History > 2006 > USA > White House / President (IV)

“I try to speak as clearly as I can,”

President Bush said about the nation’s policy toward nuclear proliferation.

Doug Mills/The New York Times        October 12, 2006

 For Bush, Many Questions on Iraq and North Korea        NYT        12.10.2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/washington/12prexy.html

Though Not on the Ballot,

Bush Campaigns Like a Candidate

in Georgia and Texas
 

October 31, 2006
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
The New York Times

SUGAR LAND, Tex., Oct. 30 — President Bush zigzagged from Georgia to his home state, Texas, on Monday, stumping for Republicans in Bush-friendly districts while looking ever more like the candidate himself.

Here in the Houston suburb once represented by Tom DeLay, Mr. Bush was greeted at a campaign rally like a man whose public approval ratings are 73 percent, not 37 percent. Campaign volunteers who had jammed into an airplane hangar climbed atop one another’s shoulders to catch a glimpse of him. Little children sported buttons with his likeness and waved tiny Texas flags. One supporter raised a handmade “Dubya” sign.

Mr. Bush, his shirt collar open, his sleeves rolled up, soaked it all in before delivering a speech that laid into Democrats for, among other things, opposing tax cuts and lacking a strategy in Iraq. It was a reprise of a fiery talk he gave hours earlier at a college gymnasium in Statesboro, Ga.

“It’s a serious political party in the midst of a war, and they have no plan for success,” Mr. Bush said in Sugar Land, after proclaiming, “we will not run from thugs and assassins.” It was a moment when the president could defend his record in Iraq to thunderous applause.

The back-to-back rallies created just the image White House strategists are seeking for the president in the waning days of the campaign: that of a confident leader, surrounded by adoring supporters.

The intent is to fire up the party faithful and push them to the polls, but at times it seemed as if Mr. Bush was the one being fired up. The president seemed to relish playing the game of political expectations, as he tweaked Democrats as measuring for new curtains in Washington too soon.

“You might remember that around this time in 2004, some of them were picking out their new offices in the West Wing,” Mr. Bush said in Georgia.

He paused to absorb the laughter and applause, then added dryly, “The movers never got the call.”

After weeks of focusing on the economy and the war on terror, Mr. Bush has also tweaked his standard stump speech. It has been refashioned to include a broad defense of his record in a variety of areas: education, energy policy, border security, immigration, Medicare prescription drug benefits and the appointment of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

One of his biggest applause lines in Georgia was a restatement of his position that “marriage is a union between a man and a woman.” The line brought the crowd to its feet.

Charles Black, a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House, said: “The most important issues to Republican voters are tax cuts to the economic conservatives, and judges and marriage, pro-life issues to the social conservatives. So he’s reminding them that he’s got a good record on those things.”

Mr. Bush, of course, is not on the ballot. But with analysts predicting that Republicans could lose control of one or both houses of Congress, White House strategists are sending the president to those districts where he might just drag a Republican candidate across the finish line.

Sugar Land is in one such district, whose political landscape looks something like a Shakespeare play. The name of Mr. DeLay, who resigned from Congress after being indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas election laws, remains on the ballot, though he is not running. That left Mr. Bush to implore Republicans to write in the name of a candidate whose name is not easily written: Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, a dermatologist who serves on the Houston City Council.

She is running against Nick Lampson, a Democrat who lost his seat in a redistricting engineered by Mr. DeLay. Polls show the two running neck and neck, but Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Mr. Bush remained popular enough here to help Ms. Sekula-Gibbs.

“He’s still got legs,” Mr. Buchanan said.

    Though Not on the Ballot, Bush Campaigns Like a Candidate in Georgia and Texas, NYT, 31.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/us/politics/31bush.html

A Warm Welcome for Bush the Campaigner, in Indiana

October 29, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

SELLERSBURG, Ind., Oct. 28 — In an appearance that amounted to his first traditional campaign rally of the election season, President Bush on Saturday told wildly cheering supporters here that Democrats did not want to investigate, prosecute or even detain terrorists and had no plan for Iraq.

And, introducing a relatively new line in his election-year stump speech, Mr. Bush criticized the “activist” New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling this week that same-sex couples were entitled to the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.

“We believe that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and should be defended,” Mr. Bush said, reminding the crowd of his two conservative Supreme Court appointees, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “I will continue to appoint judges who strictly interpret the law.”

Aides said Mr. Bush’s appearance on Saturday was the first of many planned for the final days before the Nov. 7 election, as he pivots from the role of fund-raiser in chief to that of cheerleader in chief.

For Mr. Bush, it was a return to the kind of campaigning he likes best. He gave his speech in rolled-up shirtsleeves, standing before an ecstatic crowd packed into a high school gymnasium. They waved pompoms and held signs that said “Welcome to Bush Country” or simply “W,” and hooted their support with deafening enthusiasm. Their cheers nearly overwhelmed the shouts of an antiwar demonstrator, whose protests were barely audible, and occasionally drowned out the president.

Mr. Bush went onstage with Representative Mike Sodrel, one of three Indiana Republicans facing tough Democratic opposition this year. The president’s list of Democrats’ deficiencies included their votes against the administration’s program to wiretap phone conversations of terrorism suspects without warrants and their opposition to trying terrorism suspects in special military tribunals without habeas corpus.

“In all these vital measures for fighting the war on terror, the Democrats in Washington follow a simple philosophy: Just Say No,” Mr. Bush said, borrowing the line from Nancy Reagan’s 1980s campaign against drugs. He continued that theme in a call-and-response with the crowd, asking, “When it comes to listening in on the terrorists, what’s the Democratic answer?”

“Just say no,” the audience answered.

“When it comes to detaining terrorists, what’s the Democratic answer?” Mr. Bush asked.

“Just say no,” the crowd of roughly 4,000 answered.

“When the Democrats ask for your vote November the seventh, what are you going to say?” Mr. Bush asked.

“Just say no,” the crowd replied.

Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have pushed for greater restrictions on the president’s authority to order wiretaps without warrants. Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said they had called for a more solid legal foundation in trying terrorism suspects.

Mr. Manley said the president was practicing “the politics of fear and smear.”

“Of course we want to listen to and detain terrorists,” Mr. Manley said. “We just don’t want to give the president a blank check.”

Continuing his national security theme, Mr. Bush left here for South Carolina to attend a rally for troops at the Charleston Air Force Base.

To a crowd of hundreds of servicemembers gathered on the tarmac, Mr. Bush gave a streamlined version of his stump speech, removing direct mention of Democrats or the coming election, and appeared to direct criticism at the opposition.

“I know some in America don’t believe Iraq is the central front in the war on terror — that’s fine, and they can have that opinion,” Mr. Bush said. “But Osama bin Laden knows it’s the central front in the war on terror.”

And he offered words for those who have lost loved ones in the war.

“I make them this pledge,” he said. “We will honor their sacrifice by completing the mission, by defeating the terrorists and laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.”

Mr. Bush has not set aside his fund-raising duties entirely. On Saturday evening, he appeared at a private event for the Republican National Committee on Kiawah Island, a resort community off the coast of South Carolina, that organizers said raised about $1 million.

    A Warm Welcome for Bush the Campaigner, in Indiana, NYT, 29.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/us/politics/29bush.html

Bush Reaffirms Support for Iraqi Leader

October 28, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Saturday reaffirmed his support for Iraq's prime minister, telling Nouri al-Maliki that he is not ''America's man in Iraq'' but a sovereign leader whom the U.S. is aiding.

Playing down tensions over a U.S. plan for benchmarks toward reducing the violence, the leaders said they were ''committed to the partnership'' and would work ''in every way possible for a stable, democratic Iraq and for victory in the war on terror.''

In a statement after a 50-minute video conference, Bush and al-Maliki outlined three goals: speeding up the training of Iraq's security forces; moving ahead with Iraqi control of its forces; and making the Iraqi government responsible for the country's security.

A special group of high-level Iraqi ministers will work with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, and the U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, to recommend how best to achieve those goals.

''As leaders of two great countries, we are committed to the security and prosperity of a democratic Iraq and the global fight against terrorism which affects all our citizens,'' according to their joint statement.

During the video hookup, al-Maliki told Bush, ''History will record that because of your efforts, Iraq is a free country,'' according to White House press secretary Tony Snow.

''What you've got in Maliki is a guy who is making decisions,'' Snow said after the session.

''He's making tough decisions, and he's showing toughness and he's also showing political skill in dealing with varying factions within his own country. And both leaders understand the political pressures going on,'' Snow said.

Al-Maliki was quoted by a close aide as having told the U.S. ambassador to Iraq on Friday, ''I am a friend of the United States, but I am not America's man in Iraq.''

In response, Snow told reporters, ''He's not America's man in Iraq. The United States is there in a role to assist him. He's the prime minister -- he's the leader of the Iraqi people. He is, in fact, the sovereign leader of Iraq.''

Al-Maliki squabbled with the Bush administration this week over his objections to a timeline proposed by Washington for bringing security to Iraq.

''There are no strains in the relationship,'' Snow said.

''In this prime minister, you have somebody in the Iraqi government who wants to take charge, who wants to take responsibility, is working on all fronts, on the economic side, on the security side, and on the political reconciliation side,'' the spokesman said.

''And he believes it's important to do whatever he can to build greater faith and trust with the Iraqi people in the democracy. So the president's very happy actually with the way the prime minister is working.''

    Bush Reaffirms Support for Iraqi Leader, NYT, 28.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

White House denies Cheney endorsed 'water boarding'

Updated 10/28/2006 12:58 AM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush said Friday the United States does not torture prisoners, trying to calm a controversy created when Vice President Dick Cheney embraced the suggestion that a "dunk in water" might be useful to get terrorist suspects to talk.

Human rights groups complained that Cheney's words amounted to an endorsement of a torture technique known as water boarding, in which the victim believes he is about to drown. The White House insisted Cheney was not talking about water boarding but would not explain what he meant.

Less than two weeks before midterm congressional elections, the White House was put on the defensive as news of Cheney's remark spread. Bush was asked about it at a White House photo opportunity with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow was pelted with questions at two briefings with reporters.

Democrats also pointed to Cheney's statement.

"Is the White House that was for torture before it was against it, now for torture again?" tweaked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Kerry, in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency, had been skewered by Bush for saying he had voted for war funds before he voted against them.

Cheney triggered the flap in an interview Tuesday by radio broadcaster Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D. Hennen said callers had told him, "Please, let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves lives."

"Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" Hennen asked.

"Well, it's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture," Cheney said. "We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."

On Friday, Cheney called reporters to his cabin on Air Force Two as he returned from a trip to Missouri and South Carolina.

"I did not talk about specific techniques and won't," the vice president said. "I didn't say anything about water boarding. ... He (Hennen) didn't even use that phrase."

"I have said that the interrogation program for a selected number of detainees is very important," Cheney said. "(It) has been I think one of the most valuable intelligence programs we have. I believe it has allowed us to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States."

At his photo op, Bush said, "This country doesn't torture, we're not going to torture. We will interrogate people we pick up off the battlefield to determine whether or not they've got information that will be helpful to protect the country."

Snow, at a morning meeting with reporters, tried to brush off the controversy.

"You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will," Snow said. "You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."

Snow said Cheney did not interpret the question as referring to water boarding and the vice president did not make any comments about water boarding. He said the question put to Cheney was loosely worded.

In water boarding, a prisoner is tied to a board with his head slanted down and a towel covering his face. Water is then poured on his face to create the sensation of drowning.

The administration has repeatedly refused to say which techniques it believes are permitted under a new law. Asked to define a dunk in water, Snow said, "It's a dunk in the water."

At a televised briefing later, the questions turned tougher and more pointed.

"The vice president says he was talking in general terms about a questioning program that is legal to save American lives, and he was not referring to water boarding," Snow said.

Yet, the spokesman conceded, "I can understand that people will look at this and draw the conclusions that you're trying to draw."

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement, "What's really a no-brainer is that no U.S. official, much less a vice president, should champion torture. Vice President Cheney's advocacy of water boarding sets a new human rights low at a time when human rights is already scraping the bottom of the Bush administration barrel."

Human Rights Watch said Cheney's remarks were "the Bush administration's first clear endorsement" of water boarding.

A new Army manual, released last month, bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, explicitly barring water boarding and other procedures.

    White House denies Cheney endorsed 'water boarding', UT, 28.10.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-27-cheney_x.htm

Op-Ed Contributor

Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff

October 27, 2006
By GEORGE LAKOFF
The New York Times

Berkeley, Calif.

THE Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap.

“That is not a stay-the-course policy,” Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday.

The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he’ll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, “I am not a crook” during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.

“Listen, we’ve never been stay the course, George,” President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he said “stay the course.”

What the president is discovering is that it’s not so easy to rewrite linguistic history. The laws of language are hard to defy.

“The characterization of, you know, ‘it’s stay the course’ is about a quarter right,” the president said at an Oct. 11 news conference. “ ‘Stay the course’ means keep doing what you’re doing. My attitude is, don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working — change. ‘Stay the course’ also means don’t leave before the job is done.”

A week or so later, he tried another shift: “We have been — we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting the tactics. Constantly.”

To fully understand why the president’s change in linguistic strategy won’t work, it’s helpful to consider why “stay the course” possesses such power. The answer lies in metaphorical thought.

Metaphors are more than language; they can govern thought and behavior. A recent University of Toronto study, for example, demonstrated the power of metaphors that connect morality and purity: People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn’t, the researchers found.

“Stay the course” is a particularly powerful metaphor because it can activate so many of our emotions. Because physical actions require movement, we commonly understand action as motion. Because achieving goals so often requires going to a particular place — to the refrigerator to get a cold beer, say — we think of goals as reaching destinations.

Another widespread — and powerful — metaphor is that moral action involves staying on a prescribed path, and straying from the path is immoral. In modern conservative discourse, “character” is seen through the metaphor of moral strength, being unbending in the face of immoral forces. “Backbone,” we call it.

In the context of a metaphorical war against evil, “stay the course” evoked all these emotion-laden metaphors. The phrase enabled the president to act the way he’d been acting — and to demonstrate that it was his strong character that enabled him to stay on the moral path.

To not stay the course evokes the same metaphors, but says you are not steadfast, not morally strong. In addition, it means not getting to your destination — that is, not achieving your original purpose. In other words, you are lacking in character and strength; you are unable to “complete the mission” and “achieve the goal.”

“Stay the course” was for years a trap for those who disagreed with the president’s policies in Iraq. To disagree was weak and immoral. It meant abandoning the fight against evil. But now the president himself is caught in that trap. To keep staying the course, given obvious reality, is to get deeper into disaster in Iraq, while not staying the course is to abandon one’s moral authority as a conservative. Either way, the president loses.

And if the president loses, does that mean the Democrats will win? Perhaps. But if they do, it will be because of Republican missteps and not because they’ve acted with strategic brilliance. Their “new direction” slogan offers no values and no positive vision. It is taken from a standard poll question, “Do you like the direction the nation is headed in?”

This is a shame. The Democrats are giving up a golden opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest principles (even on national security), to forge a public identity that fits those values — and perhaps to win more close races by being positive and having a vision worth voting for.

Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don’t find a more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived. They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course.

George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute, is the author of “Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision.”

    Staying the Course Right Over a Cliff, NYT, 27.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/opinion/27lakoff.html

Bush, Signing Bill for Border Fence, Urges Wider Overhaul

October 27, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — President Bush signed into law on Thursday a bill providing for construction of 700 miles of added fencing along the Southwestern border, calling the legislation “an important step toward immigration reform.”

The new law is what most House Republicans wanted. But it is not what Senate Republicans or Mr. Bush originally envisioned, and at the signing, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, the president repeated his call for a far more extensive revamping of immigration law.

A broader measure, approved by the Senate last spring, would have not only enhanced border security but also provided for a guest worker program and the possibility of eventual citizenship for many illegal immigrants already in the country.

But that bill was successfully resisted by House Republicans, who feared a voter backlash against anything that smacked of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Those lawmakers portrayed the Senate bill as embracing just that, no matter what the measure’s backers, including Mr. Bush, said to the contrary.

Eventually the president realized that a broad approach was dead for this election year, and he bowed to political reality and embraced the House concept, at least for the time being. On Sept. 29, just before its members headed home to campaign, the Senate approved construction of 700 miles of fencing, which the House had approved that month.

“I want to thank the members of Congress for their work on this important piece of legislation,” Mr. Bush said Thursday, greeting several lawmakers by name. “Ours is a nation of immigrants. We’re also a nation of law. Unfortunately, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades, and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise.”

The new law also provides for more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and advanced technology to bolster border security. A previously enacted domestic security spending bill provides $1.2 billion for the fence and the accompanying technology.

The fence idea has caused friction between the United States and Mexico, as was demonstrated again Thursday in Ottawa, where the Mexican president-elect, Felipe Calderón, condemned it.

“Humanity made a huge mistake by building the Berlin Wall, and I believe that today the United States is committing a grave error in building the wall on our border,” said Mr. Calderón, who was meeting with the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper.

Some of the legislation’s critics say the fence — actually several separate sections at a variety of places along the 2,000-mile border — will not keep out people desperate to cross. A foreign policy adviser to Mr. Calderón, Arturo Sarukhán, told Canadian reporters on Wednesday that the fence would merely allow smugglers of illegal migrants to charge them more.

In calling for a broader immigration overhaul, Mr. Bush said again Thursday that his approach did not amount to amnesty.

“We must reduce pressure on our border by creating a temporary worker plan,” he said. “Willing workers ought to be matched with willing employers to do jobs Americans are not doing for a temporary — on a temporary — basis. We must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. That is amnesty. I oppose amnesty.

“There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation, and I look forward to working with Congress to find that middle ground.”

Any such search will almost surely have to await a new Congress. The chance that it would be taken up in a lame-duck session after the elections is considered remote.

Christopher Mason contributed reporting from Toronto.

    Bush, Signing Bill for Border Fence, Urges Wider Overhaul, NYT, 27.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/us/27bush.html

Bush Offers Sobering Assessment of Iraq War

October 25, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT and CHRISTINE HAUSER

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 — President Bush offered a sobering assessment of the war in Iraq today, acknowledging his concerns about the campaign but reaffirming his determination that United States forces stay in the country until “the job is done.”

“There is tough fighting ahead,” Mr. Bush said. “The road to victory will not be easy.”

The president said the increase in bloodshed over the past month has been “a serious concern to me,” and he conceded that not everything has gone as anticipated with the new government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. In particular, Mr. Bush said, the United States had “overestimated the capability” of the Baghdad government to establish basic services for its citizens.

Nevertheless, Mr. Bush said, the United States must persist in Iraq, not just out of idealism but because a stable and free democracy in the Middle East is essential to America’s security. He said the campaign in Iraq is part of “the calling of this generation” of Americans to nurture liberty where it has not existed before.

The president chose his words carefully in describing the new Iraqi leadership, at times alluding to it as a sovereign government that the United States is working closely with, at other time declaring that Washington will not put more pressure on Mr. Maliki’s administration than it can handle.

Perhaps complicating the American mission in his country, Mr. Maliki asserted today that he will not be dictated to or adhere to any schedule set by Washington. While not mentioning Mr. Maliki’s remarks, Mr. Bush said Mr. Maliki is “the right man” in Iraq “so long as he continues to make tough decisions.”

For those who have followed Mr. Bush’s statements about Iraq, several things stood out at today’s White House news conference. Gone, perhaps for good, was his oft-repeated pledge that the United States will “stay the course.” Instead, he alluded repeatedly to persevering until “the job is done.”

But Mr. Bush said again that, while America’s goal remains a free and stable Iraq, American tactics are changing constantly to keep up with clever, ruthless terrorists who fear the very idea of freedom. He said, in response to a question, that he still has faith in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Moreover, Mr. Bush said, Democrats who expect to ride public unhappiness with the Iraq situation to victory 13 days from now may be in for a bitter disappointment. Mr. Bush said the elections will be decided on the basis of which party has better ideas to protect the American people and which party is a better steward of the economy.

“America’s patience is not unlimited,” he said at one point. But he said he trusts that the American people “will support the war as long as they see a path to victory.”

Public dissatisfaction with the war must not slide into disillusionment, he said. If he did not believe that the Iraq campaign was essential to American security, “I’d bring our troops home tomorrow,” Mr. Bush said.

Asked if he envisioned sending more American troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush said he would send more only if Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, said he needed them.

Democrats were quick to pounce on Mr. Bush’s remarks. The administration’s policy “like Iraq itself, is in complete disarray,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader. And Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said that, despite Mr. Bush’s talk about flexibility, the approach to Iraq remains a failed “stay-the-course strategy.”

Mr. Bush said he was “not satisfied” with the situation in Iraq and that the United States was shifting its tactics by working on a timetable with the Iraqi government that includes political measures to stem some of the violence. But he also emphasized that the plan was different from an “artificial” timetable under which American troops would be withdrawn.

“As the enemy shifts tactics we are shifting our tactics as well,” said Mr. Bush, speaking at a news conference at the White House a day after the American ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, laid out a timetable for political measures he said the Iraqi government had agreed to take.

Though acknowledging there were serious problems in Iraq, Mr. Bush ceded no ground on his handling of the war. In this way, he bridged the gaps between potential criticisms and a defense of his administration’s strategy by saying it was flexible and could be adapted.

“I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq; I’m not satisfied either,” Mr. Bush said. “And that is why we’re taking new steps to help secure Baghdad and constantly adjusting our tactics across the country to meet the changing threat.” Mr. Bush also reconciled his previous remarks on troops withdrawals. “You know, last spring, I thought for a period of time we’d be able to reduce our troop presence early next year. That’s what I felt.”

“But because we didn’t have a fixed timetable and because General Casey and General Abizaid and the other generals there understand that the way we’re running this war is to give them flexibility, have the confidence necessary to come and make the recommendations here in Washington, D.C., they decided that that wasn’t going to happen.”

On Tuesday, General Casey said that with effective government action on the political measures, Iraqi troops should be able to take over the main burden of the war in 12 to 18 months, allowing American troops to move to a support role.

Mr. Bush has often sent a message to the American public that the United States must “stay the course” in Iraq, and he said today that there was no inconsistency in his previous remarks that the United States would not “cut and run” from Iraq and his administration’s current strategy of keeping the goal the same but the tactics flexible.

He said that people wanted to see benchmarks in a “plan” for victory, which he said was different from saying they wanted an artificial timetable to withdraw.

“As a matter of fact, the benchmarks will make it more likely we win,” he said. “Withdrawing on an artificial timetable means we lose.”

Asked whether the American people might conclude that the administration’s new plan of benchmarks and timetables was motivated by pre-election posturing, Mr. Bush said: “You’re asking me why I’m giving this speech today? Because I think I owe an explanation to the American people and will continue to make explanations. The people need to know that we have a plan for victory.”

The election ran as an undercurrent throughout the news conference.

“I like campaigning,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s what guys like me do in order to get here.”

He laid out what he said were encouraging developments since April 2003, like the capture of Saddam Hussein and the assassination this year of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

“Absolutely, we are winning,” said Mr. Bush during a question session.

But he also mentioned the developments that he described as “not encouraging,” like the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and the fact that suspected weapons arsenals were not uncovered, and the loss of American soldiers.

Mr. Bush also defended the recent operations to bring security to Baghdad, and appeared to lay blame on Iraqi forces, saying that after some initial successes they “performed below expectations.”

Mr. Bush noted that so far this month, 93 American soldiers have been killed, the highest number of deaths since the same time last year, He also noted the deaths of more than 300 Iraqi forces and the “unspeakable violence” experienced by Iraqi civilians.

The political and military measures that Mr. Bush said were being put into effect include refinement of training for the Iraqi forces, as well as steps to achieve a political solution to the sectarian violence that has raged in the country.

Referring to Mr. Khalilzad’s announcement of Tuesday, Mr. Bush said that they would be working with political and religious leaders to stop sectarian violence, and reach out to Arab states to support the Iraqi government to persuade Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms.

“These are difficult tasks for any government,” he said. “And they have to do it in the midst of raging conflict.”

David Stout reported from Washington and Christine Hauser from New York. John F. Burns contributed reporting from Baghdad.

    Bush Offers Sobering Assessment of Iraq War, NYT, 25.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/26prexycnd.html?hp&ex=1161835200&en=e333612d8415dd8e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Offers Gloomy Assessment of Iraq

October 25, 2006
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a somber, pre-election review of a long and brutal war, President Bush conceded Wednesday that the United States is taking heavy casualties and said, "I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq."

"I'm not satisfied either," he said at a speech and question and answer session at the White House 13 days before midterm elections.

Despite conceding painful losses, Bush said victory was essential in Iraq as part of the broader war on terror.

"We're winning and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done," he said.

Bush said that as those fighting American and Iraqi forces change their strategies, the United States is also adjusting its military tactics.

"Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions," he said.

Several Democratic critics have said that is precisely what the administration is risking with an open-ended commitment of American forces, at a time that a year-old Iraqi government gropes for a compromise that can satisfy Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish political interests.

He also sought to delineate a middle ground in terms of pressing the Iraqis to accept more of the responsibility for their own fate.

"We are making it clear that America's patience is not unlimited," he said. "We will not put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear."

Bush spoke as polls showed the public has become strongly opposed to the war, and increasing numbers of Republican candidates have signaled impatience with the president's policies.

In his opening moments at the podium in the East Room of the White House, Bush departed starkly from a practice of not talking about specific deaths in Iraq.

"There has been heavy fighting, many enemy fighters have been killed or captured and we've suffered casualties of our own," he said. "This month we've lost 93 American service members in Iraq, the most since October of 2005. During roughly the same period, more than 300 Iraqi security personnel have given their lives in battle. Iraqi civilians have suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of the terrorists, insurgents, illegal militias, armed groups and criminals."

He called these events "a serious concern to me, and a serious concern to the American people."

    Bush Offers Gloomy Assessment of Iraq, NYT, 25.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html?hp&ex=1161835200&en=1bdf615a301d4fef&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush, Facing Dissent on Iraq, Jettisons ‘Stay the Course

October 24, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — The White House said Monday that President Bush was no longer using the phrase “stay the course” when speaking about the Iraq war, in a new effort to emphasize flexibility in the face of some of the bloodiest violence there since the 2003 invasion.

“He stopped using it,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “It left the wrong impression about what was going on and it allowed critics to say, ‘Well, here’s an administration that’s just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is,’ when, in fact, it is the opposite.”

Mr. Bush used the slogan in a stump speech on Aug. 31, but has not repeated it for some time. Still, Mr. Snow’s pronouncement was a stark example of the complicated line the White House is walking this election year in trying to tag Democrats as wanting to “cut and run” from Iraq, without itself appearing wedded to unsuccessful tactics there.

Democrats have increasingly pressed a case this fall contending that Republicans are stubbornly proposing to “stay the course” in a failing effort to stanch violence in Iraq — an approach that strategists in both parties consider to have been fairly successful, especially as violence has continued to mount in Baghdad.

In the last few weeks a number of Republican lawmakers and party elders have also come forward to express doubts about whether the administration’s approach to stabilizing Iraq is succeeding and to suggest new strategies.

Mr. Bush and his aides have met those complaints with a renewed emphasis on adaptability for the United States’ war plan. Mr. Bush has stressed — as he did in an interview with ABC News on Sunday — that he is “not patient forever” and expects the Iraqis to take more responsibility in securing their own country.

In the same vein, administration officials are heightening the emphasis on setting milestones for Iraq to take over responsibility for ensuring security while disbanding sectarian militia groups.

Bush administration officials on Monday provided new details of their efforts to devise benchmarks for measuring the Baghdad government’s progress in the coming months toward assuming a larger role in securing the country.

Mr. Snow said the issue of benchmarks had come up cursorily during recent discussions with Mr. Bush; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander in the Middle East; Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq.

He added that the Bush administration was not presenting any ultimatums to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malaki’s government or tying goals to United States troop commitments.

Mr. Snow was commenting on a report in The New York Times on Sunday that said the Bush administration was drafting a timetable with Iraqi officials for dealing with the militias and achieving other political, economic and military benchmarks aimed at stabilizing the country.

The Times article quoted several senior officials anonymously as saying the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other steps if Iraq balked at the benchmarks or failed to meet the most critical timetables.

Mr. Rumsfeld said Monday that the benchmarks under discussion included projections on when Iraq might be able to take control of more of the country’s 18 provinces. Only two provinces are under full Iraqi security administration, though officials say they hope the number will rise to six or seven by the end of the year.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld said the goal of the discussions was to produce a “way ahead” so that “their government can have a set of tasks that they need to do to get prepared to assume the responsibility for governing their country and providing security for their country.”

The goal, he added, was for both sides to agree on what he called “projections” for when Iraq might be able to take on these tasks.

“My guess is that you might find that in no case will you find a specific date” for assuming a particular task, he said. But, he added, “You might find a month, or you might find a spread of two or three months, a period where they think they might be able to do it.”

Mr. Bush, in discussing at a news conference on Oct. 11 the meaning of the phrase “stay the course,” also refused to be pinned down.

“Stay the course means keep doing what you’re doing,” he said. “My attitude is, don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working; change.”

He added: “Stay the course also means don’t leave before the job is done. And that’s — we’re going to get the job done in Iraq. And it’s important that we do get the job done in Iraq.”

    Bush, Facing Dissent on Iraq, Jettisons ‘Stay the Course, NYT, 24.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/middleeast/24policy.html?hp&ex=1161748800&en=62d161821f8fd701&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Editorial

Blowing in the Wind

October 22, 2006
The New York Times

The generals who told President Bush before the war that Donald Rumsfeld’s shock-and-awe fantasy would not work were not enough to persuade him to change his strategy in Iraq. The rise of the insurgency did not do the trick. Nor did month after month of mounting military and civilian casualties on all sides, the emergence of a near civil war, the collapse of reconstruction efforts or the seeming inability of either Iraqi or American forces to secure contested parts of Iraq, including Baghdad, for any significant period.

So what finally, after all this time, caused Mr. Bush to very publicly consult with his generals to consider a change in tactics in Iraq? The president, who says he never reads political polls, is worried that his party could lose some of its iron grip on power in the Congressional elections next month.

It is not necessarily a bad thing when a politician takes stock of his positions in the teeth of an election. Our elected leaders are expected to heed the will of the American people. And this page has been part of a chorus of pleas for Mr. Bush to come up with a more realistic approach to Iraq.

But the way this sudden change of heart has come about, after months in which Mr. Bush has brushed off all criticism of his policies as either misguided, politically motivated or downright disloyal to America, is maddening. For far too long, the White House has looked upon the war as a tactical puzzle for campaign strategists. The early notion of combining Iraq and the war on terror as an argument for re-electing Republicans robbed the nation of any serious chance for a bipartisan discussion of these life-and-death issues. More recently, the administration seems to have been working under the assumption that its only obligations were to hang on, talk tough and pass the problem on to the next president.

The Iraqi government, which has had a hard time adopting most aspects of American democracy, seems to have eagerly embraced this administration’s lessons on how to deny politically unpleasant realities. Just the other day, The Times reported that the Pentagon had decided there was nothing wrong with a program in which phony “positive news” was planted in Iraqi newspapers. And news reports said that the Iraqi government had decided to stop reporting civilian casualties to the United Nations so there would be no record of the war’s increasing toll on ordinary Iraqis.

The way the Bush team is stage-managing the president’s supposed change of heart about “staying the course” is unfair to the Americans who have taken him at his word that real progress is being made in Iraq — a dwindling but still significant number of people, some of whom have sons and daughters serving in the conflict. It is a disservice to the troops, who were never sent to Iraq in sufficient numbers to protect themselves or the Iraqi people. And it is a disservice to all Americans, who have waited so long for Mr. Bush to act that all that is left are a series of unpleasant choices.

And it is happening in the midst of a particularly ugly, and especially vacuous, election season. There is probably no worse time to begin a serious discussion about Iraq policy than two weeks before a close, bitter election. But now that the discussion has begun, it must continue, as honestly and openly as possible. It is time for the American people to confront all the things that the president never had the guts to tell them about for three and a half years.

    Blowing in the Wind, NYT, 22.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/opinion/22sun1.html

News Analysis

Bush Faces a Battery of Ugly Choices on War

October 20, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war.

He can once again order a rearrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would “clear and hold” neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.

There is no assurance, though, that another redeployment of those forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say. The toll comes just before midterm elections, in which even many of his own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that the killing will soon slow.

Or Mr. Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers — including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq — who say that he needs to redefine the “victory” that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.

One official providing advice to the president noted on Thursday that while Mr. Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that “can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself,” he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

Or, he could take the advice of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is expected to run to replace him in two years, who argues in favor of pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration official said recently might make sense but could “cause the bottom to fall out” of public support.

But whatever choices he makes — probably not until after the Nov. 7 election, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report — they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Mr. Bush’s control, in Iraq and at home.

Every day, administration and Pentagon officials fume — privately, to avoid the ire of the White House — about frustrations with Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, for not confronting the country’s Shiite militias, meaning that there is no end to the daily cycle of attack and reprisals. Mr. Bush finds himself increasingly unable to make a convincing argument that, behind the daily toll in American lives, the Maliki government is making measurable progress, or even that the problems in Iraq are subject to a military solution.

It is a vexing quandary that military experts say they doubt that any study group — even the blue-ribbon group assembled under former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana — can cut its way through.

At the Pentagon, several examinations of the current approach in Iraq are under way, including an effort ordered by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has asked the Army and the other services to identify officers who have recently returned from Iraq and to ask them to offer their views to the joint staff about whether adjustments in tactics or strategy are necessary, two military officials said.

“We are not able to project sufficient coalition and Iraqi forces to properly execute the strategy” of clearing, holding and rebuilding Baghdad and other areas of insurgents and hostile militias, said another veteran, retired Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff. “General Pace is doing the right thing by reassessing our entire strategy.”

Mr. Bush says his resolve to win is unshaken. But a few of his aides were wondering aloud why Mr. Bush, asked to respond to a column by Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times that compared the Ramadan attacks in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive, said the comparison “could be right.”

“There’s certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election,” he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Wednesday. “George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we would leave.”

For now there is no talk of leaving. But there is plenty of talk about pulling back.

“The Iraq situation is not winnable in any real sense of the word ‘winnable,’ ” Richard N. Haass, the former chief of the policy planning operations in the State Department during Mr. Bush’s first term, told reporters on Thursday. Privately, Pentagon strategists and some administration officials note that President Bush has talked often in recent months of changing his tactics, but not his strategy.

“Tactics are something you can turn on a dime,” said Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, and an Army veteran with close ties to the military. “Strategy takes time, and that’s the question. Do we have time for a new strategy?”

While members of the Iraq Strategy Group are cagey about the recommendations they are drafting, several say that Mr. Baker — who is in regular contact with Mr. Bush — is seeking to move away from Mr. Bush’s strategy of withdrawing Americans when the Iraqis are ready to replace them and toward one that sets a schedule.

“Jim’s problem is that he wants a way to make clear to Maliki that we’re leaving, but without signaling to the Shia and the Sunni that if they bide their time, they can battle it out for Iraq,” said one longtime national security expert who recently testified in front of the study group. “How do you do that? Got me.”

Then there is the recurring question whether a new strategy requires the exit of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Privately some Republicans say that the combination of a poor showing in next month’s midterm elections and the worsening violence could ultimately force Mr. Rumsfeld’s departure. Pentagon aides say Mr. Rumsfeld is not planning on going anywhere. “He serves at the pleasure of the president and has no intention to step down,” said Eric Ruff, the Pentagon press secretary. And, officially, the White House says it has no intention of changing its strategy, either. Only its tactics.

    Bush Faces a Battery of Ugly Choices on War, NYT, 20.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html?hp&ex=1161403200&en=b6f1cc1a41a64a4e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush: U.S. Will Stop N. Korea Nuke Moves

October 19, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Wednesday the United States would stop North Korea from transferring nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida and that the communist regime would then face ''a grave consequence.''

Bush refused to spell out how the United States would retaliate. ''They'd be held to account,'' the president said in an ABC News interview.

In light of North Korea's Oct. 9 test detonation of a nuclear bomb, Bush warned that any transfer of nuclear material elsewhere in the world by the North would be considered a grave threat to the security of the United States. He previously used ''grave threat'' in relation to Iraq's Saddam Hussein, whose government was toppled in the U.S.-led war in 2003.

''If we get intelligence that they're about to transfer a nuclear weapon, we would stop the transfer, and we would deal with the ships that were taking the -- or the airplane that was dealing with taking the material to somebody,'' the president said.

Asked how he would retaliate, Bush would not be specific, ''You know, I'd just say it's a grave consequence.''

''The leader of North Korea to understand that he'll be held to account. Just like he's being held to account now for having run a test,'' Bush said.

The United States repeatedly has said it does not intend to attack the North. But the Bush administration also has refused to take any military option completely off the table.

Shifting to Iraq, Bush said intensifying violence now might be compared with the Tet offensive in Vietnam beginning in 1968. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies undertook a series of attacks that shook America's confidence about winning the war and eroded political support for President Johnson.

''There's certainly a stepped up level of violence, and we're heading into an election,'' Bush said. But he added, ''My gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave. And the leaders of al-Qaida have made that very clear.''

Bush said al-Qaida was very active in Iraq. ''They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence.

''They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw,'' he said.

The military said Wednesday that 11 U.S. troops died in combat amid a security crackdown in Baghdad, putting October on track to be the deadliest month for American forces since the siege of Fallujah nearly two years ago.

Bush said the news of casualties ''breaks my heart'' but said it is surrender ''if you pull the troops out before the job is done.''

    Bush: U.S. Will Stop N. Korea Nuke Moves, NYT, 19.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Interview.html

Editorial

A Dangerous New Order

October 19, 2006
The New York Times

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 of putting “their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America.” He said the Democrats “would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans’ lives” and create “new rights for terrorists.”

This nonsense is part of the Republicans’ scare-America-first strategy for the elections. No Democrat advocated pampering terrorists — gingerly or otherwise — or giving them new rights. Democratic amendments to the bill sought to protect everyone’s right to a fair trial while providing a legal way to convict terrorists.

Americans will hear more of this ahead of the election. They also will hear Mr. Bush say that he finally has the power to bring to justice a handful of men behind the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that Mr. Bush could have done that long ago, but chose to detain them illegally at hidden C.I.A. camps to extract information. He sent them to Guantánamo only to stampede Congress into passing the new law.

The 60 or so men at Guantánamo who are now facing tribunals — out of about 450 inmates — also could have been tried years ago if Mr. Bush had not rebuffed efforts by Congress to create suitable courts. He imposed a system of kangaroo courts that was more about expanding his power than about combating terrorism.

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

    A Dangerous New Order, NYT, 19.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu1.html

Bush Signs New Rules to Prosecute Terror Suspects

October 18, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — President Bush signed legislation Tuesday that creates new rules for prosecuting and interrogating terrorism suspects, a move Mr. Bush said would enable the Central Intelligence Agency to resume a once-secret program to question the most dangerous enemy operatives in the war on terror.

“It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives,” Mr. Bush said at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

He called the bill “a way to deliver justice to the terrorists we have captured.”

But the C.I.A. program is unlikely to resume immediately, because the law authorizes Mr. Bush to issue an executive order clarifying the rules for questioning high-level detainees and the order has not been written. Many experts believe that the harsh techniques the C.I.A. has used, including extended sleep deprivation and water-boarding, which induces a feeling of drowning, will not be allowed.

With the midterm elections three weeks away, Mr. Bush hoped to use the bill signing to turn the political debate back to the war on terrorism, a winning issue for Republicans, and away from scandals like the Mark Foley case, which have dominated the news in recent weeks. The president said he was signing the measure “in memory of the victims of September the 11th.”

The law sets up a system of military commissions for trying terrorism suspects that would allow evidence to be withheld from defendants in certain instances. It also strips the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear petitions from noncitizens for writs of habeas corpus, effectively preventing detainees from going to court to challenge their confinement.

More than 500 habeas suits are pending in federal court, and Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they would move swiftly to dismiss them under the new law. That will inevitably spark a challenge by civil liberties lawyers, who regard the habeas-stripping provision as unconstitutional, a view shared by many Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“Congress had no justification for suspending the writ of habeas corpus, a core value in American law, in order to avoid judicial review that prevents government abuse,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill signing drew protests outside the White House from human rights advocates, some dressed in orange jumpsuits of the sort worn by detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They gathered around a black coffin painted with the words “the corpse of habeas corpus”; some were arrested after refusing to move away from the White House gates.

Joining the president at the bill signing were senior members of his war cabinet, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A.. In an e-mail message to C.I.A. employees, General Hayden called the measure a “very public vote of confidence by Congress and the president in the skill and discipline of C.I.A.’s officers.”

Leading Republican lawmakers, among them Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who balked at the initial White House version of the bill and forced a much-publicized compromise, were also on hand. But the third leader of that Republican rebellion, Senator John McCain of Arizona, was noticeably absent.

Mr. McCain, a likely presidential contender in 2008, skipped the ceremony to go to Wisconsin to campaign for a Republican House candidate, John Gard, and was later headed to Sioux Falls, S.D., to address the Chamber of Commerce. A spokeswoman said the senator’s absence was “purely an issue of scheduling.”

The bill was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that invalidated the system of military commissions Mr. Bush had set up for trying terrorism suspects, saying they required Congressional authorization. The court also required suspects to be treated in accordance with a provision of the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, which prohibits cruel and inhumane treatment, including “outrages upon personal dignity.”

The ruling prompted Mr. Bush to acknowledge the existence of the secret C.I.A. program. Last month, he announced he was moving 14 high-level terrorism detainees out of C.I.A. custody and to the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. He called on Congress to pass a bill setting up military commissions and establishing new standards for interrogation so the C.I.A. program could go forward.

Neil A. Lewis contributed reporting.

    Bush Signs New Rules to Prosecute Terror Suspects, NYT, 18.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/washington/18detain.html

Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison

George Stephanopoulos Interviews President Bush on Iraq, the Midterms and His Legacy

18.10.2006
By ED O'KEEFE
ABC News

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2006 — - President Bush said in a one-on-one interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that a newspaper column comparing the current fighting in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam, which was widely seen as the turning point in that war, might be accurate.

Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

"He could be right," the president said, before adding, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

"George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave," Bush said. "And the leaders of al Qaeda have made that very clear. Look, here's how I view it. First of all, al Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw."

Bush said he could not imagine any circumstances under which all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq before the end of his presidency.

"You mean every single troop out? No," he told Stephanopoulos.

Bush also had some tough words for Democrats, saying that pulling troops from Iraq would be the equivalent of surrender.

"If we were to leave before the job is done, in my judgment, the al Qaeda would find a safe haven from which to attack. This is exactly what they said," Bush said. The president insisted he was not disparaging his opponents.

"It's not questioning their patriotism. I think it's questioning their judgment," he said.

When asked whether the midterm elections are a referendum on Iraq, the President replied, "I think they're a referendum, from my perspective, which is kind of like your perspective, which is the Washington perspective, based upon: who best to secure this country from further attack and who best to help this economy continue to grow. The truth of the matter is, as you well know, most elections are very local elections. Sometimes those issues are salient, but sometimes there's other issues at the local level as well."

"I'm not on the ballot," Bush said. "This set of elections is much different from a presidential election year."

Stephanopoulos pointed out that 72 Democrats running for the House had used Bush in their campaign ads.

"Are they saying good things?" Bush joked. "Look, maybe that strategy will work; maybe it won't work. I've always found that when a person goes in to vote, they're going to want to know what that person's going to do. What is the plan for a candidate on Iraq? What do they believe?"

Bush said he reads "every casualty."

"The hardest part of the presidency is to meet with families who've lost a loved one," he said.

October is shaping up to be one of the bloodiest months in Iraq since the war began, and the president assessed the situation somberly: "I'm patient. I'm not patient forever. But I recognize the degree of difficulty of the task, and therefore, say to the American people, we won't cut and run."

On the issue of North Korea, said bluntly that if the rogue nation sold nuclear missiles to Iran or al Qaeda, "They'd be held to account."

Stephanopoulos noted that after last week's latest nuclear missile test out of North Korea, the president referred to the country as a "grave threat," a phrase Bush has used only once during his six years in office, in reference to Iraq before the U.S. invasion of that country. He asked the president what he means by that phrase now.

"Well, time they find out, George," Bush said. "One of the things that's important for these world leaders to hear is, you know, we will use means necessary to hold them to account.

"If we get intelligence that they're about to transfer a nuclear weapon, we would stop the transfer, and we would deal with the ships that were taking the -- or the airplane that was dealing with taking the material to somebody," he said.

"My point is that I want the leader to understand -- the leader of North Korea to understand that he'll be held to account," Bush said. "Just like he's being held to account now for having run a test."

Bush also suggested that China may be more committed to the recent round of U.N. sanctions than it has let on in public statements.

"I'm getting a little different picture from Condi [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice]," he said. "They don't particularly want to board ships. But, on the other hand, if there's good intelligence, they'll work with us on that intelligence. They're inspecting cargoes coming across their border."

He insisted China was not "half committed" to the sanctions.

Moving away from the controversial issues likely to play a critical role in the 2006 midterms, Stephanopoulos asked the two-term incumbent which personal quality is going to be important for the next president.

"Determination and compassion," Bush said. When asked what advice he might have for his successor, Bush told ABC News, "Stand on principle."

    Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison, ABC News, 18.10.2006, http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2583579&page=1

Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn’t Intervene in Balad

October 17, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL LUO

BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 — American military units joined with Iraqi forces on Monday in maintaining a fragile peace between Sunni and Shiite communities in Balad, a rural town north of the capital where an explosion of sectarian violence over the weekend left dozens dead.

In the aftermath of the reprisals, some residents of Balad asked why American troops had not intervened when the killings began in earnest on Saturday. One of the largest American military bases in Iraq, Camp Anaconda, which includes a sprawling air base that serves as the logistical hub of the war, is nearby.

“People are bewildered because of the weak response by the Americans,” said one Balad resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. “They used to patrol the city every day, but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them.”

The situation in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, appears, in stark form, to show the dilemma for American military commanders at a time when they are hastening the transfer of wide areas of the country to Iraqi forces. They are also insisting that those troops take the lead in quelling violence, leaving American forces to step in only when asked.

It also highlighted yet again the powerlessness of the Iraqi forces to stand in the way of such sectarian violence.

Killings also continued to besiege the capital on Monday with the discovery of at least 64 bodies across the city, and two car bomb attacks that appeared to kill 22 people. The American military, meanwhile, said Monday that five American service members were killed Sunday, bringing the toll this month to 58. One soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad; two died in Kirkuk Province and two in Salahuddin Province.

Sectarian violence and retribution killings of the kind that unfolded in Balad over the weekend are the purview of the Interior Ministry, in charge of Iraq’s police forces, and the Iraqi government in general, said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a spokesman for the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, adding that responsibility for the Balad area was transferred from American military units to the Fourth Iraqi Army about a month ago.

The job of the United States military, he said, is to work “by, through and with” its Iraqi counterparts “to build further capacity to reduce the violence, and bring about stability.”

American military commanders reviewing what happened over the weekend concluded that the situation in Balad was best dealt with by the Iraqi armed forces, a senior American military official said.

The senior officer, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said that American commanders viewed the upheaval in Balad as a new test for the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has come under American pressure to crack down on militias that have been responsible for much of the killing in the country.

The American military eventually provided what Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, described as “quick reaction force assistance” to the Iraqi Army and the police in the area.

“We were waiting for a request from the Iraqi government,” he said.

It was unclear, however, when that request came. The sectarian killings began on Friday in the neighboring town of Dhuluiya, where the decapitated bodies of 14 Shiite workers from Balad were found. While the center of Balad is mostly Shiite, its outskirts and the neighboring area, including Dhuluiya, are overwhelmingly Sunni.

By the following day, groups of Shiite gunmen from Balad were setting up checkpoints and hunting down and killing dozens of Sunni Arab residents, the authorities said.

Overall, the bodies of some 31 Sunni Arab residents of the area were found during the weekend, said Qasim al-Qaisi, the director of Balad Hospital. Most of the killings took place on Saturday, the authorities said.

American troops did not arrive until late Sunday afternoon, taking up positions in the town center and on its outskirts, said Hamad al-Qaisi, governor of Salahuddin Province. By then, a curfew had been imposed on the town and the situation had mostly stabilized.

On Monday mortar rounds landed on Balad, injuring five civilians, a police official said. Otherwise, the town was mostly quiet. Shiite clerics broadcast appeals over loudspeakers for calm on Monday, urging residents not to attack their Sunni neighbors, residents said. The leader of one mosque even urged any Sunnis harmed in any attacks to visit the mosque and register a complaint, said a resident who asked not to be identified.

A meeting between the provincial governor, security officials, American commanders and tribal sheiks in Balad and Dhuluiya will be held Wednesday to discuss ways to defuse tensions in the area, a provincial government official said.

At least 60 Sunni families have fled Balad for neighboring Dhuluiya, said Adel al-Smaidaei, a representative of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country’s leading Sunni political party.

The burst of violence in Balad, which had previously only dealt with relatively low levels of sectarian tension, came as American troops were continuing the largest series of sweeps in the nation’s capital since the invasion, in an attempt to stop sectarian bloodshed. Over the past year, American forces had gradually withdrawn from large areas of the capital, leaving security in the hands of the Iraqi Army and the police.

That policy, however, was followed by unhindered sectarian bloodletting, particularly after a bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, which prompted the American military command to move troops back to the capital.

The police in Baghdad reported the discovery of the 64 bodies, all of which appeared to have been shot at close range and showed signs of torture. In the largely Shiite neighborhood of Ur, two car bombs, one of which was aimed at a large Shiite funeral gathering, exploded almost simultaneously Monday evening, an Interior Ministry official said. The other bomb went off nearby, about 200 meters from a busy market.

At least 22 people were killed and 31 people wounded in the blasts, said Qasim al-Sweidi, an official at Imam Ali Hospital in nearby Sadr City, where the victims were taken.

Earlier in the day, a car bomb exploded in Suwayra, a neighborhood located southeast of Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 15 others, the official said.

The day’s toll in Baghdad included another killing, at least the 12th of its kind, of a victim linked to the court trying Saddam Hussein and his associates. Court officials said that the older brother of Munkith al-Faroun, chief prosecutor in the so-called Anfal trial that began in Baghdad in August, was shot dead by unknown assailants at his home in the western Baghdad suburb of Jamaa.

The officials said the brother, Emad al-Faroun, who is a legal adviser to Ahmad Chalabi, one of the most prominent Iraqi politicians in the period since the overthrow of Mr. Hussein, was killed by men who attacked him in the carport of his home. His wife and son, also shot in the attack, survived, the officials said.

On Monday, Mr. Hussein’s lawyers made public a letter they said they had been given by Mr. Hussein during a weekend consultation at Camp Cropper, the American-run detention center near the Baghdad airport, where he has been held during the trials.

Mr. Hussein used the letter to call on Iraqis to end the current wave of sectarian bloodletting and to focus attacks instead on “occupiers from far away who crossed the Atlantic Ocean under the inspiration of Zionism.” He added, “You should remember that your goal is to liberate your country from the invader’s forces and their followers, and that there should be no other issues to distract you from this goal.”

Reporting was contributed by Omar al-Neami, Hosham Hussein, Ali Adeeb, John F. Burns and Sabrina Tavernise.

    Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn’t Intervene in Balad, NYT, 17.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html

Bush Reassures Iraqi That There Is No Timetable for Withdrawal

October 17, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — President Bush reassured Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq on Monday that he would not set a timetable for withdrawal of American troops and would continue to support the prime minister, despite recent reports that military officials and some Republican lawmakers were dissatisfied with the Iraqi government’s performance.

The White House also suggested that it would not necessarily accept the recommendations of an independent commission reviewing Iraq policy. “We’re not going to outsource the business of handling the war in Iraq,” said Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow.

The president’s remarks to Mr. Maliki came during a 15-minute telephone conversation, Mr. Snow said. During the call, initiated by Mr. Bush, Mr. Maliki expressed concern about news reports that there would be an attempt to replace him if he was unable to assert control over Iraq within two months, Mr. Snow said.

“There was a rumor that there were going to be attempts to replace him if certain things don’t happen in two months,” Mr. Snow said. “And the president said, the rumors are not true; we support you.”

Mr. Maliki, he said, “assured the president that he is and will continue making tough decisions” to get rid of the militias that are responsible for sectarian violence in Iraq.

The exchange reflects the delicate line the White House is walking as it tries to shore up the Maliki government while reassuring an increasingly skittish American public that it remains flexible in its approach to the war.

Senior American military officials have been warning that time is growing short for Iraq to root out militias inside and outside the government. Leading Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, have also been expressing concern.

Mr. Warner said recently that he thought Iraq was “drifting sideways,” and Mr. Hagel said Sunday that he agreed. Mr. Snow, asked Monday if the president was confident that the Maliki government was doing everything in its power to get rid of the militias, was equivocal.

“There is more to be done,” Mr. Snow said. “There has to be more to be done. The violence is absolutely unacceptable.”

A commission led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is reviewing the president’s Iraq policy, and Mr. Baker has indicated that he will recommend a change in course. The panel’s findings are due after the election, and Mr. Bush has said he looks forward to them, although Mr. Snow seemed to push back against the idea that the White House would adopt the recommendations.

“We’ll have to see what they say,” he said. “We will read it with interest.”

The panel has not yet reached any conclusions, its co-chairman, Lee Hamilton, said in an interview on Monday.

Recent news reports have suggested the panel is weighing two options. One would emphasize stability in Iraq, while abandoning the goal of establishing democracy there; the other emphasizes a phased withdrawal of soldiers.

“We have literally scores of recommendations in front of us, and those are only two,” Mr. Hamilton said. Asked about Mr. Snow’s remarks, he said, “If he said that they’re going to take a close look at it, we’re pleased with that.”

    Bush Reassures Iraqi That There Is No Timetable for Withdrawal, NYT, 17.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/world/middleeast/17prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Press Secretary Raising Money, and Eyebrows

October 16, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

ST. CHARLES, Ill., Oct. 15 — Tony Snow draped his lanky frame across a wooden lectern, leaned forward and gazed out at 850 adoring Republicans who had paid $175 apiece to hear him speak. There was a conspiratorial gleam in his eye, as if he was about to reveal some deep inner secret from his new life as the White House press secretary.

“Yesterday,” Mr. Snow declared, “I was in the Oval Office with the president ——”

He cut himself off, took a perfectly calibrated three-second pause and switched into an aw-shucks voice for dramatic effect: “I just looove saying that! Yeaaah, I was in the Oval Office. Just meeee and the president. Nooooobody else.” The crowd lapped it up.

Live from the suburbs of Chicago — It’s the Tony Snow Outside-the-Beltway Hour! Memo to White House press corps: you can’t catch this show in the briefing room.

In the six months since Mr. Bush enlisted him to resuscitate a White House press operation that was barely breathing, Mr. Snow, a former Fox News television and radio host and a conservative commentator, has reinvented the job with his snappy sound bites and knack for deflecting tough questions with a smile.

Now, he is reinventing it yet again, by breaking away from the briefing room to raise money for Republicans, as he did here on Saturday night for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

Mr. Snow, who will make 16 such appearances before Election Day, acknowledged he had entered “terra incognita”; to his knowledge, no other White House press secretary has raised money for political candidates while in the job. But with his star power from television and his conservative credentials, Mr. Snow, unlike his predecessors, is in hot demand.

His booking agent is the White House political shop, run by Karl Rove, the president’s chief strategist. The White House is not keeping track of how much money Mr. Snow raises.

His talks — Saturday night’s was a cross between a one-man show and a religious revival — have attracted little scrutiny so far, but they are giving a much-needed boost to a party whose midterm fortunes appear increasingly bleak.

Yet even as the Republican establishment revels in his celebrity — “It’s like Mick Jagger at a rock concert,” Mr. Rove said — Mr. Snow’s extracurricular activities are making some veteran Washington hands, including those with strong Republican ties, deeply uneasy.

“The principal job of the press secretary is to present information to reporters, not propaganda,” said David R. Gergen, who served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and also advised President Bill Clinton. “If he is seen as wearing two hats, reporters as well as the public will inevitably wonder: is he speaking to us now as the traditional press secretary, or is he speaking to us as a political partisan?”

Indeed, Mr. Snow, whose commentary was so sharply critical of Mr. Bush that six months before he was hired, he referred to Mr. Bush as “something of an embarrassment,” got the White House job in part because his independence gave him credibility with reporters. Kenneth J. Duberstein, former chief of staff to Ronald Reagan, said Mr. Snow must be careful not to damage that credibility.

“His profile should not be a political profile,” Mr. Duberstein said, “but a press profile on behalf of the president.”

But of course, press secretaries are naturally partisans; to think otherwise would be naïve. Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush’s first press secretary, said he saw nothing wrong with fund-raising appearances, “so long as you don’t make yourself into red meat.”

There was, for the record, not a shred of red meat in Mr. Snow’s whirlwind performance Saturday night. For 28 minutes, Mr. Snow paced the stage, hands gesticulating, eyebrows arching, voice rising and falling, as he held forth without notes on the greatness of his job, his president and the American people.

Here was Mr. Snow on working in the White House: “The most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

On the nature of the American soul after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11: “There is an ember of greatness burning in every heart.” On the intellectual acumen of his boss: “He reminds me of one of those guys at the gym who plays about 40 chessboards at once.”

There were no mean words about Democrats. Mr. Snow, aware of his delicate balancing act, has vowed to “stick to factual defenses and advocacy for the president.”

But as the keynote speaker, of course, he got to choose which facts to defend. There was no mention of Mark Foley, the Florida congressman who resigned in late September amid revelations he had sent sexually explicit e-mail to teenage pages, or Jack Abramoff, the corrupt lobbyist, or anybody else who makes Republicans cringe.

That did not sit well with the local news media, which have been following accusations that Mr. Hastert’s aides knew of the Foley scandal several years ago. Just two days earlier, Mr. Bush had been in Chicago to give the speaker his support.

After his talk, Mr. Snow gave a mini news conference, and was asked why he failed to raise the Foley issue, “to reassure the people who are paying 175 bucks a plate here tonight.”

“Because,” Mr. Snow shot back tartly, “last time I checked Mark Foley didn’t represent the people of this district.”

Back in Washington, Mr. Snow has gained a reputation for such witty, if biting, repartee. Sound bites seem to flow from his tongue like water tumbling downstream.

Once, he accused the veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who is 86 and has been covering presidents since Mr. Snow, 51, was in grade school, of “pestering the teacher.” And when Bob Woodward painted a portrait of a dysfunctional Bush White House in his new book, “State of Denial,” Mr. Snow dismissed it out of hand. “Sort of like cotton candy — it melts on contact,” he said.

Jim Axelrod, chief White House correspondent for CBS News, said of Mr. Snow, “He’s velvet glove and iron fist.”

But when Mr. Snow missed a day of work to attend a fund-raiser after a leading Republican senator raised questions about the president’s Iraq policy, Mr. Axelrod was critical. “This is the kind of thing you would expect the press secretary to be handling square on,” he said.

Mr. Snow said his deputy handled the questions just fine.

It is often said that the White House press secretary serves two masters: the president and the press, which relies on the press secretary to advocate for the release of information. Mr. Snow believes that is true — to a point.

“The press secretary serves two masters,” he said, “but not all masters are equal.”

That gets back to his decision to headline fund-raisers, a decision he says he made only after soliciting the advice of colleagues, including the White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers. Mr. Snow said he set his own ground rules and would quit raising money if it interfered with his day job.

How will he know? “I have the feeling that all of us will know,” he said. “You kind of know it when you see it.”

Mr. Gergen sees this as the final “blurring of the lines between politics and news and entertainment.” Mr. Fleischer says those lines blurred long ago.

“The modern-day briefing is not a briefing but a TV show,” he said, “and Tony is the star.”

Mr. Snow said his stardom was only “the reflected glory of the president.” But on Saturday night, as he basked in the spotlight, his face beaming out at the crowd from six oversize screens, he looked awfully happy when he said, “Let me bring you greetings from the president of the United States.”

    Press Secretary Raising Money, and Eyebrows, NYT, 16.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/us/politics/16snow.html?hp&ex=1160971200&en=2be77d6bb2fdf3d6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Joins Hastert at Rally, and Lavishes the Praise

October 13, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

CHICAGO, Oct. 12 — President Bush came to the home turf of the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, on Thursday to give him a resounding pledge of support before a revved-up group of Republican donors, activists and leaders who were clearly glad to witness a presidential lift for the buffeted dean of their state party.

Appearing at a fund-raising event for two local Republican House candidates facing competitive races, David McSweeney and Peter Roskam, Mr. Bush bounded onto the stage alongside Mr. Hastert, whose Congressional district is several miles outside Chicago. Standing beside the speaker, Mr. Bush, wearing a smile that lasted for minutes, gave him a hearty handshake as Mr. Hastert, beaming, patted him on the back.

Mr. Bush came here with a far larger retinue of photographers and reporters than usual for such campaign trips. It was evidence of the anticipation surrounding his visit as questions continued to swirl about what Mr. Hastert’s office knew, and when, about former Representative Mark Foley’s e-mail to male pages.

Mr. Bush seemed more than happy to oblige, after Mr. Hastert introduced the president as “our friend” and “our leader.”

“Before I liberate the speaker so he doesn’t have to stand up here for that long, Speaker, I want to say this to you,” Mr. Bush said. “I am proud to be standing with the current speaker of the House who is going to be the future speaker of the House.”

“He’s not one of these Washington politicians who spews a lot of hot air — he just gets the job done,” Mr. Bush said as the room erupted. “This country is better off with Denny Hastert as the speaker.”

Mr. Bush’s appearance completed what has appeared to be a gradual but now unmistakable White House embrace of Mr. Hastert since news first surfaced that Mr. Foley had sent risqué e-mail to Congressional pages. The visit reflected in part a calculation by the White House and party leaders that providing a protective phalanx for the speaker would help cool some of the heat from the controversy and press ahead on the party’s election-year message on terrorism and taxes.

Mr. Bush seemed to provide an object lesson to his party on that strategy here, weaving praise for Mr. Hastert into his standard stump speech that takes Democrats to task as trying to block his terrorism initiatives and threatening to end his tax cuts.

Speaking about Democratic resistance to the USA Patriot Act, a regular part of his campaign speeches, Mr. Bush broke off and said, “By the way, the speaker led the charge in making sure the House passed the Patriot Act the first time and then reauthorized it.”

Accusing Democrats of failing to understand the true threat of terrorists, Mr. Bush said at another point, “I see the threat; the speaker sees the threat.”

Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert, said his boss appreciated the gesture.

“It’s the pick-me-up that everyone really needed to help us focus toward November,” Mr. Bonjean said.

The event raised $1.1 million.

    Bush Joins Hastert at Rally, and Lavishes the Praise, NYT, 13.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/us/politics/13bush.html

Bush defends House leader faulted over sex scandal

Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:40 PM ET
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, striving to unite Republicans battered by the Capitol Hill cybersex scandal, on Thursday defended the House of Representatives leader accused of negligence in his handling of the case.

Less than four weeks before the November 7 elections in which Republicans are at risk of losing control of Congress, Bush campaigned with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who has faced calls to step down after the disclosure of lurid e-mails sent by a former Republican lawmaker to teenage congressional assistants.

Hastert's critics -- including Democrats and some Republicans -- contend he did not do enough to protect the teens who were sent the explicit messages by former Rep. Mark Foley.

Hastert has said the matter could have been handled better but that he did not do anything wrong and has rejected calls he step down as speaker.

Some Republican congressional candidates have canceled appearances with Hastert, but Bush, sharing the stage with the speaker for the first time since the Foley scandal broke last month, praised him as an effective leader for the party.

"You know he's not one of these Washington politicians who spews a lot of hot air. He just gets the job done," Bush said after Hastert introduced him at a fund-raiser for congressional candidates in the speaker's home state of Illinois.

"This country is better off with Denny Hastert and it will be better off when he's the speaker the next legislative session," Bush said.

Democrats must pick up 15 House seats and six Senate seats to reclaim control of Congress. Several polls show Democrats with a big edge over Republicans, with voters upset over the Iraq war and displeased with Bush's leadership.

The Foley scandal has added to the woes of congressional Republicans already battling the fallout from the influence-peddling scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

'NO ACCOUNTABILITY CAUCUS'

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, in a fund-raising letter, derided Bush's side-by-side appearance with Hastert as "a meeting of the 'no accountability' caucus of the Republican party."

Kirk Fordham, a potential key witness in the Foley matter, testified behind closed doors on Thursday before a House ethics committee panel in Washington probing the scandal.

A former Foley chief of staff, Fordham has told news media he informed Hastert's staff about the Florida congressman's troublesome behavior toward teenage boys three years ago.

Hastert chief of staff Scott Palmer has denied it. The speaker has voiced support for his staff, but has said if there people who participated in a cover-up they should lose their jobs.

As Fordham emerged from a 4-1/2-hour meeting with the ethics panel, his lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, told reporters Fordham had been consistent in his accounts of events but would not disclose the questions posed to him.

A few House Republicans have said they first learned of what has been described as an overly friendly e-mail by Foley to a former page late last year or early this year.

Hastert said the first he learned of overtly lurid e-mails was when Foley resigned abruptly last month after the messages were disclosed by ABC News.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Thomas Ferraro in Washington)

    Bush defends House leader faulted over sex scandal, R, 12.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-10-13T004003Z_01_N12216647_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Bush Rejects Idea of Talks With N. Korea

October 12, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:14 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush unapologetically defended his approach to North Korea's nuclear weapons program Wednesday, pledging he would not change course despite contentions that Pyongyang's apparent atomic test proved the failure of his nearly six years of effort.

Bush rejected the idea of direct U.S.-North Korea talks, saying the Koreans were more likely to listen if confronted with the combined protest of many nations.

The president said he was not backing down from his assertion three years ago that ''we will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea.''

He said the United States ''reserves all options to defend our friends and our interests in the region against the threats from North Korea,'' a stance he said includes increased defense cooperation, especially on missile defense, with Japan and South Korea.

But he added: ''I believe the commander in chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military.''

The president appeared at a news conference in the White House's Rose Garden in an effort to rescue a diplomatic drive to contain North Korea and to rebut charges he had been distracted by the Iraq war from the developing threat in Asia.

Aftershocks of North Korea's claimed nuclear test continued reverberating around the world.

At the United Nations, the United States and Japan pushed China and South Korea to support a sanctions resolution that would deliver what Bush called ''serious repercussions'' for Pyongyang, including cargo inspections.

Japanese officials, fearing for their nation just across the Sea of Japan from North Korea, took action on their own to choke off an economic lifeline for the impoverished communist nation, barring lucrative North Korean imports, most entries into the country by North Koreans and the presence of North Korean ships in Japanese ports.

South Korea, which fought a war with the North in the 1950s and like Japan regards Pyongyang warily, checked its readiness for nuclear warfare. The defense minister said Seoul could expand its conventional arsenal and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended improved defenses.

North Korea, in its first formal statement since Monday's test announcement, warned that new sanctions would be considered an act of war that would bring unspecified ''physical corresponding measures.''

North Korea's No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam said more nuclear tests are possible. And while the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas remained calm, North Korean troops tried to provoke guards on the southern side by spitting across the line, making throat-slashing hand gestures and flashing middle fingers, according to a U.S. military spokesman.

In Washington, Democrats contended that Bush has mishandled North Korea by pursuing a strategy that led to a 400 percent increase in the nation's nuclear capabilities under his watch.

''President Bush tries to talk tough, but he doesn't act smart,'' said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ''He insists on stubbornly following policies that don't work, and it is time for a change.''

William Perry, a defense secretary under former President Clinton, said the U.S. government must abandon its desire for a new government in Pyongyang and agree to direct, one-on-one talks -- even if on the sidelines of long-stalled six-party talks that also include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

''Until we make those two steps, we're in a lost cause trying to deal with on North Korea,'' Perry said in a conference call with reporters.

The call for bilateral negotiations was echoed Wednesday by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from New York. But Bush again rebuffed the idea.

''One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards,'' he said in an hourlong news conference that was dominated by the North Korean crisis. ''It is much easier for a nation to hear what I believe are legitimate demands if there's more than one voice speaking.''

A day earlier, Republican Sen. John McCain had said Clinton was at fault for failing to take adequate action in the 1990s to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Bush gave scant attention to that domestic blame game, repeatedly turning the spotlight back on what he called ''North Korea's provocation.''

He said he learned North Korea can't be trusted from the experience of the Clinton administration's 1994 pact with Pyongyang, which offered energy help in return for a nuclear freeze but which the North secretly defied nearly from the start. He defended his decision to switch nearly immediately to a policy of refusing to talk with North Korea except when other regional players were also at the table.

''I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn't work,'' he said.

The president acknowledged the difficulty of persuading nations such as China and South Korea to drop any resistance to a tough crackdown on North Korea by the U.N. Security Council.

''We share the same goal, but sometimes the internal issues are different from ours. And, therefore, it takes a while to get people on the same page. And it takes awhile for people to get used to consequences,'' he said. ''And so I wouldn't necessarily characterize these countries' positions as, you know, locked-in positions.''

The United States and Japan want the Security Council to impose a partial trade embargo, including strict limits on Korea's weapons exports, a freeze of related financial assets and inspections of cargo to and from North Korea. They prefer that the sanctions fall under the portion of the U.N. Charter that gives the council the authority to back up its resolutions with a range of measures that include military action.

China is considered to have the most leverage with North Korea as its top provider of badly needed economic and energy aid. But both Beijing and Seoul worry a hard-line approach could destabilize the North and send refugees flooding over their borders.

''Peace on the Korean Peninsula requires that these nations send a clear message to Pyongyang that its actions will not be tolerated,'' Bush said.

Associated Press writers Hans Greimel in Seoul, South Korea, and Nick Wadhams at the United Nations contributed to this report.

    Bush Rejects Idea of Talks With N. Korea, NYT, 12.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

For Bush, Many Questions on Iraq and North Korea

October 12, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 — President Bush said Wednesday that he would not use force against North Korea because “diplomacy hasn’t run its course,” but acknowledged that many Americans wonder why he invaded Iraq but has not taken military action to head off North Korea’s race for a bomb.

“I’m asked questions around the country, ‘Just go ahead and use the military,’ ” Mr. Bush said at a morning news conference in the Rose Garden, his first extended question-and-answer session with reporters in the days since North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device. “And my answer is that I believe the commander in chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military.”

Then, without prompting, the president asked an obvious next question.

“I’ll ask myself a follow-up,” Mr. Bush said. “ ‘If that’s the case, why did you use military action in Iraq?’ And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy.”

Mr. Bush’s unusual exchange with himself came during an hourlong news conference dominated by questions about North Korea and Iraq. Democrats have criticized him for rushing into a war with Iraq, which turned out not to have unconventional weapons, while not setting limits on North Korea, which declared this week that it had conducted its first nuclear test.

That the president himself raised and rejected this critique appears to reflect concern among Mr. Bush’s advisers that North Korea could be a political liability for Republicans, one that the president needed to confront directly with voters.

Mr. Bush’s stance was to reassert that the United States would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, but that the way to shut down its nuclear programs was through multilateral diplomacy, not one-on-one talks or military action.

Intelligence officials have not yet determined the exact size of the device that North Korea tested, or explained why it appeared to have been fairly small, less than a kiloton. Democrats and Republicans have been arguing over who was responsible for the buildup in the North. Madeleine K. Albright, a secretary of state for former President Bill Clinton, issued a statement on Wednesday defending his administration and striking back at Mr. Bush.

“During the two terms of the Clinton administration, there were no nuclear weapons tests by North Korea, no new plutonium production, and no new nuclear weapons developed in Pyongyang,” Ms. Albright’s statement said. “Through our policy of constructive engagement, the world was safer. President Bush chose a different path, and the results are evident for all to see.”

Despite the North’s test, Mr. Bush insisted Wednesday that his diplomatic approach was the best course and that he would continue to seek support for sanctions from other nations. He resisted calls for direct negotiations with North Korea of the sort the Clinton administration had engaged in, saying “the strategy did not work.”

“North Korea has been trying to acquire bombs and weapons for a long period of time,” Mr. Bush said, “long before I came into office.”

On Iraq, Mr. Bush seemed to push back against recent remarks by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state who is the Republican chairman of a bipartisan panel reassessing Iraq strategy. On Sunday, Mr. Baker suggested that his panel’s report would depart from Mr. Bush’s repeated calls to “stay the course.”

But Mr. Bush signaled that he would not be pressed into a premature withdrawal.

“Stay the course means keep doing what you’re doing,’ ” he said. “My attitude is, don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working — change. Stay the course also means, don’t leave before the job is done. We’re going to get the job done in Iraq.”

On North Korea, Mr. Bush was asked if he regretted his decision not to take action — military or otherwise — to destroy fuel supplies in 2003, when the North threw out international weapons inspectors, withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and said it would turn its spent nuclear fuel into weapons. At that time, the fuel was all briefly in one known location.

“I used that moment to continue my desire to convince others to become equity partners in the Korean issue,” Mr. Bush said, referring to the so-called six-party talks aimed at persuading the North to give up its nuclear capacity. He added, “I obviously look at all options all the time, and I felt like the best way to solve this problem would be through a diplomacy effort.”

Experts believe the nuclear buildup in the North dates back to the early 1990’s, when the first President Bush was in office. Under an agreement Mr. Clinton struck in 1994, North Korea agreed to freeze its production of plutonium in return for energy aid. North Korea abided by the freeze, but starting around 1997, it took steps on a second, secret nuclear program.

In 2002, after South Korean and American intelligence agencies found conclusive evidence of that program, the Bush administration confronted the North with the evidence that it had cheated while Mr. Clinton was still in office. That led to the six-nation talks, involving the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

“The Clinton administration was prepared to accept an imperfect agreement in the interest of achieving limits,” said Gary S. Samore, a North Korea expert who helped negotiate the original 1994 agreement. “The Bush administration is not prepared to accept an imperfect agreement, and the result is that we have no limits.”

But Mr. Bush on Wednesday reiterated his stance that it was “unacceptable” for North Korea to have nuclear weapons. Asked if he was “ready to live with a nuclear North Korea,” Mr. Bush gave a one-word answer: “No.”

    For Bush, Many Questions on Iraq and North Korea, NYT, 12.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/washington/12prexy.html?hp&ex=1160712000&en=a417871cbb05fea3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Warner’s Iraq Remarks Surprise White House

October 7, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — The White House, caught off guard by a leading Republican senator who said the situation in Iraq was “drifting sideways,” responded cautiously on Friday, with a spokeswoman for President Bush stopping short of saying outright that Mr. Bush disagreed with the assessment.

“I don’t believe that the president thinks that way,” Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said when asked whether the president agreed with the senator, John Warner of Virginia. “I think that he believes that while it is tough going in Iraq, that slow progress is being made.”

Ms. Perino’s carefully worded response underscores the delicate situation that Mr. Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has created for the White House just one month before an election in which Mr. Bush has been trying to shift the national debate from the war in Iraq to the broader war on terror.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after returning from a trip that included a one-day stop in Baghdad, Mr. Warner said the United States should consider “a change of course” if the violence there did not diminish soon. He did not specify what shift might be necessary, but said that the American military had done what it could to stabilize Iraq and that no policy options should be taken “off the table.”

With the blessing of the White House, a high-level commission led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, is already reviewing American policy in Iraq. But the commission is not scheduled to report to Mr. Bush and Congress until after the November elections, a timeline that the White House had hoped would enable Mr. Bush to avoid public discussion of any change of course until after voters determine which party will control Congress next year.

Now, Mr. Warner’s comments are pushing up that timeline, forcing Republicans to confront the issue before some are ready. In an interview on Friday, Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who has been critical of the administration’s approach in the past, said there was a “growing sense of unease” among other Republicans, which she said could deepen because of Senator Warner’s comments.

Ms. Collins, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, echoed Mr. Warner’s calls for a shift in strategy in Iraq. “When Chairman Warner, who has been a steadfast ally of this administration, calls for a new strategy,” she said, “that is clearly significant.”

She said the current approach, which she attributed to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, had not led to an overall reduction in violence or any prospect that American troop levels would come down soon.

“We’ve heard over and over that as Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down,” Ms. Collins said. “Well, there are now hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops and security forces, and yet we have not seen any reduction in violence.”

Democrats, who have been using their fall election campaigns to tap into intense voter dissatisfaction with the way that Mr. Bush has handled Iraq, quickly seized on the Warner remarks, circulating them in e-mail messages to reporters. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, convened a conference call on Friday afternoon to hammer home the theme that even Republicans believed that the administration must change course. “Warner’s statement is an important, important statement and, I hope, a turning point,” Mr. Biden told reporters.

He that at least two Republican colleagues other than Mr. Warner had told him that once the election was over, they would join with Democrats in working on a bipartisan plan for bringing stability to Iraq. Echoing Mr. Warner’s language, he said, “I wouldn’t take any option off the table at this time. We are at the point of no return.”

The White House said Friday that Mr. Bush had not spoken to Mr. Warner about his comments, and otherwise insisted that it had not glossed over the problems in Iraq. During her afternoon briefing, Ms. Perino harked back to a speech in late August in which, she said, the president said Iraq was at a “crucial moment.” She said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had put forth the same message during her unannounced visit to Baghdad this week.

Later in the day, the White House circulated an e-mail message titled “Iraq Update: Political Progress,” citing comments of other lawmakers, including Democrats, who had returned from the Middle East with more hopeful assessments than the one offered by Mr. Warner.

David S. Cloud contributed reporting.

    Warner’s Iraq Remarks Surprise White House, NYT, 7.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/world/middleeast/07capital.html?hp&ex=1160280000&en=d127e25ac8d82c04&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush’s Megaphone Unable to Reach Above the Din

October 5, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 4 — Through disappointing polls and bad news in Iraq, intraparty squabbling over immigration and bipartisan broadsides on port security, President Bush has been able to use the megaphone of his office to shout above the din and shape the national debate.

But the Mark Foley scandal is rendering that megaphone practically useless, just as the president is trying to turn up the volume to help his party beat back Democratic efforts to take control of Congress this November.

During his three-day campaign swing out West this week, Mr. Bush’s carefully honed attacks on Democrats as soft on terrorism have been drowned out by the Foley case and its political repercussions.

In interviews this week, White House officials expressed a sense of resignation, saying they were left with few options to help their party emerge intact from a scandal that appears to further threaten the Republicans’ hold on Congress.

For now, they said, they have little choice but to sit on the sidelines, watch it play out and hope that the House Republican leadership, starting with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, finds an adroit way to extricate itself from the matter.

More than anything else, officials said, they are hemmed in by the unknown, girding for still more unwelcome developments in the Foley saga that could make any sort of full-throated defense or criticism of the House leadership now seem ill considered later. Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned his House seat on Friday after being confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit text messages he had sent to teenage Congressional pages.

“We’re not the keepers of the facts,” said a senior official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal deliberations on the Foley scandal.

Referring to the president’s decision to express dismay at the reports about Mr. Foley, and calibrated support for Mr. Hastert as a father, teacher and coach, this official said, “We felt that it was important that the president speak out on this issue — it’s a shocking revelation and warrants his comments.”

But, the official added, “That can help mitigate an aspect of the story, but the story itself still has legs, because the story itself hasn’t been fully reported yet.” And, he indicated the president would not have much more to say on the matter any time soon.

White House strategists said they were hoping that the president’s statement of dismay on Tuesday had at least sent a signal to voters that the titular head of the party was just as concerned about the reports as they were.

But allies said that what the president said or did would have little effect as new details trickled out. All he can really do, they said, is try to keep hammering home his case against the Democrats, calling on the Republican faithful to vote against what he termed “the party of cut and run.”

Charles Black, a longtime Republican strategist with close ties to the White House who has been in contact with the president’s top political strategist, Karl Rove, said that at this point he did not think the White House would intervene by getting involved in the debate over Mr. Hastert’s future.

“Every time the White House gets involved in internal party stuff on the Hill it has a bad result,” Mr. Black said, referring to the White House’s involvement in the ouster of Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi from the majority leader’s post in 2002, which bred resentment within the party.

Mr. Bush pressed ahead this week on a fund-raising and campaign trip through the West. He joined on Wednesday with Senator Jon Kyl, Representatives J. D. Hayworth and Rick Renzi, and Gov. Janet Napolitano, all of Arizona, to sign a homeland security appropriations bill that will help pay for new border security initiatives. Still, the prickliness of the immigration issue within the party was on display: Mr. Bush renewed his calls for a guest worker program; Mr. Hayworth told reporters afterward that instituting such a program before the border was secured would be putting “the cart before the horse.”

Mr. Bush’s remarks in the afternoon at a reception for Representative Bob Beauprez, who is running for governor of Colorado, were not carried for very long on Fox News Channel. Fox switched away from them before the president got into his attacks against Democrats as good people who “just happen to be wrong people” when it comes to terrorism.

Soon after Mr. Bush’s remarks concluded, Fox News Channel was back to the Foley scandal, featuring a discussion about how much it was hurting the party’s prospects this fall.

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington.

    Bush’s Megaphone Unable to Reach Above the Din, NYT, 5.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/politics/05bush.html

Bush Raises Volume on Campaign Charge

October 4, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:08 p.m. ET
The New York Times

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday claimed Democrats can't be trusted to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. ''Vote Republican for the safety of the United States,'' he said.

In an echo of the election-year charges the GOP used in 2002 and 2004, Bush accused the Democrats of being soft on terrorism and argued the nation's security is a key issue in the midterm elections.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in 2004, had said a vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry would risk another terror attack.

On his three-day, $3.6 million fundraising swing through Nevada, California, Arizona and Colorado, Bush is trying to keep the election framed around the economy and the war on terror,

But back in Washington, the partisan sniping continues over when Republican leaders in the House first learned about the conduct of former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who sent sexually explicit messages to teenage boys who had worked as pages at the Capitol.

Republican strategists worry that the Foley scandal could keep conservatives away from the polls, but the White House said Bush is focused on getting his message out to voters.

Bush interrupted his fundraising swing in California on Tuesday to denounce Foley's conduct and support House Speaker Dennis Hastert amid calls from some conservatives for the Illinois Republican's resignation as speaker.

At a $450,000 breakfast fundraiser for Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, Bush criticized Democrats who voted against legislation allowing tough interrogation of terror suspects by CIA agents and a bill authorizing warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails to detect terror plots.

''If the people of Arizona and the people the United States don't think we ought to be listening in on the conversations of people who can do harm to the United States, then go ahead and vote for the Democrats,'' Bush said.

''If you want to make sure that those on the front line protecting you have the tools necessary to do so, you vote Republican for the safety of the United States.''

Democrats argue that Republicans have put national security at risk by their policies in Iraq and no longer have credibility with the American people.

''Time and time again, the president says he's running smart successful policies, but everyday the facts show that is not happening,'' Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Senate Campaign committee, said in a statement. ''Instead of making baseless claims, the president should focus on the facts and discuss what he's doing to improve the situation on the ground in Iraq.''

After the morning fundraiser for Renzi, who is seeking a third term, Bush signed a bill that could bring hundreds of miles of fencing to the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border.

On his way back to Washington, Bush is stopping in Englewood, Colo., to speak at a $550,000 fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.

At the Renzi fundraiser, Bush also said his pro-growth economic policies have helped working Americans, and called on Congress to make his administration's tax cuts permanent. ''If the other bunch gets elected,'' he said of Democrats, ''they're going to raise your taxes.''

Democrats argue that Republicans essentially are raising taxes by failing to revive popular middle-class tax breaks. A list of widely popular tax cuts expired more than nine months ago and have not yet been renewed. Among the expired provisions: Deductions for student tuition and expenses and for state and local sales taxes, intended to help residents in states that don't have an income tax.

But the loudest applause from the Republican crowd came from his remarks criticizing the Democrats on national security.

''We believe strongly that we must take action to prevent attacks from happening in the first place,'' Bush said ''They view the threats we face like law enforcement, and that is, we respond after we're attacked. And it's a fundamental difference, and I will travel this country the next five weeks making it clear the difference.''

    Bush Raises Volume on Campaign Charge, NYT, 4.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Bush signs bill paying for new border fence

Wed Oct 4, 2006 10:55 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (Reuters) - President George W. Bush signed a law on Wednesday that will pay for hundreds of miles of new fences along the U.S.-Mexico border, a move against illegal immigration that Republicans had sought before next month's congressional elections.

Bush had hoped to address the illegal immigration issue in a comprehensive way that would have brought beefed-up border security as well as a temporary guest-worker program allowing immigrants to work legally in the United States.

He spent months advancing the idea but failed to overcome doubts from many Republicans on Capitol Hill who derided the guest-worker program as an "amnesty" that would give illegal immigrants a route to citizenship.

Under the legislation, about $1.2 billion would be spent during the fiscal year that began October 1 for southwest border fencing and other barriers. The money is part of a $33.8 billion package for domestic security programs that are being bolstered following the September 11 attacks.

An estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, many of whom entered through the porous border with Mexico.

Mexico had strongly objected to the fence, which it saw as a slap in the face to efforts during President Vicente Fox's nearly completed six-year term to negotiate an agreement with Washington on immigration.

Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said the fences hurt bilateral relations. "Just the idea of a wall, a fence ... is an insult to good neighbors," he told a news conference on Wednesday.

President-elect Felipe Calderon said fences were not the solution to the illegal immigration.

"It does not resolve the problem and, I insist, it will make many Latin Americans take bigger risks, probably causing deaths," Calderon said on a visit to Colombia.

Republicans, hoping to hang on to control of the U.S. Congress in November 7 elections, have been pushing border security in reaction to anger by voters, who say in some places immigrants are taking away jobs and swamping health and education services.

In a signing ceremony in Arizona, where illegal immigration is a grave concern, Bush said he still wanted a guest worker program to relieve pressure on the border with Mexico.

"The funds that Congress has appropriated are critical to our efforts to secure this border and enforce our laws. Yet we must also recognize that enforcement alone is not going to work. We need comprehensive reform that provides a legal way for people to work here on a temporary basis," Bush said.

The legislation will also fund increased nuclear-detection equipment at U.S. ports and raise security standards at chemical plants.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Tomas Sarmineto in Mexico City)

    Bush signs bill paying for new border fence, R, 4.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-10-05T025528Z_01_N04413066_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-IMMIGRATION-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Bush, Fund-Raiser in Chief, Hits the Trail in Earnest

October 3, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and ADAM NAGOURNEY

STOCKTON, Calif., Oct. 2 — President Bush’s job approval ratings are sagging, nervous members of his own party are running advertisements highlighting their differences with him, and the White House is besieged with new questions about the war in Iraq.

But Mr. Bush is hardly going to be sitting out the final stage of this year’s campaign. Even if many Republicans in tough races across the country do not want to be seen with him, Mr. Bush and his aides have developed a comprehensive plan to get him on the road for much of the next 40 days and put the power of the presidency into a midterm election that could shape his final two years in the White House.

Mr. Bush intends to concentrate first and foremost on raising money. His strength on that front is undiminished by his political problems and is vital to giving his party an advantage in outspending the Democrats on advertising down the homestretch.

To date, at a series of mostly private events, Mr. Bush has raised $180 million for his party and individual candidates, according to the Republican National Committee, outpacing the record Mr. Bush set in 2002, when it was easier to raise money because of less restrictive campaign finance laws. Together with Laura Bush, the first lady, and Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House has raised nearly $250 million for the election cycle.

But after a period in which most of his political appearances have been behind closed doors — he did five fund-raisers in the past week that were closed to the press — he will also step out more publicly.

While not yet conducting full-scale campaign rallies, Mr. Bush will be appearing more frequently with candidates, often in heavily Republican areas where Democrats are nonetheless competitive this year. And he will give speeches driving home the twin themes of national security and tax cuts while trying to rally a dispirited Republican base.

White House and party officials said there was never any internal debate about putting Mr. Bush out into the public eye, for all the risks that might entail. With a new burst of bad news for the party — including repercussions from the forced resignation of Representative Mark Foley of Florida over sexually explicit e-mail and instant messages sent to teenage pages — the officials said that employing Mr. Bush’s power to use the White House platform to emphasize the Republican campaign message was more necessary than ever.

Mr. Bush will avoid districts and states where party officials determine his appearance may be particularly damaging for Republicans. But his aides, discussing the White House strategy for the president, said they had concluded for the most part that putting Mr. Bush out in public would do his party and its candidates more good than harm, a position that is clearly a big gamble for Republicans and a test of how much political clout he has left after two years of setbacks and missteps.

In the first three days of this week alone, he will make five public fund-raising appearances with Republican candidates, and his schedule suggests that the White House strategy is to try to close off the possibility of Democratic gains not in the most hotly contested and visible races, but in a second tier that could decide whether the House remains in Republican hands.

Two of those appearances will be on behalf of Republican House members in California, John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo, who is to join Mr. Bush for an open fund-raiser here in central California on Tuesday. Both Mr. Pombo and Mr. Doolittle are viewed as potentially vulnerable because they have been touched by the fallout from the corruption scandals in Washington. In both cases, the White House believes Mr. Bush’s ability to turn out Republican base voters will help to keep the seats safe.

Similarly, he went to Reno, Nev., on Monday to raise money for Dean Heller, the Republican candidate for a House seat in a district that should be safely Republican but that analysts say could be in play.

“You’ll be seeing more public speeches in the weeks ahead,” said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s senior political strategist. “The president is enormously important with a significant part of the electorate that they need to win.”

Mr. Bush alluded to this in an interview with conservative columnists in the Oval Office last month, saying he could set the stage for the Republican message. “There are a lot of people out there that hopefully I’ll be able to inspire to turn out,” he said.

But some of what Mr. Bush is doing will largely remain out of public sight. He plans to record messages for automated calls to voters in crucial districts, taking advantage of the sophisticated Republican operation to identify likely supporters and the issues that motivate them.

Mr. Bush, who has always relished campaigning, was described by associates as hungry to return to the road and is enjoying spending time with candidates and offering them advice.

The advice, it seems, goes to matters large and small. Michele Bachmann, a Republican running for an open House seat in Minnesota, said Mr. Bush needled her for wearing scalloped pink gloves for a recent presidential visit to her state. “What are those for?” Mr. Bush said, pointing to the gloves, according to Ms. Bachmann. “When you campaign, take off the gloves.”

The White House sought, sometimes in awkward ways, to balance Mr. Bush’s strengths and liabilities. He was the star attraction last week at an event that raised money for Republicans in three states, including Iowa — a closed-door fund-raiser in an Embassy Row mansion 10 minutes from the White House and 1,000 miles from Iowa, where it escaped mention the next day in the influential Des Moines Register.

And last Thursday, he was at a closed-door fund-raiser for Representative Deborah Pryce, an embattled Republican in Ohio — who used the money to finance a campaign that has included advertisements disputing Mr. Bush’s position on stem-cell research.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, leading the Democrats’ effort to win the Senate, said his main concern as he surveyed an otherwise favorable political environment was that Mr. Bush’s fund-raising power would overcome any drag he might have on his party. “That’s the No. 1 question that will determine the election,” Mr. Schumer said. “And I don’t know the answer.”

Democrats said Mr. Bush’s presence on the campaign trail would only help them as they tried to turn the election into a referendum on the president. And their professed delight was echoed by signs of apprehension in states where Republicans are facing their toughest battles.

In Rhode Island, Ian Lang, the campaign manager for Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican who is in a tough re-election battle, said a visit by Mr. Bush “is not something we’re looking for or asking for.”

John Brabender, a strategist for Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who is facing a stiff Democratic challenge, said of Mr. Bush: “He would be a distraction right now. It’s very important that we turn this race into Bob Casey versus Rick Santorum.”

Sara Taylor, the White House political director, said Mr. Bush could prove pivotal with party faithful who have been less than enthused this year.

“He is loved by his base,” she said, “and they support him.”

    Bush, Fund-Raiser in Chief, Hits the Trail in Earnest, NYT, 3.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/us/politics/03bush.html?hp&ex=1159934400&en=b3b0bf8332c3e025&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House backs Rumsfeld as it denies charges on Iraq

Sun Oct 1, 2006 2:35 PM ET
Reuters
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, despite accusations that he botched the Iraq war and earlier efforts by top Bush aides to replace him, the White House said on Sunday.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett also said Condoleezza Rice, who served as Bush's national security adviser before becoming secretary of state, had proposed a complete change of Bush's national security team after his 2004 re-election.

This was in addition to efforts by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to replace Rumsfeld, as reported in a new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward on Bush's handling of the war.

"The president has full confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld," Bartlett told ABC's "This Week." Rumsfeld was doing an "enormously difficult job," he added.

Bartlett also denied Bush was misleading the America public about violence against U.S. troops in Iraq, a central charge in a Woodward's book "State of Denial."

Rumsfeld, who critics say failed to adequately plan for the Iraq war or send enough troops, remains the right person to lead it, Bartlett said. "We recognize that he has his critics, we recognize that he's made some very difficult decisions. Some people don't like his bedside manner," Bartlett said.

Bush wants Rumsfeld "to bring him the type of information he needs to make the right decisions in this war," Bartlett said.

Disputing Woodward's assertion that Card tried to fire Rumsfeld with the support of First Lady Laura Bush, Bartlett said Card merely presented Cabinet options to Bush. Speaking on CNN's "Late Edition," he also said Rice "suggested to the president maybe he ought to bring in a whole new national-security team starting the second term."

"The president decided that's not the approach he wanted to take," Bartlett said.

Card acknowledged to MSNBC that he discussed replacing Rumsfeld with Bush on at least two occasions as part of other potential cabinet changes.

"There was never an orchestrated campaign to remove the secretary of defense that I was party to and I never had any indication that the first lady believed there should be a campaign to remove him," Card said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, considered a voice of caution on the war, was replaced by Bush for the second term.

SECRET ASSESSMENT

Woodward also wrote that while Bush spoke publicly of progress in Iraq, a secret intelligence assessment in May 2006 showed the insurgency was growing.

Bartlett said Bush has been "blunt" with the American public about the violence and the difficulties the U.S. faces in Iraq, and added that the book fails to note examples.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said Bush was not being open about the war.

"I think that there's an evidence-free zone in the White House and the top levels of the Pentagon. Regardless of what intelligence says, regardless of what some of their key inside advisers say, they say something different in public," Harman told "Fox News Sunday."

Bartlett said Bush declined to cooperate with Woodward, who helped to break open the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon. Administration officials spent hours with Woodward but believed "their points weren't getting across," he said.

    White House backs Rumsfeld as it denies charges on Iraq, R, 1.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-10-01T183450Z_01_N30272373_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-IRAQ.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C2-TopNews-newsOne-4

Powell Tried to Warn Bush on Iraq, Book Says

October 1, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Colin L. Powell, in his last face-to-face meeting with President Bush before stepping down as secretary of state in January 2005, tried to impress upon him one last time the dangers he saw the United States facing in Iraq, according to a new Powell biography.

The insurgency was growing and the country was spiraling into sectarian bloodshed, Mr. Powell warned. Elections in Iraq would not solve the problems, and the president’s ability to act decisively was being crippled by divisions within his own administration, according to the account in “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell” (Knopf, 2006) by Karen DeYoung, an associate editor at The Washington Post. Mr. Bush appeared disengaged, the book says, and brushed off Mr. Powell’s complaints about dysfunction in his government.

The book is among the latest accounts of the divisions in the administration as it hurtled toward war and stumbled through its aftermath. The Powell biography provides further detail on his early misgivings about the war and the size of the force assembled to fight it, doubts that have been reported in several other books, including those by Ms. DeYoung’s colleague at The Post, Bob Woodward.

Despite his doubts, however, Mr. Powell never threatened to resign or go public with his complaints, according to these accounts, because such acts would betray the ethic of the loyal soldier he felt he was.

A 7,600-word excerpt from the Powell biography appears in Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine. The book’s publication date is Oct. 10.

Mr. Powell, who gave Ms. DeYoung several interviews for her book and encouraged others to cooperate, said in a telephone interview on Saturday that he had not read the book or the excerpts. He did not take issue with portions read to him, except to question the context of one anecdote involving an exchange with Vice President Dick Cheney.

“The real issue right now is not the various books that are out but how things are going in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Powell said. He would not share his views on the current state of affairs there, however.

A White House spokesman said officials there had not read the book and would not comment.

Since leaving office last year, Mr. Powell has kept his views to himself, with a few notable exceptions. He was openly critical of the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina last year and weighed in vigorously in the debate over treatment of detainees in the war on terror.

He has quietly cooperated with Ms. DeYoung, Mr. Woodward and other authors, while keeping his counsel in public on Iraq, the broader war on terrorism and the diplomatic struggles of his successor at the State Department, Condoleezza Rice. He does not want to undermine the president, but he also wants to make sure that his point of view is accurately reflected in histories, associates said.

“It’s a matter of behaving with dignity when you’re out of office,” said Richard L. Armitage, Mr. Powell’s former deputy and his closest confidant. “You don’t want to be seen as criticizing those who took your place. On differences of principle, like the Geneva Conventions, he will speak out. On differences of approach, he probably will not.”

In answer to those who ask why he has not been more outspoken, Mr. Powell generally replies, “There’s a war on.”

The common thread of many of the recent accounts is of warnings ignored about flaws in the prewar intelligence, in the war-fighting doctrine and in plans for occupying the shattered country. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, dismissed some of these accounts as the grumblings of people on the losing side of internal arguments.

The Powell biography fleshes out a tale already widely known in Washington of infighting among Mr. Powell, Mr. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense. Mr. Powell, who served as secretary of state through Mr. Bush’s first term, came out on the losing end of the majority of their arguments.

The book provides an inside account of the preparation for Mr. Powell’s pivotal presentation before the United Nations six weeks before the start of the Iraq war in March 2003. Mr. Powell told Ms. DeYoung that he spent much of the five days he had to prepare for the presentation “trimming the garbage” that Mr. Cheney’s staff had provided by way of evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs and ties to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Powell later conceded that the United Nations speech was full of falsehoods and distorted intelligence and was a “blot” on his record.

Running throughout this book and other recent accounts are the defeats and humiliations Mr. Powell suffered in service to Mr. Bush. Though Mr. Powell remained an admired figure in America, it was not enough to protect him against attacks.

“There are people who would like to take me down,” he is quoted as saying while motioning toward the White House during his last year in office. “It’s been the case since I was appointed. By take down, I mean, ‘keep him in his place.’ ”

    Powell Tried to Warn Bush on Iraq, Book Says, 1.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01powell.html