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Edited on Sun Feb-08-04 11:00 AM by rocknation
Too bad he wasn't willing to have Georgie answer them spontaneously.
On Friday, you announced a committee, commission to look
into intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war and our entire
intelligence community. You have been reluctant to do that for some
time. Why?
(Tony Blair’s commission) is going to report back in July. Ours is not going to
be until March of 2005, five months after the presidential election.
Shouldn't the American people have the benefit of the commission
before the election?
President Bush: Well, the reason why we gave it time is because we
didn't want it to be hurried. This is a strategic look, kind of a
big picture look about the intelligence gathering capacities of the
United States of America, whether it be the capacity to gather
intelligence in North Korea or how we've used our intelligence to,
for example, learn more information about AQ Kahn. And it's
important that this investigation take its time.
Will you testify before the commission?
(CIA director Tenet’s) job is not in jeopardy?
There is another commission right now looking into
September 11th. Will you testify before that commission?
President Bush: We have given extraordinary cooperation with
Chairmen Kean and Hamilton. As you know, we made an agreement on
what's called "Presidential Daily Briefs," and they could see the
information the CIA provided me that is unique, by the way, to have
provided what's called the PDB, because ...Would you submit for
questioning, though, to the 9/11 Commission?
President Bush: Perhaps, perhaps.
Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican said he is
absolutely convinced we will capture Osama bin Laden before the
election. Do you have a pretty good idea where Osama is?
Let me turn to Iraq. And this is the whole idea of what you based your decision to go to war on.
The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said
this: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves
no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some
of the most lethal weapons ever devised." That apparently is not the
case. How do you respond to critics who say that you brought the
nation to war under false pretenses?
Mr. President, the Director of the CIA said that his
briefings had qualifiers and caveats, but when you spoke to the
country, you said "there is no doubt." When Vice President Cheney
spoke to the country, he said "there is no doubt." Secretary
Powell, "no doubt." Secretary Rumsfeld, "no doubt, we know where
the weapons are." You said, quote, "The Iraqi regime is a threat of
unique urgency.” “Saddam Hussein is a threat that we must deal with
as quickly as possible."
You gave the clear sense that this was an immediate threat that must
be dealt with. In what way?
...can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction?
This is an important point because when you say that he has biological and chemical weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles and they could come and attack the United States, you are saying to the American people: we have to deal now with a man who has these things...if that's not the case, do you believe if you had gone to the Congress and said he should be removed because he's a threat to his people but I'm not sure he has weapons of mass destruction, Congress would authorize war?
There is a sense in the country that the intelligence that was given was ambiguous, and that you took it and molded it and shaped it your opponents have said "hyped" it and rushed to war. And now, in the world, if you, in the future, say we must go into North Korea or we must go into Iran because they have nuclear capability, either this country or the world will say, ‘Excuse you, Mr. President, we want it now in hard, cold facts.’
But there are lots of madmen in the world, Fidel Castro--in Iran, in North Korea, in Burma, and yet we don't go in and take down those governments.
On Iraq, the vice president said, “we would be greeted as liberators.”
It's now nearly a year, and we are in a very difficult situation. Did we miscalculate how we would be treated and received in Iraq?
Are you surprised by the level and intensity of resistance?
If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?
You do seem to have changed your mind from the 2000 campaign. In a debate, you said, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation-building.'"
Are you now willing to allow the United Nations to play a central role in the reconstruction?
In transferring power, the U.N. will play a central role?
Before we take a break, now that we have determined there
are probably not these stockpiles of weapons that we had thought,
and the primary rationale for the war had been to disarm Saddam
Hussein, Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary, said that you
had settled on weapons of mass destruction as an issue we could
agree on, but there were three. “One was the weapons of mass
destruction, the second is the support for terrorism, and third is
Saddam's criminal treatment of his Iraqi people.” He said the “third one by itself is a reason to help Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did.” Now looking back, in your mind, is it worth the loss of 530 American lives and 3,000 injuries and woundings simply to remove Saddam Hussein, even though there were no weapons of mass
destruction?
In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity?
Mr. President, this campaign is fully engaged. The chairman of the
Democratic National Committee, Terence McAuliffe, said this last
week: "I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero
with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man
who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard. He didn't show up when
he should have showed up."
The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through
some of their records and said there’s no evidence that you reported
to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.
You did were allowed to leave eight months before your
term expired. Was there a reason?
When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley
Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files.
Would you agree to do that?
But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to
show that you were serving during that period?
Would you authorize the release of everything to settle
this?
Were you favor of the war in Vietnam?
But you didn't volunteer or enlist to go.
Let me turn to the economy...The Bush Cheney first three years, the unemployment rate has gone up 33 percent, there has been a loss of 2.2 million jobs. We've gone from a $281 billion surplus to a $521 billion deficit.
The debt has gone from 5.7 trillion, to $7 trillion up 2 percent. Based on that record, why should the American people rehire you as CEO?
...when you proposed your first tax cut in 2001, you said
this was going to generate 800,000 new jobs. Your tax cut of 2003,
create a million new jobs. That has not happened. Auditors have
done a study of our finances. And this is what your legacy will be to the next
generation. It says that our “current fiscal policy is
unsustainable.” They did a computer simulation that shows that
balancing the budget in 2040 could require either cutting total
Federal spending in half or doubling Federal taxes.
How why, as a fiscal conservative as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster? (Even) your base conservatives and listen to Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, they're all saying you are the biggest spender in American history.
Tom Daschle, the Democratic Leader in the Senate, said that
you've changed the tone for the worse; that it's more acrimonious,
more confrontations, that you are the most partisan political
president he's ever worked with. Our exit polls of primary voters,
not just Democrats but Independents in South Carolina and New Hampshire, more than 70 percent of them said they are angry or dissatisfied with you, and they point to this whole idea of being a uniter as opposed to a
divider. Why do you think you are perceived as such a divider?
Two polls out this weekend show you're trailing John Kerry in both U.S.A. Today and Newsweek polls by seven and five points...This is what John Kerry had to say last year. He said that his colleagues are appalled at the quote "President's lack of knowledge. They've managed him the same way they've managed Ronald Reagan. They send him out to the press for one event a day. They put him in a brown jacket and jeans and get him to move some hay or move a truck, and all of a sudden he's the Marlboro Man. I know
this guy. He was two years behind me at Yale. I knew him, and he's
still the same guy.” Did you know him at Yale? How do you respond to that?
You were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society. What does that mean for America? The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild.
Are you prepared to lose? If you did, what would you do?
Biggest issues in the upcoming campaign?
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