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American Morning
Iraq Reconstruction
Aired October 17, 2003 - 07:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has lost a battle with the Senate over Iraq policy late last night. The senate OKed an amendment to the president's $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan. It calls for $10 billion of it to be in the form of a loan rather than a grant. The House defeated a similar measure several hours earlier.
The White House argues that Arab countries will view this amendment as evidence that the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil. A bipartisan group of senators says it will encourage nations like Germany and France to forgive the debt incurred by Saddam Hussein. Well, the loan would be forgiven if other countries forgive Iraq's outstanding debts to them.
Both Houses are expected to approve the entire $87 billion package today. Then, they'll have to haggle on how to handle the loan/grant issue that's going to happen in committee.
So, just how is the White House taking this setback on Iraq policy? Dana Bash is traveling with the president on his six-country Asia tour, and she is live in Tokyo for us this morning.
Dana -- good morning.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Well, this is clearly a big setback for the White House. The president himself earlier this week called a bipartisan group of senators down to talk to them, to lobby hard in order to make all of the $20 billion a grant and not a loan. The vice president, the secretary of state all were working hard in order to make this not happen.
So, this is certainly a big blow, but it was very difficult to fight what many senators said was political pressure, domestic pressure from their constituents back home, who said that there was no reason why this money should be given to Iraq when there are things that their constituents believe that they needed domestically back home, like roads being built and schools to be helped and so forth.
So, that is why clearly this happened. This was something that the White House obviously did not want, especially as the president is here in Asia and will later go to Australia, of course, because a big part of his trip is to discuss with leaders, as he meets them, trying to get them to contribute money to Iraq's reconstruction.
He is, of course, here in Tokyo right now. He arrived just a short while ago. So far, he has greeted the prime minister. He went to the ambassador's residence as well. At this point, he is engaged with the first lady in a social dinner in his very brief visit here in Tokyo.
But as far as Japan is concerned, this is the one country where the president actually has already gotten what he wanted. He already has a commitment of about $1.5 billion from Japan. Hopefully, the president thinks he will probably get some troops as well.
Back to you -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's Dana Bash for us traveling with the president. Dana, thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired October 17, 2003 - 07:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has lost a battle with the Senate over Iraq policy late last night. The senate OKed an amendment to the president's $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan. It calls for $10 billion of it to be in the form of a loan rather than a grant. The House defeated a similar measure several hours earlier.
The White House argues that Arab countries will view this amendment as evidence that the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil. A bipartisan group of senators says it will encourage nations like Germany and France to forgive the debt incurred by Saddam Hussein. Well, the loan would be forgiven if other countries forgive Iraq's outstanding debts to them.
Both Houses are expected to approve the entire $87 billion package today. Then, they'll have to haggle on how to handle the loan/grant issue that's going to happen in committee.
So, just how is the White House taking this setback on Iraq policy? Dana Bash is traveling with the president on his six-country Asia tour, and she is live in Tokyo for us this morning.
Dana -- good morning.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Well, this is clearly a big setback for the White House. The president himself earlier this week called a bipartisan group of senators down to talk to them, to lobby hard in order to make all of the $20 billion a grant and not a loan. The vice president, the secretary of state all were working hard in order to make this not happen.
So, this is certainly a big blow, but it was very difficult to fight what many senators said was political pressure, domestic pressure from their constituents back home, who said that there was no reason why this money should be given to Iraq when there are things that their constituents believe that they needed domestically back home, like roads being built and schools to be helped and so forth.
So, that is why clearly this happened. This was something that the White House obviously did not want, especially as the president is here in Asia and will later go to Australia, of course, because a big part of his trip is to discuss with leaders, as he meets them, trying to get them to contribute money to Iraq's reconstruction.
He is, of course, here in Tokyo right now. He arrived just a short while ago. So far, he has greeted the prime minister. He went to the ambassador's residence as well. At this point, he is engaged with the first lady in a social dinner in his very brief visit here in Tokyo.
But as far as Japan is concerned, this is the one country where the president actually has already gotten what he wanted. He already has a commitment of about $1.5 billion from Japan. Hopefully, the president thinks he will probably get some troops as well.
Back to you -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's Dana Bash for us traveling with the president. Dana, thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
