colombia have been
long -- long been struggling against terrorism
there. That's sapping the strength of
the country, and they deserve the support of the world.
Q The press secretary in Doha says U.S. forces
will be leaving Saudi Arabia by the
end of the summer. Will this improve
U.S.-Saudi relations?
MR. FLEISCHER: Number one, U.S.-Saudi relations are
strong. Saudi
Arabia is an ally of the United
States, has been a partner with the United
States.
And that is how this President views our relationship with Saudi
Arabia.
As for any type of military deployments or basing issues, you need to
talk to the Department of Defense for the specifics of them. We regularly review and are undergoing
currently a review of our deployments worldwide.
Q I'd like to follow up on my question from yesterday about
reports of French aid to Saddam's regime.
Is there anything new on that, or our
relationship with France in
general?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, on the reports, I've
noticed many of these reports, different accounts, some relating to documents
that were found in Iraq, and I
have nothing to offer on that. I think
it's something that the French can answer to explain any relationship. That's for France to
address.
Q In his Sunday column, Tom Friedman cited the
atrocities that occurred in Iraq, and
said, "We do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify
this war." Does the President agree
with that sentiment?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, the President is
confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction. So I think it's not an immediate relevant
issue to the President because, based on everything that he knows going into
the war, he has continued to express that confidence.
Q And a follow-up. You've said earlier that -- he used the word "embarrassed," but
you indicated that the President is not concerned that a lot of things have not
occurred yet, the finding of the weapons of mass destruction. Yet, there does seem to be a feeling in some
places, particularly Europe and some
of the Arab countries, that the President may have intentionally deceived the
public by overstating the threat posed by the Iraqis. Are you at least concerned that this
perception is rising in some areas?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The statue fell just three
weeks ago. And Saddam Hussein has had
some 14 years in which he had worked to hide his weapons of mass destruction,
and in particularly the four years when the inspectors were out of the
country. And so, no, this is not a
serious issue or a credible issue. This
is an issue that will be addressed over time, and with confidence, because it
will be found.
Q Ari, you talked
about Yasser Arafat and the President's
view that he was an impediment for peace.
Under the road map, what future is envisioned for Yasser
Arafat?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The future envisioned for the
road map is for the Palestinian people and the Israeli people. And there's a place for all those who will
live in peace, and the work to be done by those who believe in peace will be
done by others, because he had his chance, he failed to take that chance to lead
the way for peace.
Q His day is done?
MR.
FLEISCHER: I think that you can refer to
what the President said on June
24th, 2002 about his role.
Q Can I just ask you about the speech tomorrow, Ari? You said he's
not going to say the war is over, but is there not some element of victory
inherent in his speech?
MR.
FLEISCHER: You know,
I've gone probably as far as I can go this far in advance of a speech. The President will address it in its entirety
tomorrow.
Q On Iraq, how are
you assessing the validity of the statements by Tariq
Aziz regarding Saddam Hussein, and regarding Scott Speicher? And do you
have any theory on the whereabouts of Baghdad Bob?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, I'm not going to
comment on any of the reports about what we are hearing in the course of our
interrogations. Just as a matter of
policy, this is not something that we discuss.
And Baghdad Bob -- which Baghdad Bob? (Laughter.)
Q The one that wants to replace you if he gets
a chance. He's the Information Minister in
Iraq.
MR.
FLEISCHER: Oh, I wasn't aware. No, I don't --
I have not heard anything other than the President's flavorful
description of him.
Q What do you see as the impact of Hamas' rejection of the road map and the latest suicide
bombing on prospects for what you described as a new and more optimistic
environment? How can such an environment
take hold in that kind of an atmosphere?
MR.
FLEISCHER: This is the very challenge
that the parties face. Hamas, violence, homicide
attacks, and the other terrorist groups that operate in the region are the
greatest challenge to peace there is.
And this is why it's so imperative for the Palestinian people to join
together and say that if they want to be a state, if they want a bright,
peaceful future, security has got to be brought under control, and these groups
have got to be brought under control. Because this type of terrorism is a setback to the cause of the
Palestinian people, and a setback to statehood. And that is one of the biggest sources of trouble
and concern.
And so, security
becomes very quickly an important point in events on the ground and the ability
of Israelis and Palestinians to work arrangements and work agreements. The President will continue to fight for
this. And it's important now for the
Palestinian Authority to take every step possible and to crack down so these type of terrorist attacks cannot be repeated.
Q Do you think this emerging government has a
capacity to bring them under control?
MR.
FLEISCHER: They certainly, per the Oslo
Agreement, per statements that have been made, and per a sense of desire for
peace, have an obligation to take every step in that direction, yes.
Q A different topic. The tobacco treaty at the U.N.,
the U.S. wants
some changes to it that critics say will weaken it significantly. What's the administration's --
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, this is this is -- if ever there was an issue involving standard
language in treaties, this is it. We
wanted to be a signatory to this treaty.
We have made clear that we want to sign it, we want to ratify it. The language here deals with what's called
the reservations clause, which is a standard procedure in treaties. And this reservation --
the reservation clause simply prohibits signatories from making
reservations of sections of the treaty. Reservations is a standard part of treaties. So you really haven't seen anything different
in our approach to this treaty. It is a
treaty we want to sign, we want to ratify with the standard language.
Q I have a question regarding the French
papers reporting on chemical weapons in Iraq. They are saying that so far there is nothing
there, and the troops there want to find anything. And if they find something, the French media
is saying the CIA has
-- is going to put it
there. Do you have any response to this
kind of --
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, just again, I've
addressed here earlier, the President has high confidence that it will be
found. A mere three weeks after the fall
of the statue, it's unreasonable to expect that a decade of Saddam Hussein's
ability to deceive and to deny and to build up a giant infrastructure built to
hide, can be pierced in three weeks time.
Again, Secretary Armitage addressed this at
some length this morning.
Q Ari, now that we're
entering phase two in the Iraqi situation, what is the United
States' position on the United Nations and
NGOs taking a stronger, or more up-front role in the
reconstruction process? Do we still want
to have the major say?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, as a technical matter,
it's referred to as phase four. Phase
three was the military phase. Phase two
was the lead-up phase. I don't remember
what phase one was. (Laughter.) But the President believes that the United
Nations should have a vital role in reconstruction efforts in Iraq and the
humanitarian relief programs in Iraq. And that's important. The United Nations is a major representative
to the deliberations inside Iraq.
And I would note
that USAID in its granting of contracts, is granting
contracts to NGOs who are helping to improve the security situation and the
humanitarian situation inside Iraq.
Q Ari, will we defer
to the United Nations, though, in terms of what projects to pursue and all
that, given the fact that they never supported the war?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The lead will continue to be
the coalition with the help of all those who want to play a constructive role,
including the United Nations.
Q The Washington Post quoted the Associated
Press' corporate spokesman, Jack Stokes, in New York as saying
with regard to their interview of Senator Santorum, "Any of our reporter's
marital status has nothing to do with their stories." And my question is,
do you, as the President's chief media spokesman, believe that there would be
no conflict of interest seen if AP hired that brilliant writer Lynne Cheney to
be their White House Bureau Chief, or to cover Senator Kerry's campaign?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Lester, I think these are
matters that the media wrestles with, and it's appropriate to let them handle
it, not the White House spokesman.
Q The Council on American-Islamic Relations
has asked the President to rescind the nomination of Dr. Daniel Pipes to the
U.S. Institute of Peace. Does the White
House regard this organization with enough respect to withdraw Dr. Pipes'
nomination?
MR.
FLEISCHER: The nomination continues to
stand.
Q Ari, North
Korea has
mentioned any intervention attempted
by the United Nations with North
Korea nuclear issues will be regarded as a
prelude to the war. What is your
comment?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Well, that's, frankly,
absolutely nothing new for North
Korea.
North Korea has had a
history of saying inflammatory statements.
In fact, they said that very statement on --
in 1994. So this is a pattern
that North Korea has about
engaging in rather hot rhetoric, and it does not contribute to advancing the
cause for peace on the Peninsula.
Q Does the President view his speech tomorrow night as an
opportunity to inform the nation about --
specifically about the future course of the war on terrorism, and
exactly what his intentions might be towards the other members of the axis of
evil?
MR.
FLEISCHER: Let me just repeat what I
said earlier. The President will talk
about the ongoing war against terrorism in his speech tomorrow night.
Thank you.
END 1:19 P.M. EDT
|