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21 February 2005 White House Briefing, February 20President's trip to Europe White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan briefed the press February 20 aboard Air Force One en route to Brussels, Belgium. After McClellan’s remarks, a senior administration official spoke to the press on background about the president’s trip. Following is the White House transcript: (begin transcript) THE WHITE HOUSE For Immediate Release PRESS GAGGLE BY AND BACKGROUND BRIEFING En route Brussels, Belgium MR. McCLELLAN: Good evening, everybody -- or good afternoon, if you're still in D.C. Let me begin by talking a little bit about the President's speech tomorrow. We are going to have excerpts for you here very shortly. We're working on formatting those soon -- Q On the plane? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and we'll get them out -- Q For the evening shows tonight? MR. McCLELLAN: -- on the ground at the same time. Q Are we on the record here? MR. McCLELLAN: What's that? Q On the record? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. I think the idea is to embargo the excerpts for tomorrow's papers, not for -- tomorrow morning, so for the overnighters. Q I'm sorry, so again, it's -- MR. McCLELLAN: I think the idea is not for tonight's news, but for tomorrow, so that you can use them in the morning, on the morning shows and so forth. In terms of the speech, you've heard a little bit of-- you've heard us talk a little bit about it, but the President will talk about the importance of America and Europe working together in common purpose. He'll talk about how this is a time to move beyond past differences and work in unity. And he'll talk about how our strong friendship, our shared history and our common values are what unite us. And I think you can expect in the speech the President will call for common action to address our common challenges. He'll talk about how this is a time of opportunity for the transatlantic community to work together to advance freedom and democracy, particularly in the Middle East; and by working together we can again set a hopeful course for the world. In fact, that's one of the excerpts that you'll get, where he'll talk about that. And he'll talk about the immediate goal of peace in the Middle East and specifically about the unique opportunity we have to seize to reach a settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And he'll talk about the practical ways we can encourage and support the advance of democracy elsewhere, as well, like Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq. With Iraq, he'll talk about how the Iraqi people showed the world their determination and courage and their commitment to a free and peaceful future. And in that context, I expect he'll talk about how now is the time for all of us to show our support for the Iraqi people. And you’ve heard him talk about it before, but he'll talk about how freedom leads to peace. Q A little louder Scott, sorry. MR. McCLELLAN: He'll talk about how freedom leads to peace and he'll talk about our alliance's determination to promote development in developing nations, to expand trade, to alleviate poverty and to fight disease. And that's kind of a summary of his remarks for tomorrow. With that, I'm going to turn it over to the background briefer to talk a little bit more about the trip and, again, the excerpts will be coming out shortly. Q A clarification on release time? The President actually speaks at 8:00 a.m., eastern time. When are the excerpts useable? MR. McCLELLAN: They'll be useable for the over-nighters, for the morning, for -- Q Twelve midnight? I mean -- MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. Q -- for people who are on, it's 12:00 midnight? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. And with that, I'll turn it over. Go ahead. (THE FOLLOWING PORTION IS ON BACKGROUND) SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. Much of the trip has been outlined conceptually and -- Q Sorry, you've got to be louder. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Okay. Q Are we on background here or are we -- SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, on background. The trip has been outlined both thematically and in terms of the schedule by previous briefers, but I'll go over some of the points again. This is a trip which starts with the President's speech, which frames up the week. On Tuesday, the President meets with the leaders of NATO, and then with the leaders of the European Union to flesh out the agenda and consolidate some of the themes that he will have expressed the previous day in the speech he's about to make. Then we go on to Germany, which is important both -- an important set of meetings with Gerhard Schröder; also an attempt to get beyond some of the formality, the necessary formality of the trip to Berlin by going out to Mainz. That evening, the President goes to Bratislava, which will be the first time an American President, a sitting American President has ever visited Slovakia, where he will meet the Slovak leadership, meet with some of the champions of freedom in Central Europe, since 1989, and, indeed, with some of the veteran dissidents of the struggles in the '70s and '80s. And then the President will meet with President Putin, for a long set of meetings Thursday afternoon. That done, there will be a press event with President Putin, and then the President comes home. Now, this trip follows on all the work the President has done since his re-election and since that first press conference the Thursday after his re-election, where the President said he wanted to reach out to all of Europe on a common agenda and put the disagreements of 2003 into the past. Conceptually, however, many of the points that the President is going to be making tomorrow go back a couple of years, at least, to the London speech at Whitehall, in November 2003. Some of them go back even earlier than that. The core of the President's message is that the transatlantic community constitutes a community of values and should, therefore, constitute a community of action for the advance of freedom in the world. There is also, in the way the President talks about freedom in the context of a post-September 11th world, an evolution in the way we have understood the strategic challenges of the war on terror. Obviously, the war on terror, focused as originally expressed, remains valid: We go after the terrorists. We have, are, and will continue to. But the President has gone beyond that to also talk about the root causes of terrorism, not as a code word for Israeli-Palestinian issues, which is often how root causes of terrorism have been used, but root causes of terrorism meeting the freedom deficit in the broader Middle East. This has been a theme the President and other leaders in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the G8 have been working at for some time. And the freedom agenda that the President outlined in his inaugural and the State of the Union, and that you will hear about somewhat tomorrow, follows a period of considerable strategic thinking in the United States and strategic consultations with our allies about the nature of the strategic challenges post-9/11 and in the early part of the 21st century. So what you are going to see this week is a conversation we're having with Europe about setting a strategic agenda in a way that has been -- that we have been going after for about a year or a year-and-a-half, but much more intensively and, actually, in my view, much more successfully since the President's re-election. Now, in addition to those issues, the President is also going to talk about some of the issues uppermost in Europeans' minds, beyond those that I've mentioned. Europeans talk about global -- want to talk about global development, and the President will. Europeans have talked about the environment, and the President will mention that, as well. So this is not a case of the United States simply talking about our agenda; it's a case of our talking about a common agenda. Finally, and in anticipation of some likely questions, I find it likely, to the point of certainty, that Iran and the China arms embargo will come up -- Q In the speech? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: In the conversations. I find it more than a little likely that they will come up in the speech, but they will also come up in many of the meetings the President has. We've been engaged in consultations with the Europeans about how to frame the problem that Iran represents and how to work with them. And I put it to you that a lot of the press articles notwithstanding in the United States and Europe, we are in a far better place to have a successful conversation with the Europeans than many realize. So with that, I'll stop and be happy to take some questions. Q Well, what's your position on the China arms embargo? Are you going to acquiesce in letting Europe lift it? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We have real problems with the approach that some have suggested the European Union take, but we want to consult with the Europeans in advance of any final decision that they make. And we sense a readiness on the part of the Europeans to have that kind of a conversation. So I think we are poised to have a period of dialogue about this, and useful dialogue. So I expect that this will be an issue of discussion, rather than an issue of contention. Q Anonymous briefer man, let me ask you about Iran. Is the President prepared to announce something in the course of his speeches or his conversations that will somehow create a new way to go back to the Iranians to get them to do what we want them to do? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I find it difficult to answer the question because you are asking me to characterize the President's remarks, or, rather, characterize the European reaction to the President's remarks, which is a little bit -- it's a hypothetical built upon a supposition and I'm not smart enough to do that. (Laughter.) Q I'll take that as a "yes." SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, please don't. Please don't. Q No, no, no. But what I'm -- in other words, the United States is not prepared to join in a dialogue, as the Europeans want, with the Iranians directly. That's been a source of tension between the U.S. and the Europeans. So does the President have a different idea that he's going to raise here? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We want to talk to the Europeans about the problem that Iran's nuclear program and policies constitute for us all. That is the problem. The problem is not some sort of tactical difference between the Americans and the Europeans over how to deal with the problem. The problem is how we get Iran to live up to its commitments. And I believe that we are going to have a very useful set of discussions with the Europeans on how we can go about doing that. That's the key -- not allowing ourselves to fall into a trap of looking at each other and talking about each other, as if the tactical approach is the real problem, when the real issue is Iran's behavior. Q Is he going to mention global warming in any direct way? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I said that I believe the President would talk about environmental issues; I think that's the case. I don’t want to get to be more specific until we finalize the speech, and speeches are never finalized until the President gives them. Q That is the environmental issue that confronts him on this trip, the main one, is it not? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It is true that it is much on the minds of the Europeans and it's on the minds of the European press. And so I suspect it will come up in some fashion, yes. Q Do we expect there will be any kind of announcement on some kind of a U.S. initiative, participation in something? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Here, too, I think that you will see a willingness on the part of the Europeans and the Americans to build on common actions based on our common values, rather than focus on some of the differences we've had in the past. Q Unlike most presidential trips, this one doesn't provide any concrete agreements, documents, signings, communiqués, correct? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We had never considered this trip, in its original design, to be a full-up, formal summit such as we had last June at Dromoland Castle and at Istanbul. It was always conceived from the very beginning -- and we started thinking about this in October, quietly, and then obviously more actively after the elections. We had considered this trip to be one of building a strategic agenda, which obviously involves also tone and mood. But in terms of substance, building a strategic agenda, getting straight among ourselves and with the Europeans what we wanted to accomplish in the next four years is a very tall order, very important work, and we're well-poised to do that. That said, you know, NATO and the EU are still meeting, we're still talking about things. But we have never anticipated doing any of this. Q You said that the strategic dialogue with Europe has intensified since the election. Can you characterize in what way it has intensified? What's different? What are the elements that are new? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, to go back to the blinding light of the obvious. When the President was re-elected, it became clear that whatever some pundits in Europe wanted, this President had the strong support of the American people. Secondly, after -- the Iraqi elections demonstrated that some of the views heard publicly in Europe that Iraq was destined to be a quagmire or an utter failure were now subject to serious question. Ever since the election, the President's re-election, we've been engaged in some very serious conversations with the Europeans, in a variety of ways -- most intensely, of course, with Secretary Rice's trip to Europe about 10 days ago. But we've used a variety of channels, including then-National Security Advisor designate Hadley's trip to Europe in December. We've also used some informal channels. And we have been discussing exactly the issues that I've been talking about to you today. Q Well, do you have any sense that the Europeans are going to do anything differently in Iraq? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I do have the sense that the Europeans are responding to the developments on the ground, in particular, the election. My sense is that the Europeans at NATO and in the European Union are now more prepared than they were, say, a year ago, to pitch in and help the new Iraqi government. Now, we'll see what form that takes, but I sense a new willingness on the part of the Europeans to help out, and a seriousness on their part about a strategic dialogue with us. Q Is the President hopeful or does he have any expectations that he'll get any concrete commitments on this trip? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, Dr. Rice -- Secretary Rice talked about the need and her hope that NATO would do more; an we know the European Union is considering doing more. There is a European Union summit meeting tomorrow, a day before the President's meeting, so we'll see what they do. Q The Europeans have talked about a deal in which -- on Iran, in which Iran would be allowed to join the WTO. What do you think about that? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't want to get into the specifics, but it's important that we and the Europeans start to frame up the problem in the right way. I think that we do ourselves and our common cause no good by wrangling about the tactics. The issue and the problem is Iran's behavior. My sense is that the Europeans want to talk to us in exactly those terms, which is the right way to talk about it. We want to have this conversation. We know that they've been thinking of the WTO and various other ways to approach the Iranians. And I, frankly, look forward to a conversation with them about how we deal with the problem. Q I'm confused. Aren't the conversations about tactics? I mean, the Europeans think we should proceed -- or the international community should proceed with Iran following a certain set of tactics. We feel other tactics are in store. I mean, isn't this conversation you want to have all about tactics? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Not entirely. Conversations about tactics are also informed by where it is you're trying to go, by your definition of the problem and by your appreciation of, frankly, what the Iranian authorities are willing to do. The problem is that the -- this is up to the Iranians -- the Iranian authorities to decide how they are going to behave. So we need to frame up this conversation with the Europeans, and I think we can do so. Q What is the President going to say about Syria in his speech tomorrow? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Probably something. (Laughter.) Q Along the lines of? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Along the lines that you have heard him speak about it recently, including in his press conference in the EEOB on Thursday, I believe. Q How tough is he going to be with President Putin in their meeting? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I have found it somewhere between pointless and dangerous to try to completely predict what happens in meetings that haven't happened yet. I think that the President has been quite clear about our own view, that freedom in the world is universal -- potentially universal in its application. We have a very strong, rich agenda with Russia. There are many issues on which we have common interests; we want to build on those. And I think the two Presidents, who have a great deal of mutual regard, will be able to have a frank discussion also of these problems. Q Thank you, Mr. Senior Administration Official. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You're quite welcome. And I hope we get to do it again. (Laughter.) (THE FOLLOWING PORTION IS ON THE RECORD.) Q I just want to ask, who's on the plane? Is Condi Rice on the plane? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. Q Anybody else we should know about? MR. McCLELLAN: Andy, Joe Hagin, Dan Bartlett -- Q Is he riding that bicycle up and down the hall? MR. McCLELLAN: No, he did earlier. No, no, not up and down -- (laughter) -- yes, around Air Force One. Yes, he rode the bike earlier, got a good workout in; and then he had a briefing on the trip, participated in a briefing with his national security team -- the national security team that's on the trip. Q What about these tapes that were leaked to The New York Times, conversations the then-Governor had? Does the President dispute the content as reported, and what's his reaction to it? MR. McCLELLAN: No, and the reaction is really what I think we said yesterday. I mean, that these were casual conversations that then-Governor Bush was having with someone he thought was a friend. And that's what they are. Q Was he aware that he was being taped? MR. McCLELLAN: No, not until we became aware of this news report when we were contacted by The New York Times. Q My question is, how can he have talked to a friend for -- what is it, nine, 12 hours -- and not realize there's a tape recorder going? Was it a hidden microphone? MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know, Ann. I don't know the answer to that question. Q Is he angry about it? MR. McCLELLAN: Look, you know, I think that, one, the comments and the tapes speak for themselves. And, two, I think what I just said pretty much speaks for itself. I don't think there's a point in going beyond that, at this point. Q Well, maybe not to you, but the reality is that he's talking about past drug use on the tape, about marijuana, he's speaking indirectly about cocaine. Are some of these revelations -- you know, could they hurt him politically, does he feel? Is he upset that they are in the public domain? MR. McCLELLAN: I think that those were issues that were addressed ad nauseam four years ago. I mean, these were conversations that took place four years ago, more than four years ago -- four years ago and before. Q Has he had any contact with Mr. Wead in the last, what, year, two years, fours years? MR. McCLELLAN: No, it's been several years. Q You said he "considered" him a friend -- that suggests that he no longer does so. MR. McCLELLAN: Look, I think I'll just leave it with those remarks. Q So that's a "yes"? MR. McCLELLAN: No. As I said, I don't have any intention of going further than that. I think I'll let that speak for itself. Q He's off the Christmas card list, right? (Laughter.) MR. McCLELLAN: Anything else? Okay. Q Thank you. END (end transcript) (Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) |
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