White House Gaggle March 28, 2008

By Meredith MacKenzie
Briefer: Scott Stanzel

Schedule: The President taped the Sunday radio address and had his normal morning briefings. He will meet and hold a press availability with the Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd. Stanzel said the president hopes to talk about Afghanistan, security, and global climate change and the common interests of Australia and the United States. He will then travel in Marine One to Freehold, New Jersey to participate in the HOPE NOW Alliance roundtable. He will tour Novadebt, after which he will make a statement on the topic of housing. He will return to the White House in the late afternoon.

Novadebt is one of the partners working with the HOPE NOW Alliance which is a counseling program which helps families avoid foreclosure on their homes. Stanzel said that the administration is very committed to helping American families stay in their homes. Stanzel said he does not expect new programs or initiatives to be mentioned in the statement on housing. Stanzel said that the White House has been watching the consumer spending numbers and we do anticipate a weak quarter. The White House economic advisors do believe that growth will pick up in the second half of the year.

When asked about the economic stimulus checks, Stanzel responded that the White House believes that the money from the economic stimulus will be spent and it will provide a boost to the economy, leading to increased consumer spending and growth in the second quarter.



The topic of Sunday’s radio address will center around the economic stimulus package and the modern role of the Federal Housing Authority. Stanzel said the president believes that Congress should move forward on legislation regarding the FHA.

On recent North Korean missile tests:
North Korea should refrain from testing missiles, this kind of activity is not constructive. North Korea should declare in a complete and transparent way all its nuclear activities and work toward disarmament. What North Korea is doing is not constructive.

In the meeting with Prime Minister Rudd,Stanzel said that Iraq is a topic that will come up. “We believe that we’ve made tremendous progress in Iraq,” he said. And he added that the actions taken this week demonstrate “tremendous strides” in the capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

When asked about criticism over Guantanamo Bay Stanzel said that it is the White House to shut down Guantanamo Bay but there are obstacles with that, particularly that the U.S. can’t send detainees back to countries that don’t want to receive their detainees back or treat them humanely when they return.

Responding to a question on the Farm Bill Stanzel said that the president has said that he wants a Farm Bill that is reform-minded that does not raise taxes. Since farmers are doing very well we think this is a good time to reform our agriculture policies. The president would veto a bill that is not reform-minded, or one that raises spending. Stanzel mentioned that the next deadline is April 18th, instead of relying on extensions the Congress should work to pass new legislation and not extend current law piecemeal.

The President will throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals opening Day. The Nationals have made the decision that the president will throw the first pitch to the manager and this decision has nothing to do with the fact that Nationals starting catcher Paul Lo Duca was mentioned in the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball.

This upcoming meeting at the White House with British Prime Minister Brown will be Brown’s first meeting as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Wanting their Voices to be heard

Five years after the Iraq invasion, protesters marched on the White House. Organized under "United for Peace and Justice," participants clothed in military uniforms, black hoods, or orange jumpsuits, congregated outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Various signs protesting torture, gas prices, and the Bush Administration were waved back and forth as individual protesters passed a bullhorn and shouted messages towards the President's front lawn. "Impeach Bush!" was shouted, along with claiming a citizen's arrest and "come out with your hands up!"

At least one hundred persons dressed completely in black, wearing white hockey masks, and carrying a large name tags identifying themselves as a dead journalist or activist, walked silently in a circle as one man rang a large cow bell to signify death. The "March of the Dead," as it was identified, paraded up and down the sidewalk in front of the gates.

President Bush welcomes Republican presidential nominee John McCain to the White House

President Bush had lunch with Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, and his wife Cindy McCain, at the White House. Afterward Bush gave his formal endorsement of McCain.







See more photos on our Flickr page

Chairman Ackerman and Chairman Delahunt Angry at the Administration's Lack of Cooperation

The Foreign Affairs Committee held a joint hearing today on discussing the U.S. commitments to Iraq. The subcommittees organizing the hearing were the Middle East and the South Asia, led by Chairman Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY), and International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, led by William D. Delahunt (D-MA).

The hearing was scheduled to have two different panels. First with the Honorable David Satterfield, senior advisor to the Secretary and Coordinator to Iraq, U.S. State Department, and the Honorable Mary Beth Long, assistant Secretary of Defense on International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense. Professor Oona A. Hathaway from Yale Law School and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Lawrence Korb were the witnesses of the second panel.

Senior adviser David Satterfield presented the “progress towards developing a basic framework for normalized relations with the Iraqi government, which will include what is known as a Status of Forces Agreement”. This agreement raised couple of concerns amongst the members of the committee. They were upset of the ongoing lack of consultation of the current administration with Congress. The issue of starting a war without the authorization of Congress was also brought up by Chairman Ackerman, leaving both representatives of the departments with no direct answers. The chairman also questioned the administration’s ability to understand and act upon the Constitution

White House Gaggle

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
(Waco, Texas)

_______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 3, 2008


PRESS GAGGLE
BY GORDON JOHNDROE

Aboard Air Force One
En route Andrews Air Force Base



10:11 A.M. EST


MR. JOHNDROE: All right, let me do the -- I'll do the President's schedule. We just left Texas en route Washington. The President received his regular briefings on board. On arrival, at 12:20 p.m., the President will participate in a photo opportunity with winners of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Voice of Democracy Award. That's on the North Portico of the White House.

Then at 1:00 p.m., the President meets with the National Association of Attorneys General. Attorney General Mukasey will be briefing him ahead of time. The President will come in, spend some time with them. His remarks to the attorneys general with the pool will focus on FISA. Twenty-one of our nation's attorneys general have written a letter in support of FISA modernization.

Then the President, at 1:40 p.m. in the Oval Office, will meet with the former commanding general of Multinational Corps Iraq, Lieutenant General Ray Odierno. General Odierno assumed command of Multinational Corps Iraq in December of 2006, and recently redeployed with the 3rd Corps back to Fort Hood, Texas, and continues to serve as the commanding general at Fort Hood.

As the number two commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Odierno oversaw the day-to-day operations, and in particular, commanded the surge of military forces the President announced last year. The President and Lieutenant General Odierno will discuss the continued progress in Iraq, the training of Iraqi security forces and Iraqi security forces' increased capability to take the lead in combat operations.

At 2:35 p.m., in the East Room -- this event is open press -- the President will present the Medal of Honor posthumously to Master Sergeant Woodrow Keeble of the United States Army. As the Army News Service recently reported, during the final allied offensive of the Korean War, Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble risked his life to save his fellow soldiers. Almost six decades after his gallant actions, and 26 years after his death, Keeble will be the first full-blooded Sioux Indian to receive the Medal of Honor.

And with that, I am happy to take your questions.

Q On Condi's trip to the Mideast, what's the expectations, and how does she deal with the recent flare-up?

MR. JOHNDROE: Sure. Obviously, as you know, the Secretary of State leaves at 11:00 a.m. this morning to go to the Middle East, has meetings in Egypt, as well as meetings with Israelis and Palestinians. We have a clear message: The Palestinian people have a choice to make. It's a choice between terrorism, or a choice between a political solution that leads to a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel.

The number one thing that has to happen is Hamas has got to stop targeting Israeli citizens with rockets. It must stop. The parties then need to get back to the negotiating table and have discussions. Ultimately, it is in the best interest of the Palestinian people and their future, and also in the best interest of the Israelis and the whole region, for these two parties to have discussions that leads to a peaceful settlement.

Q Do you fear that the -- Abbas pulling out of the discussions for now will be prolonged and stall efforts by the President to get this going?

MR. JOHNDROE: Well, look, I saw that President Abbas had said that he suspended talks. We obviously want these talks to resume as soon as possible. I think that's something that Secretary Rice will take up with President Abbas, as well as other leaders in the region.

Q Does the President -- in infer from your comments that the President does not feel that Israel has used disproportionate force, as the Secretary General of the U.N. has said?

MR. JOHNDROE: Look, we obviously don't want any innocent civilians to lose their life, but I think that started with these rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israel, recently killing and injuring Israeli citizens in some of their bigger cities. So they've had these -- a barrage of rockets fired out of Hamas for some time now, and now Hamas escalated it, firing larger rockets longer-range and killing people. And so that's got to stop.

Q So the answer is, no?

MR. JOHNDROE: The answer is the stated.

Q It seems as if Hamas is driving this Middle East agenda, because any time they want to derail the negotiations, they can.

MR. JOHNDROE: You know, there are always people, whenever they see the democratic process making progress, that try and derail it. And so that's why I said the Palestinian people have a choice to make. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad can help lead the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people in a better direction. And that's what Secretary Rice is going to be focused on when she arrives there later today.

Q Do you guys think there's any possible way to have a peace negotiation, a peace accord if there is a divided Palestinian group?

MR. JOHNDROE: As the President has said, it's a two-state solution, not a three-state solution. But I think I'm going to wait for Secretary Rice to get there and have her discussions before I say anything more.

Q Is there any chance of having any kind of Middle East accord by the end of the year like he wants?

MR. JOHNDROE: We're going to keep on -- we're going to keep after it.

Q Are you optimistic about that?

Q The President hasn't given up on this yet?

MR. JOHNDROE: No, absolutely not. We're going to keep on pursuing it. It is in the best interest of the Palestinian people, it's in the best interest of the Israeli people, it's in the best interest of the people in the region and the whole wide world, so we've got to keep after it.

Q What about the air strike and reports that civilians were killed, in this pinpoint strike?

MR. JOHNDROE: I would say that it's unfortunate whenever civilians lose their life. We do not want to see that, either Israeli or Palestinian --

Q -- about Somalia.

MR. JOHNDROE: Somalia, okay. Somalia, look -- the United States is going to go after al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliated operatives wherever we find them. They are plotting and planning all over the world to destabilize the world, to inflict terror, and where we find them, we are going to go after them.

Q Who was the target?

MR. JOHNDROE: I'm going to refer you to the Pentagon for any specifics, but the action was to go after al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.

Q -- get anybody?

MR. JOHNDROE: I'll refer you to the Pentagon for any additional details.

Q Gordon, does the President feel that the elections yesterday in Russia were fair and free?

MR. JOHNDROE: Dimitri Medvedev is now the President-elect of Russia, will soon be the President of Russia. The President looks forward to working with him. It's in our mutual interests that the United States and Russia continue cooperation in a number of areas, including counter-proliferation, counter-terrorism, fighting transnational crime. So I expect that in the coming days the President and Mr. Medvedev will have a chance to talk.

Q Right, but the President has been very eloquent in the past about the need to hold free and fair elections all around the world. That's not quite the question I asked. What does he think about how the elections went in Russia?

MR. JOHNDROE: I think the United States position in the lead-up to the elections was clear. But now I'll refer you to election observers who have made some comments about the election. They're also continuing to take a look at it. So we'll wait to see what these observers have to say.

Q Do you folks have any comment about Ahmadinejad's visit to Baghdad? He's saying that they're not arming the insurgents there. He said they're not training the --

MR. JOHNDROE: I heard his comments. Nice words for him to say in the middle of Baghdad, but the facts on the ground prove otherwise. We continue to intercept equipment and people coming in from Iran into Iraq with no other purpose but for the killing of innocent Americans and innocent Iraqis, and the destabilization of that country. So we would just urge them to stop that. But at the end of the day, we want Iraq and Iran to have good relations. It's in the best interests of both people, and in the region.

Q Gordon, on FISA, Congressman Reyes said yesterday that he was hopeful that there might be some kind of compromise worked out on the Hill on this issue. Do you know anything about that? Is the President willing to entertain some kind of compromise?

MR. JOHNDROE: I think our position has been clear; we need to see liability protection for these telecommunications firms, so that they will be willing to provide assistance to our national security agencies. We're hopeful that the House Democratic leaders will bring the vote to the floor soon, because it has the votes to pass.

Q How much pressure are the phone and the telecom communications companies putting on the White House and putting on the administration to get this done?

MR. JOHNDROE: I would just say I think we're --

Q Are they putting any pressure on --

MR. JOHNDROE: I think I would decline to comment on any specific conversations. Our intelligence community has conversations with the telecommunications companies about the -- about some of our national security requirements, but I'll just leave it at that.

Okay, all right. Thank you all.

END 10:18 A.M. EST