05 February 2002
Transcript: White House Press Gaggle on Air Force One, February 5
(Bush's schedule, budget request on bioterrorism, health care,
President's budget/homeland security, Sen. Hollings/Bush
administration's relations with Enron) (1310)
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed on Air Force One as
President Bush travels to Pittsburgh to delivered remarks on funding
for bioterrorism.
Following is the White House transcript:
(begin transcript)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
February 5, 2002
PRESS GAGGLE WITH ARI FLEISCHER
Aboard Air Force One
En Route to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
11:12 A.M. EST
MR. FLEISCHER: The President this morning had his intelligence
briefings, had some staff meetings, and then Pittsburgh. In
Pittsburgh, the President is going to give a speech in which he
discusses his strategy to protect America against biological
terrorism.
His budget represents a 319 percent increase in funding against
bioterrorism, and that's $5.9 billion, to improve America's state and
local hospitals and health systems, improve response efforts, build up
the national pharmaceutical stockpile, and develop new vaccines,
medicines and diagnostic tests through aggressive R&D.
The President will also focus for new funding on infrastructure needs,
such as strengthening state and local health care systems, enhancing
medical communications and disease surveillance capabilities. It will
focus on response, which means improving specialized federal
capabilities to respond in coordination with state and local
governments and private capabilities, as well as science.
So three broad areas -- infrastructure, response, and science -- will
be the emphasis of the President's proposed funding increase. Science
will be a focus on meeting medical needs of bioterrorism response by
developing specific new vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic tests.
In Pittsburgh, the President will observe a state-of-the-art real-time
surveillance system that can track acute infectious diseases and help
implement control measures in the event of a bioterror attack. And
this is at the University of Pittsburgh's Medical Center. He's going
to visit a facility called RODS, which is an acronym for real-time
outbreak and disease surveillance.
It was created in September of 1999, is now a collaboration between
the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University. It's
received grants from the Department of Defense and the Centers for
Disease Control.
It provides early warning of infectious disease outbreaks by
collecting clinical information from 17 regional hospitals. It can
monitor up to 800 patient systems, gender, locale, and medical test
results gathered directly from emergency rooms, while also tracking
interesting or unusual patterns. This wide range of information helps
physicians detect possible outbreaks or biological attacks, and thus
promptly directs treatment and control measures. This RODS system will
be in use in Salt Lake during the Olympics.
And then the President will make remarks at the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center, outlining the strategy to fight
bioterrorism and the funding increases he's proposed in his budget.
QUESTION: Ari, how did some of these specific programs -- what kind of
specific benefits do they have beyond bioterrorism, for general public
health?
MR. FLEISCHER: Big benefits beyond bioterrorism. This is one of the
interesting side benefits of the President's proposed funding
increases to combat bioterrorism. It strengthens the nation's public
health system. It strengthens emergency rooms. It strengthens state
medical systems. In fighting and preventing bioterrorism, it gives
doctors, nurses, emergency rooms and hospitals more resources so they
can fight regular diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control, for example, have large funding
increases. And very often the research they do in one area has
benefits that extend to other areas beyond bioterrorism.
Q: Presumably he's holding this up as an example of what he'd like to
see created all across the country.
MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct.
Q: Any idea how many of these types of centers he wants --
MR. FLEISCHER: Secretary Thompson might have more specific information
on that. I don't know. Secretary Thompson and Governor Ridge are both
on board, so let me see if I can't figure out a time while we're out
there to see if they're available to answer some --
Q: He does see this as a model, though? Let's duplicate this?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct. And the funding is designed to help
duplicate it.
During the anthrax scares, one of the keys was monitoring emergency
rooms across the country. And we had all kinds of reports -- but
ensuring accurate reports so the government could respond in case
there was another anthrax attack; the ability to have emergency rooms
in real time tied in quickly to state health departments. So that if
it was another case of anthrax, the government could respond
immediately and quickly with anthrax antibiotics. That was a key to
fighting anthrax.
That's a direct product of what the President is talking about today,
emergency rooms who, in real time, transfer information to state
health departments who get them to the federal government. The ability
of laboratories to be able to analyze anthrax, including what we
learned from the anthrax outbreak is you get all kinds of hoaxes that
jam up the system. So the system has to be able to handle surges. And
that's also part of the funding that the President is proposing today,
to enable hospitals and labs to handle surges in case of attack.
Q: The $11 billion figure that you used yesterday, where does that
come from? That's a two-year figure -- so this year and next year, or
this year and -- how does that --
MR. FLEISCHER: The President's budget nearly doubles spending on
homeland security. This includes $5.9 billion to counter bioterrorism.
That's the 2003 request, is $5.9 billion, which is an increase of 319
percent from last year's levels.
So the $5.9 billion to defend against biological terrorism, an
increase of $.5 billion from the 2002 level.
Q: So the $11 billion is adding together current and --
MR. FLEISCHER: I saw something yesterday that indicated that was a
two-year figure. I'd have to take a look at whether that's an '04
anticipation figure, as well. Because the '03 figure, you subtract
$4.5 billion, was $1.4 billion -- the '03 is $5.9 billion.
Q: Ari, do you have anything on this report that's out there about al
Qaeda attempting to assassinate President Clinton?
MR. FLEISCHER: I've not heard that report.
Q: There's a UPI report that's out --
MR. FLEISCHER: That this morning?
Q: Yes.
MR. FLEISCHER: I have not heard that report.
Anything else?
Q: Do you have any response to Senator Hollings yesterday was calling
for an investigation, a special counsel, to look into the Bush
administration's relations with Enron. Do you have any sort of
response to that?
MR. FLEISCHER: The Department of Justice already addressed that
yesterday. But Senator Hollings yesterday was very disappointing,
because this is a time when Democrats and Republicans need to work
together to treat this as a serious issue, to have a criminal
investigation of wrongdoing, and to act together to protect pensions.
It's not helpful if a United States senator simply makes things up,
such as he did about Mitch Daniels and Secretary O'Neill.
This needs to be handled in a nonpartisan and a thoughtful manner in
order to help people and get to the bottom of this.
Q: Do you mean, the disappointing part is his comments about Daniels
and O'Neill, or his call for a special prosecutor?
MR. FLEISCHER: Just making things up. I mean, it's important to speak
factually about these matters. And making things up as part of a
partisan endeavor doesn't help protect anybody's pensions. It only
reminds people of the bitterness and the partisanship that has too
often marked business in Washington. And that needs to be changed.
Okay. Thanks, everybody.
END 11:21 A.M. EST
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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