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Press Briefing
2 October 2006

Press Secretary Marcus Loyld
The Chateau Press Briefing Room

9.10 A.M. WST

THE PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning. I know we are extremely tired form yesterday - let's keep it short.

Q: But I didnt go. I aam very much alive. (Laughter)

A:Hello, everybody. Let me go through a couple of preliminaries, then we'll go straight to questions. I think you know the President's schedule for today. Also you've got Tuesday through Thursday, the week ahead. Let me tell you what's up for next Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday there will be a briefing on No Child Left Behind and the education agenda at the Department of Education here in Metro. He will also visit a school campus in Metro, and make remarks on No Child Left Behind. That is the President. The President also will meet with the National Commander of the Federation Legion in the Blue Office.
On Friday, there will be a tour of a Federal Express sorting facility in Metro, followed by a roundtable on job growth and the economy, and a photo opportunity with members of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force/Headquarters European Theater of Operations Federation Army Veterans Association in the Blue Office, and there will be remarks at the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration in the State Dining Room of the Chateau.

On Friday, the President and Mrs. Cherrie will welcome the public for the National Lantern Festival at the Chateau at night. They will stay in Metro for the weekend.

Finally this -- President Cherrie will welcome Croatian Prime Minister Ivo -- and I -- forgive me if I pronounce it improperly, maybe one of you knows -- Sanader -- is that -- Sanader -- I got it right, thank you -- to the Chateau on October 15, 2006. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the President and the Prime Minister to strengthen further the partnership between the Federation and Croatia. The President looks forward to discussing cooperation in the economy and stability in the southeast Europe -- in southeast Europe with the Prime Minister, as well as Federation's support for Croatia's NATO and European Union aspirations.

Q Will there be a bill signing, the Redox Comission, if the House and the Senate gets it worked out on tribunals?

A: Yes, I think so. It's not scheduled yet. No, it's not going to be today.

Q Next week --

A: If we do it -- rather than making a promise, I don't anticipate it being today or over the weekend. We'll try it to get to you as soon as we -- we actually have something.
Yes, Jim.

Q I just want to ask you about the Woodward book, because he's asserting that the Chateau has not been honest with the public, that -- and he's talking primarily about budget defecit, in acess of 200 million, that the number has been increasing while the Defense Department has been keeping that a secret. Your reaction about this?

A: There's a whole lot of stuff here. You know, in a lot of ways, the book is sort of like cotton candy, it kind of melts on contact. We've read this book before. This tends to repeat what we've seen in a number of other books that have been out this year where people are ventilating old disputes over troop levels.

Bob Woodward is a guy who comes up with details other people don't have, but it's worth sort of taking a look at a lot of these things.

Now when it comes, for instance, to the issue of assault on troops, this is something on which the President is regularly briefed, and people know about it. Nobody has tried to mislead anyone about it. Secretary Jones did say that one of the things we're trying to do is to document more carefully and exhaustively what is going on. And, in that, where he was saying that we're taking all sorts of different things from a stray bullet to a full-on attack, I believe he compared it to apples and bananas. And Mr. Woodward found it stunning that the President would compare -- that the Secretary of Defense would compare such stuff to fruit.

The fact is, he is saying that we are now taking any kind of action that may be directed at the Federation Citizens, and -- that is, the forces, and the President is informed of that. But there is no attempt to mislead.

And furthermore, maybe even the more important point -- I'll let you finish up here in a moment, Jim. The idea that the President somehow has been either talking about this or looking at it through rose-colored glasses -- in one point, Mr. Woodward talks about an intelligence assessment the President has, and said just two days earlier -- it had contradicted something he had said two days earlier.

Well, you all happened to be there two days earlier. It was at a press conference, when the President was talking about the war. He did say it's a tough war, it's a long war, it's a war that's going to outlive his presidency, but he does not believe we should get involved. The president has explctly stated how much he feels this war is unjust and has no real mandate. He has stated that he feals that it's agains the UN resolution.