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"It's very important for our fellow citizens to recognize that I don't question anybody's patriotism, but I do question a strategy that says we can't give those on the front line of fighting terror the tools necessary to fight terror."

By AcademicElephant Posted in The White House — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Mr. Bush held a Rose Garden press conference this morning that addressed three major issues that, if history is our guide, are of some interest to loyal Redstate readers: North Korea, Iraq, and the all-consuming 2006 mid-term elections.

Read on...

North Korea: There are of course many helpful voices raised today that point out how successful bilateral talks between the DPRK and the US were in the 1990s. Mr. Bush is having none of this revisionist history:

In 1994, the government -- our government -- entered into a bilateral arrangement with the North Koreans that worked to make sure that they don't have the capacity to develop a bomb, and North Korea agreed that there would be no program whatsoever toward the development of a weapon. And yet, we came into office and discovered that they were developing a program, unbeknownst to the folks with whom they signed the agreement, the United States government. And we confronted them with that evidence and they admitted it was true, and then left the agreement that they had signed with the U.S. government.

And my point -- and then I -- as I mentioned in my opening statement, we, once again, had North Korea at the table -- this time with other parties at the table -- and they agreed once again, through this statement as a result of the six-party talks, to verifiably show that they weren't advancing a nuclear weapons program. And they chose again to leave. And my point to you is that it's the intransigence of the North Korean leader that speaks volumes about the process. It is his unwillingness to choose a way forward for his country -- a better way forward for his country. It is his decisions. And what's changed since then is that we now have other parties at the table who have made it clear to North Korea that they share the same goals of the United States, which is a nuclear weapons-free peninsula.

Obviously, I'm listening very carefully to this debate. I can remember the time when it was said that the Bush administration goes it alone too often in the world, which I always thought was a bogus claim to begin with. And now all of a sudden people are saying, the Bush administration ought to be going alone with North Korea. But it didn't work in the past is my point. The strategy did not work. I learned a lesson from that and decided that the best way to convince Kim Jong-il to change his mind on a nuclear weapons program is to have others send the same message.

Iraq: I think this statement could be summed up as "don't miss the forest for the trees." The problem is that only time will tell, but still, Mr Bush does have a point:

Amid the violence, important political developments are also taking place. The Iraqi legislature reached a compromise and set up a process for addressing the difficult issues of federalism and constitutional reform. In addition, the government of Prime Minister Maliki has taken three important steps to build confidence in his government and in the Iraqi security forces. First, Prime Minister Maliki announced a plan to bring together Sunni and Shia parties and stop sectarian violence. The Prime Minister's plan has received support from every major political group in Iraq, including some hard-line Sunni elements that chose not to join the unity government. Among the steps the Prime Minister announced is a new system of local and neighborhood committees, made up of both Sunni and Shia members, that will work directly with Iraqi security forces to resolve tensions and stop sectarian strife.

Second, this past weekend Prime Minister Maliki met with tribal leaders from the Anbar Province. These tribal leaders told him they've had enough of the terrorists seeking to control the Sunni heartland, and they're ready to stand up and fight al Qaeda. The Prime Minister told them that he welcomed their support and would help them.

Third, Prime Minister Maliki's government suspended the Eighth Brigade, Second Division of the national police after learning that this unit was not intervening to stop sectarian violence in and around Baghdad. This police brigade has been decertified by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior; it's been removed from service; it's now being reviewed and retrained. With this action, the Iraqi government has made clear it's not going to tolerate the infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by militias and sectarian interests.

The reason I bring this up, these examples up, is that there's a political process that's going forward, and it's the combination of security and a political process that will enable the United States to achieve our objective, which is an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, defend itself, and be an ally in this war on terror.

Iraq's government -- Iraq's democratic government is just four months old. Yet, in the face of terrorist threats and sectarian violence, Iraq's new leaders are beginning to make tough choices. And as they make these tough decisions, we'll stand with them, we'll help them. It's in our interests that Iraq succeed.

I fully understand the American people are seeing unspeakable violence on their TV screens. These are tough times in Iraq. The enemy is doing everything within its power to destroy the government and to drive us out of the Middle East, starting with driving us out of Iraq before the mission is done. The stakes are high. As a matter of fact, they couldn't be higher. If we were to abandon that country before the Iraqis can defend their young democracy the terrorists would take control of Iraq and establish a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America. How do I know that would happen? Because that's what the enemy has told us would happen. That's what they have said. And as Commander-in-Chief of the United States military, and as a person working to secure this country, I take the words of the enemy very seriously, and so should the American people.

We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West. By helping the Iraqis build a democracy -- an Iraqi-style democracy -- we will deal a major blow to terrorists and extremists, we'll bring hope to a troubled region, and we'll make this country more secure.

Mr. Bush was perhaps most impressive when talking about why he believes the Republicans will maintain majorities in both houses of congress. Over the past six years you might have noticed that the President comes on strongest when he's faced with a stiff challenge and his chances have been written off by the powers that be. There was a strong whiff of this today:

I still stand by my prediction, we'll have a Republican Speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate. And the reason I say that is because I believe the two biggest issues in this campaign are, one, the economy. And the economy is growing. The national unemployment rate is 4.6 percent. We've just discovered, as the result of analyzing new data, that we added 6.6 million new jobs since August of 2003. Gas prices are down. Tax cuts are working.

And there's a difference of opinion in the campaign about taxes, and we will keep them low. Matter of fact, I would like to keep the -- make the tax cuts we pass permanent. And the Democrats will raise taxes. Now, I know they say only on rich people, but that's -- in my judgment, having been around here long enough to know, it's just code word. They're going to raise them on whoever they can raise them on.

And then, on security, the American people know that our biggest job is to protect this country from further attack, and -- because they know there's an enemy that still plots and plans. And there is. There is. Recently we learned that when British intelligence and U.S. intelligence -- with our help -- broke up a plot to get on airplanes and blow them up, the planes that were going to fly from Great Britain to here. And they want to know -- 'they' the people -- want to know what are we doing to protect them.

There have been some votes on the floor of the Senate and the House that make it abundantly clear we just have a different view of the world. The vast majority of Democrats voted against a program that would enable us to interrogate high-value detainees. That was the vote. It's wide open for everybody to see: Should a CIA program go forward, or not go forward. The vast majority of Democrats in the House voted against a program that would have institutionalized the capacity of this government to listen to al Qaeda phone calls or al Qaeda affiliate phone calls coming from outside the country to inside the country.

It's very important for our fellow citizens to recognize that I don't question anybody's patriotism, but I do question a strategy that says we can't give those on the front line of fighting terror the tools necessary to fight terror. I believe that in order to defend America we must take a threat seriously and defeat an enemy overseas so we don't have to face them here. I don't believe we can wait to respond after attack has occurred.

Questioned about the Democrats' wounded feelings over his characterization of their national security "plan," Mr. Bush had this to say:

Well, I think it's fair to use the words of the people in Congress or their votes. The vote was on the Hamdan legislation: Do you want to continue a program that enabled us to interrogate folks, or not? And all I was doing was reciting the votes. I would cite my opponent in the 2004 campaign when he said there needs to be a date certain from which to withdraw from Iraq. I characterize that as cut and run because I believe it is cut and run. In other words, I've been using either their votes or their words to characterize their positions.

Q But they don't say cut and run.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they may not use cut and run, but they say date certain is when to get out, before the job is done. That is cut and run. Nobody has accused me of having a real sophisticated vocabulary, I understand that. And maybe their -- their words are more sophisticated than mine. But when you pull out before the job is done, that's cut and run as far as I'm concerned. And that's cut and run as far as most Americans are concerned. And so, yes, I'm going to continue reminding them of their words and their votes.

A robust economy and a strong national defense policy...hmmm, do you think the President's staff was up all night reading the responses to Erick's challenge that so clearly engaged the base and enraged the opposition? I'd like to think so, and they certainly could have done worse if they wanted to take the pulse of the electorate. Either way, there are certainly worse platforms on which to run. Toss in two terrific SCOTUS judges and I have to say, good heavens, people. What precisely do we want to achieve here? Let's give this man a congress with which he can work for the next two years.