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10 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq; WWII Memorial Opens
Aired April 29, 2004 - 13:59 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with him in the first place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush goes on record with the 9/11 Commission, saying he has nothing to hide.
Resistance and impatience, what do Iraqis really think of occupation forces? A new an extraordinary poll you'll find only here on CNN of people in Iraq.
Clearing the air in America, breathe deep, how does your city stack up when it comes to something as simple as that, breathing?
And what's it like to cut the most famous fleece in the world? Lots of pressure, a woolly "tale" this hour, we'll talk to the hairdresser to the sheer-shy sheep; easy for others to say.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.
Out of sight and off-mike, President Bush and Vice President Cheney went behind closed doors with the 9/11 Commission today. It was a rare private session. No recordings were allowed, but commissioners took notes. So did the White House. White House correspondent Dana Bash joins us with more on all of this -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles. Well, as you and I discussed last hour, it is always a good idea for politicians and government officials to try to get out ahead and define a story before others can do it for you. And that's exactly what the president did about 45 minutes ago.
He came out to the Rose Garden just a little over half an hour after the three-hour session ended. And of course, we remember the idea of the 9/11 Commission is something that the White House resisted for some time. And there was a lot of negotiation once they, of course, went ahead with this commission over exactly how the president and vice president would testify. When the president came out, he said that he was pleased.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time. This was an important commission. And it is important that they ask the questions they asked so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland, and I enjoyed it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, the other sort of controversial part of today's session was the fact that the president and vice president testified together. Democrats have been suggesting that the reason why they did that is to make sure that they didn't contradict one another. And there were other questions raised, too. The president himself was asked about this a couple of weeks ago during his primetime press conference and didn't answer. Today he was asked again why he testified with the vice president and he had an answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in first place. We answered all of their questions. And as I say, I think -- I came away good about the session, because I wanted them to know, you know, how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now there was no official transcript taken of this session. There was no stenographer there. It was simply a note- taking session by the members of the commission and then, of course, the White House counsel was there and two members of his staff were also there to take notes.
For the second day in a row, the president was asked why he did not agree to have an official transcript made for the history books and for the families of the 9/11 victims. And for the second day in a row, the president simply didn't answer the question.
Now for the commission, for its part, they put out a release, a press release shortly after the session end, and they said that it was extraordinary. That was the term used in their statement. They said that the president and vice president were forthcoming and candid, and that the information, they believe, will be of great assistance according to the statement to the commission as it completes its final report.
One thing that the president did mention that's worth noting is that they talked about the recommendations. And that is something that's important to note here because as much as the commission was interested in getting information about the days leading up to 9/11, 9/11 itself and the policies and the attitudes of the administration, they also are interested in getting the president and the White House on board with what recommendations they are going to put forward when this commission is over on how to fix the intelligence agencies, fix the intelligence communities. That was also a part of the discussion today -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So it was a bit of a two-way discussion in that respect, I suspect, Dana. Give us a sense what's next and how much of what went on behind closed doors in the Oval Office the public will ever see or hear?
BASH: Likely not much, Miles. Again, it was about three hours, a little over three hours of a question and answer sessions. The president gave a little bit of information just talking about the fact that they did discuss obviously September 11 and some of the practices leading up to it.
But the commission has been under some fire from Republicans especially, for seeming overly partisan, for seeming too public and doing interviews and being too forthcoming, if you will, on what they are learning. So it is unlikely that we're going to see a lot of details coming out of this, although you never know what we can learn from talking to sources who were there. But they're going to try to be very tight-lipped about this.
Of course, the major report that is going to come from the 9/11 Commission will be in July. That's when they finish their work and then negotiations are going to start over what can be declassified from that for the public.
O'BRIEN: All right, of course, nothing ever leaks in Washington, does it, Dana Bash?
BASH: Never.
O'BRIEN: All right. We'll stay tuned for that. Not so fast in Fallujah, talks but no deals in that hotbed of Iraqi violence. And the all too familiar sounds of gunfire and airstrikes to tell you about. Details in the fourth straight day of open combat, few and far between right now. Nearer Baghdad, 10 U.S. troops were killed today in three separate attacks.
CNN's Ben Wedeman is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CAIRO BUREAU CHIEF: Efforts continue to resolve the standoff in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad. There U.S. Marines have been in talks with a group of former army officers from Saddam Hussein's army. Those officers apparently have come forward to the Marines, offering to assist in ending this standoff. They apparently are volunteering anywhere between 600 and 1000 men, this according to a senior military spokesman in Baghdad.
Those men will adopt security duties in and around Fallujah, assisting the United States Marines who possibly, if this agreement works out, will pull back. But this is only an agreement or an understanding between the U.S. Marines and this group of former army officers. The insurgents, however, remain steadfast. They are putting out no indication of whether they are willing to accept the presence of this de facto Iraqi security force in Fallujah.
And if they needed a reminder, however, that the United States is still poised on the edge of Fallujah to go in, if things don't work out, it came on Thursday evening when a U.S. F-18 aircraft dropped bombs on the southwestern part of the city. Meanwhile, in other parts of Iraq, continued violence. In the town of Mahmoudiya to the south of Baghdad, eight soldiers with the 1st Armored Division were killed and four wounded by a car bomb.
In Baghdad itself a U.S. convoy was ambushed with rocket- propelled grenades. In that instance one U.S. soldier lost his life. And as has happened often in many of these attacks, a crowd converged upon the damaged vehicles, some of them climbing on top, chanting "long live Sadr," of course, referring to Muqtada Sadr, who leads the Mehdi Army, a militia that at this point is in control of the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Another U.S. soldier killed in Ba'qubah to the northeast of Baghdad.
I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Since long before the war, we've endeavored to bring you the views and impressions of ordinary Iraqis. And now we can scientifically. A groundbreaking poll done for CNN, "USA Today," and Gallup reflects the opinions of more than 90 percent of Iraq's diverse population.
Among the findings, about half say their families are better off since the U.S. invasion. A quarter say their families are worse off. Another quarter see no change at all. About half also say the war was unjustified. Only three in 10 say it was justified. We want to point out the poll's 2 percentage point sampling error and the dates of the interviews. It happened before the surge in violence in we've been telling you a bit in Fallujah. Joining me now to try to make sense of these numbers is Richard Burkholder, Gallup's director of International Polling. And more accurately, to tell us a little bit about how he got those numbers together.
Good to have you with us.
RICHARD BURKHOLDER, GALLUP POLLSTER: Thanks for having me.
O'BRIEN: I suppose when somebody called you and said, let's poll Iraqis, you thought, uh-oh, that's going to be a tough task.
BURKHOLDER: Precisely. And then you work on it for a while. Actually this was the second wave. Last summer we went in pretty early in June and July and did a poll. At that point we could only do Baghdad, but now we had to push it out to the entire country, and because of the security situation, that was a real challenge..
O'BRIEN: All right, let's be clear about who was actually doing the face-to-face interviews, because I can only imagine if Americans were trying to do this, they would get different answers than if you had Iraqis.
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. This has to look like an Iraqi to Iraqi conversation about their hopes and their aspirations in order to get a clean read. We actually used interviewers who were Iraqis from their central statistics office, it's a lot like our Census Bureau. We originally thought last June when we went in there that we would have to bring in foreign Arab interviewers. But it turned out there were folks who had been vetted, trained and supervised. And at the insistence both of the Iraqi side and of the American coalition forces, the coalition government, we used these people, vetted them, supervised them, trained them. And this was a real labor of love for them to get a measure of the hopes and aspirations of their countrymen for the future.
O'BRIEN: And what did -- how much difficulty did they have? I mean, the obvious first question here is the security problem. But then again you're using Iraqis who presumably don't feel the security concerns that Americans do.
BURKHOLDER: Well, yes and no. There are still logistical problems. There's still common crime. There are still problems moving across areas. So for example, we could get -- we finished interviewing in Fallujah, as your lead-in said, just before the real outbreak of violence. But by the time our interviewers were trying to get in after they got the questionnaires out, the Marines had cordoned off the city.
We had troubles getting questionnaires out from Basra. There were roads that were closed for a while up into Baghdad. We even had troubles getting questionnaires down from the northeast, Kurdish with Kurdish license plates, because there were rumors that there were Peshmerga coming down to fight around Fallujah on behalf of the U.S. forces. So there were lots of sort of technical logistical issues that we had to deal with day to day.
O'BRIEN: And in this day and age of telephone polling here in this country, it really was a throwback for your organization, wasn't it?
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. And I'm old enough to remember the days -- to have been here at Gallup in the days when we did our primary work, and even our U.S. election forecasting the same way. A pure probability household sample in-home, in-person of the whole country back when telephone ownership levels weren't quite high enough to predict elections that way.
But this is the way we typically do work where I've done work in China on consumer surveys, in India, in Latin America. You still have to go face to face, door to door, random selections of areas, then of households, then of neighborhoods, then of households within the areas, and then of the adults within the households, so that you get a proper cross-section.
O'BRIEN: If we were to take a poll of those polled, what percentage of them would say they were happy to talk?
BURKHOLDER: A very high percentage. We had almost 98 percent cooperation on this. In fact, one of the problems you had was people coming up and saying -- neighbors coming up and saying, you didn't select me. I want to talk about what we've been through and what my hopes are. People know that the past regime is gone. And we had a balanced questionnaire. We didn't get pushed back. We pre-test for a while. But really people are overwhelmingly willing to talk.
O'BRIEN: It's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to you and your organization on pulling it off.
BURKHOLDER: Thank you for helping sponsor it.
O'BRIEN: All right. Richard Burkholder is with Gallup organization, he's director of International Polling, and this is international with a capital "I" in this case. Thank you very much.
We'll have more eye-opening poll results later this hour, and a whole new batch pertaining to the future of Iraq is released on "INSIDE POLITICS," that comes up at 3:30 Eastern, 12:30 Pacific right here on CNN. Stay tuned for that.
How do you honor America's greatest generation?
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, we can answer that here. These words: "A day which will live in infamy." The words that ushered the United States into World War II. We are here at the World Was II Memorial, perhaps America's most celebrated generation is being honored today in a very big way. We'll have that story coming up live.
O'BRIEN: A snapshot from the universe, we've got cool new pictures of far flung beauty. That's a nebula that the Hubbell just picked up. Isn't that awesome? It's so cool it looks fake, but it's real. We're going to go to space ahead on LIVE FROM...
And a LIVE FROM... investigation, what really happened when Shrek got his hair cut? We're talking to the man. You might call him New Zealand's Edward Scissorhands. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. This just in to CNN, we are confirming what we've been telling you about, what has been rumored quite a bit. Google, the Internet search engine, which is so good it became a verb and really defined the capabilities of searching the Internet, that company is, in fact, going to go public, an initial public offering. We don't have much more detail for you on that just yet, except to tell you it will be quite a bonanza when that happens for some. For insight on Google right now, we'll get more on that from Rhonda Schaffler in business in just a few moments.
Remembering those who fought World War II, the Washington Memorial to the 16 million U.S. men and women who served during World War II, 400,000 of whom died, is now open to the public. Today's event is just a prelude to next month's dedication.
CNN's Sean Callebs is there -- Sean.
CALLEBS: Indeed, Miles, you're exactly right. The formal dedication Memorial Day weekend, they're going to expect hundreds of thousands of people. Today the first day the public has a chance to come down here to this three-acre monument here in the heart of the Washington Mall to get a look at this World War II Memorial.
Back there you see really one of the bookends. It says "Pacific" at the top, and it really kind of spells out the U.S. involvement in the Pacific theater. But in the last hour, Miles, you asked me just a bit about these pillars that are here as well. On the top, you see wreaths, on one side a wreath of wheat, on the other side, a wreath of oak, representing the U.S. strength in industry as well as agriculture.
You also asked about this, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, and such, it really -- about the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories and their entry into the union, that's the way it is spelled out here.
It has been interesting to watch the thousands of people down here today. There have been a number of veterans who come down through here. And the people, are stopping, talking to these World War II veterans, telling them how proud they are of them. And indeed, they were the greatest nation.
A bit of a controversy, though, if you look up this way you can see the Lincoln Memorial. This, of course, at one end of the mall, then the reflecting pool where this monument was really built around, and then if you look up at the other end of the Mall behind me, you can see the Washington Monument.
Now, there was a lawsuit filed, trying to stop construction of this memorial, concerned that it would take away from the aesthetic value. But talking to the people here, it has done anything but that.
There is one small glitch. We're going to point that out to you here. Here is the quote from Admiral Chester Nimitz, Chester A. Nimitz? It is supposed to be Chester W. Nimitz. We'll talked to the Park Service. They say they're going to correct this. But when you point this out to legions of people here today to honor the World War II veterans, they say it is such a small blemish, it really doesn't bother them in the least.
One hundred and seventy-five million dollars, Miles, the money came from private donations., today, the first day the public has had a chance to get to see it. If you want to, get down here early. As I mentioned, Memorial Day weekend, this place is going to be packed, expect 800,000 people. Miles, back to you.
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs, thank you very much.
OK. As we begin this next story, take a deep breath. That is, unless you live in Southern California. You might want to reach for a filter mask first. The American Lung Association says almost half of the U.S. population now lives in areas with health threatening levels of what in the ever so hip '70s we called smog.
Now, the preferred term seems to be ozone pollution. But no matter what you call it, we know what we're talking about here. Poor California has seven of the top 10 offenders, but Houston, Texas, Knoxville, Tennessee and the Dallas/FortWorth area also rate dubious mention in the rank air rankings.
New this year, the Lung Association also rates cities for particle pollution which tracks microscopic particles from power plant emissions, diesel exhaust and other sources. Again California floats to the top of the list, Pittsburgh also in the top five. And here's the rest of the bad breath bunch, including our headquarter city, Atlanta, which any allergy sufferer can tell you is pollen central this time of year, in addition to whatever else is in the air. Plenty of particles here. Twenty-five percent of Americans live in an area where particle pollution reaches unhealthy levels.
The war in Iraq is provoking some strong opinions across the Arab world. And the Arab television network Al Jazeera has been doing some of its own eye-opening, if not scientific, polling. We'll have that for you just ahead.
And Uncle Sam to Al Sharpton, you owe some money. Find out why his campaign is going to have to cough up some cash straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go live now to the White House briefing on this historic day at the White House. Let's listen to Scott McClellan.
(LIVE EVENT)
MCCLELLAN: Good afternoon.
The president was pleased to sit down with the 9/11 commission earlier today. The president believes the 9/11 commission's work is very important to helping us win the war on terrorism.
It is extraordinary for a sitting president of the United States to sit down with a legislatively created commission, but the circumstances are extraordinary, and that is why the president felt it was important to meet with members of the 9/11 commission.
The meeting was an opportunity for the president to discuss the seriousness with which we took the threat from Al Qaida, the steps we were taking to confront it, and the actions we have taken to respond to the horrific attacks of September the 11th.
September 11th changed the equation when it comes to confronting the threat from terrorism. The president believes the most important lesson of September 11th is that we must confront threats before it is too late. That is why we are on the offensive and taking decisive action to win the war on terrorism. The best way to win the war on terrorism is to go after the terrorists and bring them to justice before they can carry out their attacks.
We've also taken significant steps to better secure the homeland and be prepared to respond in the event of an attack. We've worked to create the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization in some 50 years of government.
We worked to pass the Patriot Act to provide law enforcement with vital tools to prevent attacks from happening in the first place.
That is also why we worked to create the Terrorist Threat Integration Center to improve our intelligence sharing and analysis.
The administration has provided the 9/11 commission unprecedented access to information, including our nation's most sensitive national security documents.
We have provided the commission with more than 2 million pages of documents and hundreds of briefings and interviews with administration officials.
The president very much appreciates the important work of the 9/11 commission. He looks forward to seeing their report and recommendations.
And with that, I'll be glad to take your questions.
QUESTION: Scott, what was the president's goal here in terms of explaining to the commission how this administration saw the threat from Al Qaida prior to 9/11?
MCCLELLAN: I think his goal was the goal of the commission and many other people, and that is to make sure that we learn the lessons of September 11th and to make sure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect the American people and win the war on terrorism.
And we have taken significant steps since September 11th, but if the commission has additional recommendations on ways to better protect the homeland and win the war on terrorism, this president wants to see them as soon as possible.
QUESTION: Was the president's position before the commission that the administration had done all it could to respond to the threat from Al Qaida?
MCCLELLAN: I think the president talked about this in his news conference. Looking back, he wishes we had had certain things in place. He wishes we had had the Department of Homeland Security in place prior to September 11th. He wishes that we had the Patriot Act in place. And he wishes that we were in a position to better share the intelligence information that we had.
This is something that happened on his watch. And he very much supports the work of the commission and wants to see their report and see their recommendations and act on those recommendations.
QUESTION: Did he repeat that the August 6th memo did not point to a specific threat?
MCCLELLAN: I think that's kind of getting into the substance of the discussion. I think the president was asked a little bit about that in the meeting. The president was pleased to sit down with the commission. It was a very cordial meeting. The president thought they had a number of thoughtful questions, and he was pleased to answer all the questions that they asked. He was pleased to sit down with them for more than three hours and visit with them about all these issues.
But this was a private meeting. And I think I'll leave to it the commission's final report to address a lot of those issues.
QUESTION: You said the discussion about the August 6th memo covered the same ground we've heard before?
MCCLELLAN: I think you've heard from Dr. Rice and others in the administration relating to that. I'm just not going to get into a discussion of the private meeting the president had with the commission.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... on that particular point that the administration's position on the information contained in the PDB has not changed?
MCCLELLAN: I think you've heard our views.
QUESTION: Mr. President and the vice president cleared three hours of their schedule here today. Two members of the commission left early. We saw Vice Chairman Hamilton and Senator Kerrey leave early. Can you explain why, and what the White House reaction is?
MCCLELLAN: I think you'd have to ask those members. I don't know what their other commitments were.
QUESTION: Was the White House aware that these members would leave?
MCCLELLAN: I would direct those questions to the members. I'm not going to try to speak for those members.
QUESTION: Was the White House aware in advance that two members would walk out during the session?
MCCLELLAN: I think there may have been some discussion that there were some other commitments those members may have had, but you can direct those questions to them.
QUESTION: Then during the public sessions of the 9/11 commission from time to time it got a little adversarial.
QUESTION: Was there any of that in this?
MCCLELLAN: No, I think you heard from the president. He talked about how it was cordial. And I think it was a respectful meeting.
Like I said, he appreciates very much the work that the 9/11 commission is doing. This is very important work. And their report and their recommendations can help us win the war on terrorism, help us better protect the homeland, and that's why he very much looks forward to seeing their report.
QUESTION: I'm changing the subject slightly. A Gallup poll says that the majority of the Iraqis want the Americans out of their country. What is your reaction to that?
MCCLELLAN: Well, a couple of things, one, I think the president talked about this in his press conference a couple weeks ago. He said no one wants to be occupied. We don't want to be occupiers. Of course the Iraqi people want to run their country. And that is why we're working to move forward as quickly as possible to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people, and we're going to do that on June 30th.
I would also note that in that poll that many Iraqis feel that despite the hardships that they've been through, it was very much worth it to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The world is better off and America is more secure because Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
QUESTION: Are you able to give any date of when all Americans will be out?
MCCLELLAN: We are going to stay to finish the job and make sure that there is a free and peaceful Iraq. I think...
QUESTION: Were you surprised at the poll?
MCCLELLAN: No, look, I think the president talked about it in his press conference a couple weeks ago that very question.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: Of course no one wants to be occupied. We don't want to be occupiers. But we liberated the country, and now we're there to help the Iraqi people realize a free and peaceful future because that is critical to winning the war on terrorism.
MCCLELLAN: That's why we're there. A free and peaceful Iraq...
QUESTION: ... didn't go in to win the war on terrorism when we invaded Iraq...
MCCLELLAN: A free and peaceful Iraq -- this is a broad war on terrorism that we are undertaking. The president believes that we must take strong and decisive action to eliminate the threats that we face.
That's what September 11th taught us, which is what we're talking about right now.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... terrorism by invading Iraq?
MCCLELLAN: Terrorists have no regard for innocent life. They will carry out their attacks without discretion. They want to harm innocent men, women and children and spread fear and chaos.
And I think that if you go back to what David Kay said in one of his reports -- or after one of his reports -- he said that Iraq was potentially even more dangerous than we thought prior to September 11th. He talked about it. You can go back to his comments.
QUESTION: How much of a readout did you get from either the president or Judge Gonzalez on the substance of the meeting...
MCCLELLAN: I talked to the president after the meeting. But I'm not going to get into discussing the substance of the meeting. The president said he felt that was best left to others to address. And I think they'll obviously be addressing all these issues in their final report.
QUESTION: So he did not discuss with you, and you don't know in terms of the president said they discussed a wide range of topics, you don't know...
MCCLELLAN: He said that. He said, out in the Rose Garden, he talked about how they discussed a wide range of topics. And I did visit with him afterwards but I'm not going to get into the substance of the discussion.
QUESTION: You did say that they discussed the August 6th PDB. Can you...
MCCLELLAN: No, I didn't. I said our views are very well known.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) you did say it came up in the meeting.
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: I think you did say that it came up in the meeting.
MCCLELLAN: I don't think I did.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: What that in response to? I don't remember saying it. I don't recall saying it to that specific question.
QUESTION: OK, I was going to say that if that came up, did you get any sense from the president about how much time they might have spent on this testimony by Mr. Clarke, who says that the president and Dr. Rice were...
MCCLELLAN: Again, I'm going to let the commission's report speak to all of these issues, and that will be coming out soon enough.
QUESTION: The president also talked about how he was interested in the recommendations...
MCCLELLAN: I would point out what the commission said in their statement. They did say that it was extraordinary and talked about how it lasted for more than three hours. And they went on to talk about how the president and vice president were very forthcoming and candid, according to their statement. And they talked about how the information that was provided to them by the president and vice president was of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report.
And they thanked the president and vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission. We've been working closely and cooperatively with the commission from the beginning.
QUESTION: The president said in the Rose Garden that he was very interested in the recommendations, that the commission talked about what they've been looking for and that he was very interested in that. Can you characterize the discussions on that?
Did they talk about specific proposals? As you know, many members of the commission have said there needs to be some domestic intelligence agency. The president has said he would consider that, because...
MCCLELLAN: I'll leave it to what the president said in the Rose Garden. He touched on that subject. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Did anyone at the White House ask the commission today to not discuss the contents or substance of the three hours?
MCCLELLAN: Not that I'm aware of. I mean, I think that the commission, if you look back to the private meeting they had with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, addressed this the same way. They put out a statement afterwards. And I don't think they really got into any substantive discussion about any of the issues. They maybe talked very generally about it.
QUESTION: Can you discuss what you think is different about the president and vice president's meeting as opposed to former president Clinton and Gore? Because in those interviews with the 9/11 commission, they were recorded.
QUESTION: Why didn't President Bush and the vice president allow their meeting to be...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think this is consistent with many important meetings that we have at the White House, and certainly meetings that the president has in the Oval Office.
There are many important meetings, whether they are meetings with world leaders or National Security Council meetings or policy briefings on high priorities, where notes are taken.
QUESTION: Probably none of those were on the level of importance of determining what went wrong on September 11th.
MCCLELLAN: Well, let's see, the NSC meeting that the president had when he decided to launch war and go into Afghanistan, notes were taken from that meeting. It wasn't recorded. So I think that I would disagree with that somewhat, but there were detailed notes taken of this meeting.
QUESTION: You mentioned yesterday that you anticipated that most of the questions would be to the president. Obviously...
MCCLELLAN: To my understanding, that's the way it was.
QUESTION: That's the way it was?
MCCLELLAN: Yes.
QUESTION: The president indicated that there were obviously some questions to the vice president as well. Do you have some feel for how the questions were divided up?
MCCLELLAN: I'm not going to try to break it down to that extent. But the president answered most of the questions because most of the questions were directed to him, as I said they probably would be.
QUESTION: Is it safe to say they were on the same page?
MCCLELLAN: Safe to say they were in the same room.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: Can you characterize at all the extent to which the commissioners were interested in what happened on the day of the attacks as opposed to all of the other issues involved here?
MCCLELLAN: Again, I'm just not going to get into discussion of the substance of the meeting at this point.
QUESTION: The president said it was important for the commission to see him and the vice president together, to see their body language, to see how they work together.
QUESTION: Were we to take that as an indication that both answered some of the same questions? In other words, a question was posed, you'd get an answer from one and then an answer from the other.
MCCLELLAN: Look, I wasn't the meeting, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out that the president maybe addressed some things and the vice president may have added some comments. I wouldn't rule that out. But, again, I wasn't in the meeting and I'm not going to get too far into discussion on the substance of those discussions.
QUESTION: What does that mean: "Judging by their body language."
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: What does that mean, what does the president mean when he says that?
MCCLELLAN: You're talking about what he said in the Rose Garden?
QUESTION: Yes.
MCCLELLAN: Well, let's look back at what he said. Well, I think that he was obviously there in the room. They were sitting very close together. They were all sitting somewhat in a circle. And he felt it was a very cordial meeting. They had a very good discussion. He felt it was a great meeting. He appreciated the opportunity to share his views and thoughts with the commission and to talk about what we were doing.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: You keep jumping in here, I'm going to keep going back to other people, and maybe we'll come back.
QUESTION: Your last answer actually anticipated some of my question. Could you describe in some detail the physical layout of the meeting in terms of...
MCCLELLAN: Well, it's the Oval Office, and you know how the Oval Office is set up. And you have the two chairs in front of the fireplace, and that's where the president and vice president sat, as they typically do. And then members of the commission were sitting on the couch, as well as chairs right at the end of those couches. They were kind of in a little bit of a semicircle shape.
QUESTION: The chairs were at the opposite end from the president and the vice president?
MCCLELLAN: Yes, that's right. That's correct. Close to the desk.
QUESTION: And the president was seated on the right or the left...
MCCLELLAN: In his usual seat where he sits. So if you're standing in front of the fireplace, facing his desk, he's to the left.
QUESTION: Why did you decide to do it in the Oval as opposed to say the, say the...
MCCLELLAN: Well, there are a lot of important meetings that take place in the Oval. I talked about meetings with world leaders and, then, certainly, policy briefings. So the president viewed it as a good way to sit down and discuss these important issues with members of the commission.
QUESTION: Part of the calculation -- just one more, if I may -- was part of the calculation -- you used the word "sitting together" somewhat informally -- was part of the calculation that a setting like that in the Oval would be less potentially adversarial than...
MCCLELLAN: I don't think I would look at it like that. I don't think anyone came in looking at this meeting as something that was adversarial. I think they came into this meeting looking to find some answers to their questions. And I think that they got those answers to their questions to help piece together the information that they've already been provided to -- have access to. QUESTION: Did the White House take stills?
MCCLELLAN: I think there were some pictures taken at the beginning.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: I don't think we're going to. I mean, this was a private meeting.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: I don't recall specifically. I know -- I think Chairman Kean was on the couch close to the president. I'm not sure where Chairman Hamilton was.
QUESTION: Scott, who brought the meeting to an end? And how...
MCCLELLAN: It ended. Look, I mean...
QUESTION: ... did it end...
MCCLELLAN: No, it wasn't. No. It wasn't something he ended. It came to an end. I think that they were very satisfied with the time that they were allotted or that they had with the president. But I think that typically the chairman kind of looks for a good opportunity when they've had their questions answered to wrap things up. But the president was pleased to sit down and visit with them for, I believe, it was three hours and 10 minutes, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.
QUESTION: Isn't it possible for you to release a still -- one of the stills that you took? I mean, you know we're going to see them on the hall here...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I understand this, but I also want to keep in mind that the way this was set up was as a private meeting, and I want to be respectful of that, too. But I always take it under advisement.
QUESTION: Did the president agree at all to answer any follow-up questions like most of the other witnesses, or people that the...
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry, did he what?
QUESTION: Did he agree to answer any follow-up questions?
MCCLELLAN: I think there were certainly follow up questions.
QUESTION: No, no, no. I meant in the future, over the next few weeks. Because the commission has asked all the other people they've interviewed if they would mind being contacted in the future, even if it's informally, not in this...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the best way to address that is to let me just say that we're going to continue to provide close cooperation with the commission to help them complete their work. We're going to continue working very closely with them. I don't know that that specifically came up.
Again, I wasn't in the meeting, but we're going to continue to work closely and cooperatively with the commission to help them complete their work on the time table that has been set out.
QUESTION: Do you know if there are any more discussions about the parameters of what in this meeting will or will not be included in the commission's final report?
MCCLELLAN: Well, obviously, when you're talking about some information that may be classified, you have to take that into account, and certainly I think in private meetings that they have, you can expect classified information was discussed.
So you have to look at those issues. And you discuss that with the commission and you work all those -- work that out with the commission. But I think that they will have the information they need to provide a comprehensive and thorough report to the American people.
In their very statement they talked about how the president and vice president were of great assistance to them and very helpful to them in completing their work.
QUESTION: So with the exception of classified information, people can anticipate that they will see the contents of this?
MCCLELLAN: Well, you'll have the report before too long. You'll be able to see what's in it. But the whole purpose of the president sitting down and visiting with the commission was to answer questions that they may have and help them piece together all the information they have, and as he talked about, to talk about our strategy for addressing these threats as well.
QUESTION: Any chance of the seating chart? Will you be releasing a seating chart?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know that we took -- we certainly didn't take a seating chart at the beginning and they're gone now, so I don't really anticipate that.
QUESTION: Governor Thompson said after the meeting that he thought it went well and he wishes the American people would have been able to see this on television.
QUESTION: What is the thinking now in hindsight of not releasing a picture or any part of this, given that he said it went well and you're saying it went well?
MCCLELLAN: Yes, the American people are going to have a report from this commission, and they're going to be able to see what the commission has learned. They're going to be able to see what the commission recommends. The president very much wants to see the report and see their recommendations, and makes sure that we take steps to act on those recommendations as well.
QUESTION: Were there any breaks in the meeting, or was it a solid three hours?
MCCLELLAN: No, it went the full time.
QUESTION: Was the president in the room the whole time, or did he...
MCCLELLAN: Yes, he was in the room the whole time.
QUESTION: Regarding the detailed notes that were taken, will the White House provide the commission with its notes of today's meeting?
MCCLELLAN: The commission took its own notes and stuff. And so we're working to make sure they have all the information they need to complete their report. And we expect that.
QUESTION: ... taken by the White House?
MCCLELLAN: They'll have all the information they need to complete their work. They were all there, all members I think probably took some of their own notes. They had a staff member there to take detailed notes. And I fully expect, if they have follow up issues they want to address to the administration in those notes or anything like that, we'll work with them to make sure they have the information they need.
QUESTION: Some Republicans on Capitol Hill believe that the work of the 9/11 commission won't be complete until and unless Jamie Gorelick testifies before the commission on her role in building the wall between intelligence and law enforcement. Is that an opinion shared by the White House?
MCCLELLAN: Look, the president, I think even at the beginning of the meeting, he made some brief remarks. He didn't have a prepared opening statement or anything like that, but certainly made some opening remarks at the beginning.
And essentially I think he thanked them for the work that they're doing, talked about how he appreciated what they were doing, and that their work is very important to what we are doing to protect the American people.
And I think that the president looks at this and doesn't believe that there ought to be finger-pointing. We ought to all be working together, to learn the lessons of September 11th and make sure that we are doing everything that we can to protect the homeland and win the war on terrorism. That's the way he looks at it.
QUESTION: The Justice Department keeps releasing documents, they released another -- they declassified 30 pages yesterday, that reinforced the idea that...
MCCLELLAN: I think the president...
QUESTION: ... Commissioner Gorelick has more than she could...
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: No, I understand. That's what the Justice Department did; we were not involved in it. I think the president was disappointed about that.
QUESTION: The president was disappointed in the Justice Department releasing those documents?
MCCLELLAN: Putting that on their Web site, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Why?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: He actually expressed that to the commission as well.
QUESTION: But did he talk to...
QUESTION: How about to Ashcroft?
QUESTION: Yes, to General Ashcroft?
MCCLELLAN: I think it's been communicated to the Justice Department.
QUESTION: So why was he disappointed...
MCCLELLAN: Well, like I said, it's what I said at the beginning. The president does not believe we ought to be pointing fingers during this time period. We ought to be working together to help the commission complete its work. This is very important work that they are doing that will help us in our efforts to carry out the president's most solemn responsibility, which is to protect the American people.
QUESTION: Would he consider releasing his opening remarks to the commission?
MCCLELLAN: We didn't have a transcript. We took notes. But again...
QUESTION: Let's see how accurate the notes are.
MCCLELLAN: Go ahead.
QUESTION: Word from China is North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear weapons and stop making more for a price. Is the president willing to bargain and open a direct dialogue with North Korea or is...
MCCLELLAN: That approach didn't work previously. North Korea violated their agreement. And the president believes that it's important to work through the multilateral six-party talks to bring about a peaceful diplomatic resolution to this concern. This is a very serious concern of ours. It's a very serious concern for countries in the region. And that's why we're working together with China and South Korea and Japan and others to bring about a peaceful resolution.
And we look forward to having working group talks in May at some point, and China I think will be making an official announcement on that. I don't know that they have at this point. But we want to see progress in these talks.
North Korea needs to dismantle its nuclear program in a verifiable and irreversible way, and we want to see progress toward that in these talks. And we're going in these talks without any set preconditions. That's the shared goal of all the countries that are involved in these multiparty talks.
QUESTION: Does the president plan to attend the official dedication of the War Memorial on Memorial Day? If not, now that the memorial is open to the public, will he just...
MCCLELLAN: I think he would be honored to do that. But we haven't announced his schedule at this point. But we will be announcing his schedule soon.
QUESTION: First, just on the commission briefing, are these commissioners paid?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know. I'd imagine they're reimbursed for or are paid for expenses. I don't know. You can direct those questions to the commission. I'm sure that in the legislation they set up some sort of, for expenses.
QUESTION: Is the president watching, at all, this anti-Semitism conference going on in Germany?
MCCLELLAN: Very aware of the discussions when it comes to anti- Semitism. And all of us must speak out and confront anti-Semitism wherever it exists. And the president has a strong record of speaking out on these issues.
QUESTION: Does he send his own communication to them..
MCCLELLAN: Well, Secretary Powell was there representing the administration. And you have comments from him.
QUESTION: Today the history was made at the Capitol, 32 Senators from both parties, under the leadership of Senator Clinton and John (inaudible). The dedicated first ever U.S.-India (inaudible) in the U.S. Senate they call the India Caucus in the U.S. Senate.
Both parties leaders from the (inaudible) time has come for the United States and India to work together and prevent the (inaudible) of Cold War is over now and now work together and fight against terrorism. What I need a comment from the president is that you can say that how the president feels something like this a club or caucus on the Capitol Hill, from the both parties are supporting and not just...
MCCLELLAN: Well, we're working together wit India in a number of different ways to confront common challenges. And we're working together in the war on terrorism. And so he appreciates efforts certainly that move in the direction of strengthening our relations even more.
I'm not sure of the specific step that was taken on the Hill today. But I'll be glad to look at it.
QUESTION: Does the president support something like this, the caucus...
MCCLELLAN: Like I said, I've not seen exactly what action was taken. But I'll be glad to look at it.
QUESTION: After the testimony this morning, President Bush went out to the Rose Garden to let America know everything was OK. But apparently everything isn't OK.
CBS and the New York Times have come up with a poll saying that Kerry's beating him 46 percent to 44 percent. And Democrats are saying that the president has raised more money than they have, outspent them, and he's still in trouble.
MCCLELLAN: Well, one, I think you're getting into campaign questions. I'm sure the campaign would be glad to talk to you about some of those issues in terms of the spending and all the outside groups that are involved in that as well. I think you might want to look at that, too.
But look, this is about making the world safer and better and making America more secure. The president is not driven by polls. There are going to be a lot of polls between now and Election Day.
But there are clear choices that we face as we move forward to win the war on terrorism, and there are clear differences in how we approach the war on terrorism.
There are also clear differences on how we approach our economy. You know, today's GDP numbers are another indication that our economy is strong and growing stronger. There are a number of positive indicators that the economy is moving in the right direction.
But there are fundamental differences on these issues, and we're going to continue talking about the clear choices that we face.
But we are waging a broad war on terrorism to make America safer and more secure and to make the world a better place.
QUESTION: On a day where he's trying to garner the nation's support, as many people were concerned about what he was going to give to the 9/11 commission, his numbers have fallen. What do you think that says to the American public?
MCCLELLAN: There are going to be a lot of polls between now and November.
QUESTION: We're coming upon the one-year anniversary of when the president landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared major combat operations were over under the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Is there now in retrospect a feeling that the president was overly optimistic and maybe misled Americans, and now leading to a certain amount of buyer's remorse in some of these polls, and this is going to be more of a headache than an asset for him?
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the president was honored to go and thank our troops on board the USS Lincoln for all that they had done in our efforts in Iraq. He was pleased to go to the USS Lincoln and thank the sailors on board the ship and thank the pilots on board the ship and thank other men and women in the military who were on board the ship.
They had completed their mission and were returning back to America. And it was a nice thing for the president of the United States to do on behalf of the nation.
QUESTION: He also declared major combat operations over and gave a sense...
MCCLELLAN: Yes, but let's go back and look at his remarks. He also declared that there is more to do, that difficulties remain in Iraq.
QUESTION: Is it still true that major combat operations are over?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: No, no, no. No. What is said is still correct, but there are still certainly combat operations and dangers that remain in Iraq. I mean, our troops are doing an outstanding job. They are preforming brilliantly in their efforts to bring about a free, peaceful Iraq, which is critical to winning the war on terrorism.
QUESTION: What you said about the Justice Department and the president's displeasure is pretty remarkable. Can you tell us, who conveyed his displeasure to the Justice Department and how? And has the president or anyone at the White House, Judge Gonzales, asked for any kind of accountability on how the Justice Department would have released these documents...
MCCLELLAN: I don't think so on that, but it's been communicated, I believe, at the staff level.
QUESTION: Judge Gonzales or...
MCCLELLAN: It's been communicated at the staff level. I think I'll leave it at that.
QUESTION: Was anyone at the White House aware of those documents or involved in their release at all?
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry? No, we weren't involved in that decision.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: Well, actually, I addressed that earlier, I think twice.
QUESTION: Are you upset over the fact that the Justice Department did this without coordinating with the White House?
MCCLELLAN: I think he's disappointed that it was, that that information was placed on their Web site like that.
QUESTION: You mean without clearing it with the White House first? Is that part of it?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know if I -- I think I'm looking more at what happened and what was put up on the Web site. I don't know about what you're asking.
QUESTION: What's the concern? I mean, obviously the president had a concern if he mentioned it to the commission. What is the concern?
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry? What is the concern? Like I said, he very much appreciates the work that the 9/11 commission is doing. He appreciates the work that all the members on the commission are doing. Their work is very important. He believes that we should all be working together to help the commission complete its work and not pointing fingers at one another.
I think I'll just leave it where I did.
QUESTION: Is he aware that that information is still there?
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Just for posterity, I know you're loathe to name names, but can you tell us by, say, job title, who on the White House staff was in the room?
MCCLELLAN: Who was in the -- oh, in the Oval Office during the 9/11 commission meeting? I said that earlier today when I was asked about it. You had Judge Gonzales. And then you had Tom Manheim (ph), who has been working very closely with the 9/11 commission. He works in our office. I did check with them to make sure that they knew I was going to mention their names.
MCCLELLAN: And then Bryan Cunningham, who is in the NSC counsel's office.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: He works very closely on these issues as well, working to help the 9/11 commission complete their work.
QUESTION: On the issue with Justice, does the president not believe that Gorelick's actions are worthy of looking at? Or is he just concerned with the way...
MCCLELLAN: No, he's not going to tell the commission what to and what not to look at. He thinks that the commission ought to look at everything that will help them complete their important work.
But he did express his disappointment to the commission. I think that I can leave it there. I think that his views have been made known.
QUESTION: Is he aware that those documents are still on the Web site?
MCCLELLAN: I have not looked at the Web site today, no.
Thank you.
END
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Aired April 29, 2004 - 13:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with him in the first place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush goes on record with the 9/11 Commission, saying he has nothing to hide.
Resistance and impatience, what do Iraqis really think of occupation forces? A new an extraordinary poll you'll find only here on CNN of people in Iraq.
Clearing the air in America, breathe deep, how does your city stack up when it comes to something as simple as that, breathing?
And what's it like to cut the most famous fleece in the world? Lots of pressure, a woolly "tale" this hour, we'll talk to the hairdresser to the sheer-shy sheep; easy for others to say.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.
Out of sight and off-mike, President Bush and Vice President Cheney went behind closed doors with the 9/11 Commission today. It was a rare private session. No recordings were allowed, but commissioners took notes. So did the White House. White House correspondent Dana Bash joins us with more on all of this -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles. Well, as you and I discussed last hour, it is always a good idea for politicians and government officials to try to get out ahead and define a story before others can do it for you. And that's exactly what the president did about 45 minutes ago.
He came out to the Rose Garden just a little over half an hour after the three-hour session ended. And of course, we remember the idea of the 9/11 Commission is something that the White House resisted for some time. And there was a lot of negotiation once they, of course, went ahead with this commission over exactly how the president and vice president would testify. When the president came out, he said that he was pleased.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time. This was an important commission. And it is important that they ask the questions they asked so that they can help make recommendations necessary to better protect our homeland, and I enjoyed it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, the other sort of controversial part of today's session was the fact that the president and vice president testified together. Democrats have been suggesting that the reason why they did that is to make sure that they didn't contradict one another. And there were other questions raised, too. The president himself was asked about this a couple of weeks ago during his primetime press conference and didn't answer. Today he was asked again why he testified with the vice president and he had an answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: If we had something to hide, we wouldn't have met with them in first place. We answered all of their questions. And as I say, I think -- I came away good about the session, because I wanted them to know, you know, how I set strategy, how we run the White House, how we deal with threats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now there was no official transcript taken of this session. There was no stenographer there. It was simply a note- taking session by the members of the commission and then, of course, the White House counsel was there and two members of his staff were also there to take notes.
For the second day in a row, the president was asked why he did not agree to have an official transcript made for the history books and for the families of the 9/11 victims. And for the second day in a row, the president simply didn't answer the question.
Now for the commission, for its part, they put out a release, a press release shortly after the session end, and they said that it was extraordinary. That was the term used in their statement. They said that the president and vice president were forthcoming and candid, and that the information, they believe, will be of great assistance according to the statement to the commission as it completes its final report.
One thing that the president did mention that's worth noting is that they talked about the recommendations. And that is something that's important to note here because as much as the commission was interested in getting information about the days leading up to 9/11, 9/11 itself and the policies and the attitudes of the administration, they also are interested in getting the president and the White House on board with what recommendations they are going to put forward when this commission is over on how to fix the intelligence agencies, fix the intelligence communities. That was also a part of the discussion today -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So it was a bit of a two-way discussion in that respect, I suspect, Dana. Give us a sense what's next and how much of what went on behind closed doors in the Oval Office the public will ever see or hear?
BASH: Likely not much, Miles. Again, it was about three hours, a little over three hours of a question and answer sessions. The president gave a little bit of information just talking about the fact that they did discuss obviously September 11 and some of the practices leading up to it.
But the commission has been under some fire from Republicans especially, for seeming overly partisan, for seeming too public and doing interviews and being too forthcoming, if you will, on what they are learning. So it is unlikely that we're going to see a lot of details coming out of this, although you never know what we can learn from talking to sources who were there. But they're going to try to be very tight-lipped about this.
Of course, the major report that is going to come from the 9/11 Commission will be in July. That's when they finish their work and then negotiations are going to start over what can be declassified from that for the public.
O'BRIEN: All right, of course, nothing ever leaks in Washington, does it, Dana Bash?
BASH: Never.
O'BRIEN: All right. We'll stay tuned for that. Not so fast in Fallujah, talks but no deals in that hotbed of Iraqi violence. And the all too familiar sounds of gunfire and airstrikes to tell you about. Details in the fourth straight day of open combat, few and far between right now. Nearer Baghdad, 10 U.S. troops were killed today in three separate attacks.
CNN's Ben Wedeman is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CAIRO BUREAU CHIEF: Efforts continue to resolve the standoff in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad. There U.S. Marines have been in talks with a group of former army officers from Saddam Hussein's army. Those officers apparently have come forward to the Marines, offering to assist in ending this standoff. They apparently are volunteering anywhere between 600 and 1000 men, this according to a senior military spokesman in Baghdad.
Those men will adopt security duties in and around Fallujah, assisting the United States Marines who possibly, if this agreement works out, will pull back. But this is only an agreement or an understanding between the U.S. Marines and this group of former army officers. The insurgents, however, remain steadfast. They are putting out no indication of whether they are willing to accept the presence of this de facto Iraqi security force in Fallujah.
And if they needed a reminder, however, that the United States is still poised on the edge of Fallujah to go in, if things don't work out, it came on Thursday evening when a U.S. F-18 aircraft dropped bombs on the southwestern part of the city. Meanwhile, in other parts of Iraq, continued violence. In the town of Mahmoudiya to the south of Baghdad, eight soldiers with the 1st Armored Division were killed and four wounded by a car bomb.
In Baghdad itself a U.S. convoy was ambushed with rocket- propelled grenades. In that instance one U.S. soldier lost his life. And as has happened often in many of these attacks, a crowd converged upon the damaged vehicles, some of them climbing on top, chanting "long live Sadr," of course, referring to Muqtada Sadr, who leads the Mehdi Army, a militia that at this point is in control of the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Another U.S. soldier killed in Ba'qubah to the northeast of Baghdad.
I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Since long before the war, we've endeavored to bring you the views and impressions of ordinary Iraqis. And now we can scientifically. A groundbreaking poll done for CNN, "USA Today," and Gallup reflects the opinions of more than 90 percent of Iraq's diverse population.
Among the findings, about half say their families are better off since the U.S. invasion. A quarter say their families are worse off. Another quarter see no change at all. About half also say the war was unjustified. Only three in 10 say it was justified. We want to point out the poll's 2 percentage point sampling error and the dates of the interviews. It happened before the surge in violence in we've been telling you a bit in Fallujah. Joining me now to try to make sense of these numbers is Richard Burkholder, Gallup's director of International Polling. And more accurately, to tell us a little bit about how he got those numbers together.
Good to have you with us.
RICHARD BURKHOLDER, GALLUP POLLSTER: Thanks for having me.
O'BRIEN: I suppose when somebody called you and said, let's poll Iraqis, you thought, uh-oh, that's going to be a tough task.
BURKHOLDER: Precisely. And then you work on it for a while. Actually this was the second wave. Last summer we went in pretty early in June and July and did a poll. At that point we could only do Baghdad, but now we had to push it out to the entire country, and because of the security situation, that was a real challenge..
O'BRIEN: All right, let's be clear about who was actually doing the face-to-face interviews, because I can only imagine if Americans were trying to do this, they would get different answers than if you had Iraqis.
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. This has to look like an Iraqi to Iraqi conversation about their hopes and their aspirations in order to get a clean read. We actually used interviewers who were Iraqis from their central statistics office, it's a lot like our Census Bureau. We originally thought last June when we went in there that we would have to bring in foreign Arab interviewers. But it turned out there were folks who had been vetted, trained and supervised. And at the insistence both of the Iraqi side and of the American coalition forces, the coalition government, we used these people, vetted them, supervised them, trained them. And this was a real labor of love for them to get a measure of the hopes and aspirations of their countrymen for the future.
O'BRIEN: And what did -- how much difficulty did they have? I mean, the obvious first question here is the security problem. But then again you're using Iraqis who presumably don't feel the security concerns that Americans do.
BURKHOLDER: Well, yes and no. There are still logistical problems. There's still common crime. There are still problems moving across areas. So for example, we could get -- we finished interviewing in Fallujah, as your lead-in said, just before the real outbreak of violence. But by the time our interviewers were trying to get in after they got the questionnaires out, the Marines had cordoned off the city.
We had troubles getting questionnaires out from Basra. There were roads that were closed for a while up into Baghdad. We even had troubles getting questionnaires down from the northeast, Kurdish with Kurdish license plates, because there were rumors that there were Peshmerga coming down to fight around Fallujah on behalf of the U.S. forces. So there were lots of sort of technical logistical issues that we had to deal with day to day.
O'BRIEN: And in this day and age of telephone polling here in this country, it really was a throwback for your organization, wasn't it?
BURKHOLDER: Absolutely. And I'm old enough to remember the days -- to have been here at Gallup in the days when we did our primary work, and even our U.S. election forecasting the same way. A pure probability household sample in-home, in-person of the whole country back when telephone ownership levels weren't quite high enough to predict elections that way.
But this is the way we typically do work where I've done work in China on consumer surveys, in India, in Latin America. You still have to go face to face, door to door, random selections of areas, then of households, then of neighborhoods, then of households within the areas, and then of the adults within the households, so that you get a proper cross-section.
O'BRIEN: If we were to take a poll of those polled, what percentage of them would say they were happy to talk?
BURKHOLDER: A very high percentage. We had almost 98 percent cooperation on this. In fact, one of the problems you had was people coming up and saying -- neighbors coming up and saying, you didn't select me. I want to talk about what we've been through and what my hopes are. People know that the past regime is gone. And we had a balanced questionnaire. We didn't get pushed back. We pre-test for a while. But really people are overwhelmingly willing to talk.
O'BRIEN: It's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to you and your organization on pulling it off.
BURKHOLDER: Thank you for helping sponsor it.
O'BRIEN: All right. Richard Burkholder is with Gallup organization, he's director of International Polling, and this is international with a capital "I" in this case. Thank you very much.
We'll have more eye-opening poll results later this hour, and a whole new batch pertaining to the future of Iraq is released on "INSIDE POLITICS," that comes up at 3:30 Eastern, 12:30 Pacific right here on CNN. Stay tuned for that.
How do you honor America's greatest generation?
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, we can answer that here. These words: "A day which will live in infamy." The words that ushered the United States into World War II. We are here at the World Was II Memorial, perhaps America's most celebrated generation is being honored today in a very big way. We'll have that story coming up live.
O'BRIEN: A snapshot from the universe, we've got cool new pictures of far flung beauty. That's a nebula that the Hubbell just picked up. Isn't that awesome? It's so cool it looks fake, but it's real. We're going to go to space ahead on LIVE FROM...
And a LIVE FROM... investigation, what really happened when Shrek got his hair cut? We're talking to the man. You might call him New Zealand's Edward Scissorhands. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. This just in to CNN, we are confirming what we've been telling you about, what has been rumored quite a bit. Google, the Internet search engine, which is so good it became a verb and really defined the capabilities of searching the Internet, that company is, in fact, going to go public, an initial public offering. We don't have much more detail for you on that just yet, except to tell you it will be quite a bonanza when that happens for some. For insight on Google right now, we'll get more on that from Rhonda Schaffler in business in just a few moments.
Remembering those who fought World War II, the Washington Memorial to the 16 million U.S. men and women who served during World War II, 400,000 of whom died, is now open to the public. Today's event is just a prelude to next month's dedication.
CNN's Sean Callebs is there -- Sean.
CALLEBS: Indeed, Miles, you're exactly right. The formal dedication Memorial Day weekend, they're going to expect hundreds of thousands of people. Today the first day the public has a chance to come down here to this three-acre monument here in the heart of the Washington Mall to get a look at this World War II Memorial.
Back there you see really one of the bookends. It says "Pacific" at the top, and it really kind of spells out the U.S. involvement in the Pacific theater. But in the last hour, Miles, you asked me just a bit about these pillars that are here as well. On the top, you see wreaths, on one side a wreath of wheat, on the other side, a wreath of oak, representing the U.S. strength in industry as well as agriculture.
You also asked about this, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, and such, it really -- about the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories and their entry into the union, that's the way it is spelled out here.
It has been interesting to watch the thousands of people down here today. There have been a number of veterans who come down through here. And the people, are stopping, talking to these World War II veterans, telling them how proud they are of them. And indeed, they were the greatest nation.
A bit of a controversy, though, if you look up this way you can see the Lincoln Memorial. This, of course, at one end of the mall, then the reflecting pool where this monument was really built around, and then if you look up at the other end of the Mall behind me, you can see the Washington Monument.
Now, there was a lawsuit filed, trying to stop construction of this memorial, concerned that it would take away from the aesthetic value. But talking to the people here, it has done anything but that.
There is one small glitch. We're going to point that out to you here. Here is the quote from Admiral Chester Nimitz, Chester A. Nimitz? It is supposed to be Chester W. Nimitz. We'll talked to the Park Service. They say they're going to correct this. But when you point this out to legions of people here today to honor the World War II veterans, they say it is such a small blemish, it really doesn't bother them in the least.
One hundred and seventy-five million dollars, Miles, the money came from private donations., today, the first day the public has had a chance to get to see it. If you want to, get down here early. As I mentioned, Memorial Day weekend, this place is going to be packed, expect 800,000 people. Miles, back to you.
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs, thank you very much.
OK. As we begin this next story, take a deep breath. That is, unless you live in Southern California. You might want to reach for a filter mask first. The American Lung Association says almost half of the U.S. population now lives in areas with health threatening levels of what in the ever so hip '70s we called smog.
Now, the preferred term seems to be ozone pollution. But no matter what you call it, we know what we're talking about here. Poor California has seven of the top 10 offenders, but Houston, Texas, Knoxville, Tennessee and the Dallas/FortWorth area also rate dubious mention in the rank air rankings.
New this year, the Lung Association also rates cities for particle pollution which tracks microscopic particles from power plant emissions, diesel exhaust and other sources. Again California floats to the top of the list, Pittsburgh also in the top five. And here's the rest of the bad breath bunch, including our headquarter city, Atlanta, which any allergy sufferer can tell you is pollen central this time of year, in addition to whatever else is in the air. Plenty of particles here. Twenty-five percent of Americans live in an area where particle pollution reaches unhealthy levels.
The war in Iraq is provoking some strong opinions across the Arab world. And the Arab television network Al Jazeera has been doing some of its own eye-opening, if not scientific, polling. We'll have that for you just ahead.
And Uncle Sam to Al Sharpton, you owe some money. Find out why his campaign is going to have to cough up some cash straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go live now to the White House briefing on this historic day at the White House. Let's listen to Scott McClellan.
(LIVE EVENT)
MCCLELLAN: Good afternoon.
The president was pleased to sit down with the 9/11 commission earlier today. The president believes the 9/11 commission's work is very important to helping us win the war on terrorism.
It is extraordinary for a sitting president of the United States to sit down with a legislatively created commission, but the circumstances are extraordinary, and that is why the president felt it was important to meet with members of the 9/11 commission.
The meeting was an opportunity for the president to discuss the seriousness with which we took the threat from Al Qaida, the steps we were taking to confront it, and the actions we have taken to respond to the horrific attacks of September the 11th.
September 11th changed the equation when it comes to confronting the threat from terrorism. The president believes the most important lesson of September 11th is that we must confront threats before it is too late. That is why we are on the offensive and taking decisive action to win the war on terrorism. The best way to win the war on terrorism is to go after the terrorists and bring them to justice before they can carry out their attacks.
We've also taken significant steps to better secure the homeland and be prepared to respond in the event of an attack. We've worked to create the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization in some 50 years of government.
We worked to pass the Patriot Act to provide law enforcement with vital tools to prevent attacks from happening in the first place.
That is also why we worked to create the Terrorist Threat Integration Center to improve our intelligence sharing and analysis.
The administration has provided the 9/11 commission unprecedented access to information, including our nation's most sensitive national security documents.
We have provided the commission with more than 2 million pages of documents and hundreds of briefings and interviews with administration officials.
The president very much appreciates the important work of the 9/11 commission. He looks forward to seeing their report and recommendations.
And with that, I'll be glad to take your questions.
QUESTION: Scott, what was the president's goal here in terms of explaining to the commission how this administration saw the threat from Al Qaida prior to 9/11?
MCCLELLAN: I think his goal was the goal of the commission and many other people, and that is to make sure that we learn the lessons of September 11th and to make sure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect the American people and win the war on terrorism.
And we have taken significant steps since September 11th, but if the commission has additional recommendations on ways to better protect the homeland and win the war on terrorism, this president wants to see them as soon as possible.
QUESTION: Was the president's position before the commission that the administration had done all it could to respond to the threat from Al Qaida?
MCCLELLAN: I think the president talked about this in his news conference. Looking back, he wishes we had had certain things in place. He wishes we had had the Department of Homeland Security in place prior to September 11th. He wishes that we had the Patriot Act in place. And he wishes that we were in a position to better share the intelligence information that we had.
This is something that happened on his watch. And he very much supports the work of the commission and wants to see their report and see their recommendations and act on those recommendations.
QUESTION: Did he repeat that the August 6th memo did not point to a specific threat?
MCCLELLAN: I think that's kind of getting into the substance of the discussion. I think the president was asked a little bit about that in the meeting. The president was pleased to sit down with the commission. It was a very cordial meeting. The president thought they had a number of thoughtful questions, and he was pleased to answer all the questions that they asked. He was pleased to sit down with them for more than three hours and visit with them about all these issues.
But this was a private meeting. And I think I'll leave to it the commission's final report to address a lot of those issues.
QUESTION: You said the discussion about the August 6th memo covered the same ground we've heard before?
MCCLELLAN: I think you've heard from Dr. Rice and others in the administration relating to that. I'm just not going to get into a discussion of the private meeting the president had with the commission.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... on that particular point that the administration's position on the information contained in the PDB has not changed?
MCCLELLAN: I think you've heard our views.
QUESTION: Mr. President and the vice president cleared three hours of their schedule here today. Two members of the commission left early. We saw Vice Chairman Hamilton and Senator Kerrey leave early. Can you explain why, and what the White House reaction is?
MCCLELLAN: I think you'd have to ask those members. I don't know what their other commitments were.
QUESTION: Was the White House aware that these members would leave?
MCCLELLAN: I would direct those questions to the members. I'm not going to try to speak for those members.
QUESTION: Was the White House aware in advance that two members would walk out during the session?
MCCLELLAN: I think there may have been some discussion that there were some other commitments those members may have had, but you can direct those questions to them.
QUESTION: Then during the public sessions of the 9/11 commission from time to time it got a little adversarial.
QUESTION: Was there any of that in this?
MCCLELLAN: No, I think you heard from the president. He talked about how it was cordial. And I think it was a respectful meeting.
Like I said, he appreciates very much the work that the 9/11 commission is doing. This is very important work. And their report and their recommendations can help us win the war on terrorism, help us better protect the homeland, and that's why he very much looks forward to seeing their report.
QUESTION: I'm changing the subject slightly. A Gallup poll says that the majority of the Iraqis want the Americans out of their country. What is your reaction to that?
MCCLELLAN: Well, a couple of things, one, I think the president talked about this in his press conference a couple weeks ago. He said no one wants to be occupied. We don't want to be occupiers. Of course the Iraqi people want to run their country. And that is why we're working to move forward as quickly as possible to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people, and we're going to do that on June 30th.
I would also note that in that poll that many Iraqis feel that despite the hardships that they've been through, it was very much worth it to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The world is better off and America is more secure because Saddam Hussein was removed from power.
QUESTION: Are you able to give any date of when all Americans will be out?
MCCLELLAN: We are going to stay to finish the job and make sure that there is a free and peaceful Iraq. I think...
QUESTION: Were you surprised at the poll?
MCCLELLAN: No, look, I think the president talked about it in his press conference a couple weeks ago that very question.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: Of course no one wants to be occupied. We don't want to be occupiers. But we liberated the country, and now we're there to help the Iraqi people realize a free and peaceful future because that is critical to winning the war on terrorism.
MCCLELLAN: That's why we're there. A free and peaceful Iraq...
QUESTION: ... didn't go in to win the war on terrorism when we invaded Iraq...
MCCLELLAN: A free and peaceful Iraq -- this is a broad war on terrorism that we are undertaking. The president believes that we must take strong and decisive action to eliminate the threats that we face.
That's what September 11th taught us, which is what we're talking about right now.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... terrorism by invading Iraq?
MCCLELLAN: Terrorists have no regard for innocent life. They will carry out their attacks without discretion. They want to harm innocent men, women and children and spread fear and chaos.
And I think that if you go back to what David Kay said in one of his reports -- or after one of his reports -- he said that Iraq was potentially even more dangerous than we thought prior to September 11th. He talked about it. You can go back to his comments.
QUESTION: How much of a readout did you get from either the president or Judge Gonzalez on the substance of the meeting...
MCCLELLAN: I talked to the president after the meeting. But I'm not going to get into discussing the substance of the meeting. The president said he felt that was best left to others to address. And I think they'll obviously be addressing all these issues in their final report.
QUESTION: So he did not discuss with you, and you don't know in terms of the president said they discussed a wide range of topics, you don't know...
MCCLELLAN: He said that. He said, out in the Rose Garden, he talked about how they discussed a wide range of topics. And I did visit with him afterwards but I'm not going to get into the substance of the discussion.
QUESTION: You did say that they discussed the August 6th PDB. Can you...
MCCLELLAN: No, I didn't. I said our views are very well known.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) you did say it came up in the meeting.
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: I think you did say that it came up in the meeting.
MCCLELLAN: I don't think I did.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: What that in response to? I don't remember saying it. I don't recall saying it to that specific question.
QUESTION: OK, I was going to say that if that came up, did you get any sense from the president about how much time they might have spent on this testimony by Mr. Clarke, who says that the president and Dr. Rice were...
MCCLELLAN: Again, I'm going to let the commission's report speak to all of these issues, and that will be coming out soon enough.
QUESTION: The president also talked about how he was interested in the recommendations...
MCCLELLAN: I would point out what the commission said in their statement. They did say that it was extraordinary and talked about how it lasted for more than three hours. And they went on to talk about how the president and vice president were very forthcoming and candid, according to their statement. And they talked about how the information that was provided to them by the president and vice president was of great assistance to the commission as it completes its final report.
And they thanked the president and vice president for their continued cooperation with the commission. We've been working closely and cooperatively with the commission from the beginning.
QUESTION: The president said in the Rose Garden that he was very interested in the recommendations, that the commission talked about what they've been looking for and that he was very interested in that. Can you characterize the discussions on that?
Did they talk about specific proposals? As you know, many members of the commission have said there needs to be some domestic intelligence agency. The president has said he would consider that, because...
MCCLELLAN: I'll leave it to what the president said in the Rose Garden. He touched on that subject. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Did anyone at the White House ask the commission today to not discuss the contents or substance of the three hours?
MCCLELLAN: Not that I'm aware of. I mean, I think that the commission, if you look back to the private meeting they had with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, addressed this the same way. They put out a statement afterwards. And I don't think they really got into any substantive discussion about any of the issues. They maybe talked very generally about it.
QUESTION: Can you discuss what you think is different about the president and vice president's meeting as opposed to former president Clinton and Gore? Because in those interviews with the 9/11 commission, they were recorded.
QUESTION: Why didn't President Bush and the vice president allow their meeting to be...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think this is consistent with many important meetings that we have at the White House, and certainly meetings that the president has in the Oval Office.
There are many important meetings, whether they are meetings with world leaders or National Security Council meetings or policy briefings on high priorities, where notes are taken.
QUESTION: Probably none of those were on the level of importance of determining what went wrong on September 11th.
MCCLELLAN: Well, let's see, the NSC meeting that the president had when he decided to launch war and go into Afghanistan, notes were taken from that meeting. It wasn't recorded. So I think that I would disagree with that somewhat, but there were detailed notes taken of this meeting.
QUESTION: You mentioned yesterday that you anticipated that most of the questions would be to the president. Obviously...
MCCLELLAN: To my understanding, that's the way it was.
QUESTION: That's the way it was?
MCCLELLAN: Yes.
QUESTION: The president indicated that there were obviously some questions to the vice president as well. Do you have some feel for how the questions were divided up?
MCCLELLAN: I'm not going to try to break it down to that extent. But the president answered most of the questions because most of the questions were directed to him, as I said they probably would be.
QUESTION: Is it safe to say they were on the same page?
MCCLELLAN: Safe to say they were in the same room.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: Can you characterize at all the extent to which the commissioners were interested in what happened on the day of the attacks as opposed to all of the other issues involved here?
MCCLELLAN: Again, I'm just not going to get into discussion of the substance of the meeting at this point.
QUESTION: The president said it was important for the commission to see him and the vice president together, to see their body language, to see how they work together.
QUESTION: Were we to take that as an indication that both answered some of the same questions? In other words, a question was posed, you'd get an answer from one and then an answer from the other.
MCCLELLAN: Look, I wasn't the meeting, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out that the president maybe addressed some things and the vice president may have added some comments. I wouldn't rule that out. But, again, I wasn't in the meeting and I'm not going to get too far into discussion on the substance of those discussions.
QUESTION: What does that mean: "Judging by their body language."
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: What does that mean, what does the president mean when he says that?
MCCLELLAN: You're talking about what he said in the Rose Garden?
QUESTION: Yes.
MCCLELLAN: Well, let's look back at what he said. Well, I think that he was obviously there in the room. They were sitting very close together. They were all sitting somewhat in a circle. And he felt it was a very cordial meeting. They had a very good discussion. He felt it was a great meeting. He appreciated the opportunity to share his views and thoughts with the commission and to talk about what we were doing.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: You keep jumping in here, I'm going to keep going back to other people, and maybe we'll come back.
QUESTION: Your last answer actually anticipated some of my question. Could you describe in some detail the physical layout of the meeting in terms of...
MCCLELLAN: Well, it's the Oval Office, and you know how the Oval Office is set up. And you have the two chairs in front of the fireplace, and that's where the president and vice president sat, as they typically do. And then members of the commission were sitting on the couch, as well as chairs right at the end of those couches. They were kind of in a little bit of a semicircle shape.
QUESTION: The chairs were at the opposite end from the president and the vice president?
MCCLELLAN: Yes, that's right. That's correct. Close to the desk.
QUESTION: And the president was seated on the right or the left...
MCCLELLAN: In his usual seat where he sits. So if you're standing in front of the fireplace, facing his desk, he's to the left.
QUESTION: Why did you decide to do it in the Oval as opposed to say the, say the...
MCCLELLAN: Well, there are a lot of important meetings that take place in the Oval. I talked about meetings with world leaders and, then, certainly, policy briefings. So the president viewed it as a good way to sit down and discuss these important issues with members of the commission.
QUESTION: Part of the calculation -- just one more, if I may -- was part of the calculation -- you used the word "sitting together" somewhat informally -- was part of the calculation that a setting like that in the Oval would be less potentially adversarial than...
MCCLELLAN: I don't think I would look at it like that. I don't think anyone came in looking at this meeting as something that was adversarial. I think they came into this meeting looking to find some answers to their questions. And I think that they got those answers to their questions to help piece together the information that they've already been provided to -- have access to. QUESTION: Did the White House take stills?
MCCLELLAN: I think there were some pictures taken at the beginning.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: I don't think we're going to. I mean, this was a private meeting.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: I don't recall specifically. I know -- I think Chairman Kean was on the couch close to the president. I'm not sure where Chairman Hamilton was.
QUESTION: Scott, who brought the meeting to an end? And how...
MCCLELLAN: It ended. Look, I mean...
QUESTION: ... did it end...
MCCLELLAN: No, it wasn't. No. It wasn't something he ended. It came to an end. I think that they were very satisfied with the time that they were allotted or that they had with the president. But I think that typically the chairman kind of looks for a good opportunity when they've had their questions answered to wrap things up. But the president was pleased to sit down and visit with them for, I believe, it was three hours and 10 minutes, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.
QUESTION: Isn't it possible for you to release a still -- one of the stills that you took? I mean, you know we're going to see them on the hall here...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I understand this, but I also want to keep in mind that the way this was set up was as a private meeting, and I want to be respectful of that, too. But I always take it under advisement.
QUESTION: Did the president agree at all to answer any follow-up questions like most of the other witnesses, or people that the...
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry, did he what?
QUESTION: Did he agree to answer any follow-up questions?
MCCLELLAN: I think there were certainly follow up questions.
QUESTION: No, no, no. I meant in the future, over the next few weeks. Because the commission has asked all the other people they've interviewed if they would mind being contacted in the future, even if it's informally, not in this...
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the best way to address that is to let me just say that we're going to continue to provide close cooperation with the commission to help them complete their work. We're going to continue working very closely with them. I don't know that that specifically came up.
Again, I wasn't in the meeting, but we're going to continue to work closely and cooperatively with the commission to help them complete their work on the time table that has been set out.
QUESTION: Do you know if there are any more discussions about the parameters of what in this meeting will or will not be included in the commission's final report?
MCCLELLAN: Well, obviously, when you're talking about some information that may be classified, you have to take that into account, and certainly I think in private meetings that they have, you can expect classified information was discussed.
So you have to look at those issues. And you discuss that with the commission and you work all those -- work that out with the commission. But I think that they will have the information they need to provide a comprehensive and thorough report to the American people.
In their very statement they talked about how the president and vice president were of great assistance to them and very helpful to them in completing their work.
QUESTION: So with the exception of classified information, people can anticipate that they will see the contents of this?
MCCLELLAN: Well, you'll have the report before too long. You'll be able to see what's in it. But the whole purpose of the president sitting down and visiting with the commission was to answer questions that they may have and help them piece together all the information they have, and as he talked about, to talk about our strategy for addressing these threats as well.
QUESTION: Any chance of the seating chart? Will you be releasing a seating chart?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know that we took -- we certainly didn't take a seating chart at the beginning and they're gone now, so I don't really anticipate that.
QUESTION: Governor Thompson said after the meeting that he thought it went well and he wishes the American people would have been able to see this on television.
QUESTION: What is the thinking now in hindsight of not releasing a picture or any part of this, given that he said it went well and you're saying it went well?
MCCLELLAN: Yes, the American people are going to have a report from this commission, and they're going to be able to see what the commission has learned. They're going to be able to see what the commission recommends. The president very much wants to see the report and see their recommendations, and makes sure that we take steps to act on those recommendations as well.
QUESTION: Were there any breaks in the meeting, or was it a solid three hours?
MCCLELLAN: No, it went the full time.
QUESTION: Was the president in the room the whole time, or did he...
MCCLELLAN: Yes, he was in the room the whole time.
QUESTION: Regarding the detailed notes that were taken, will the White House provide the commission with its notes of today's meeting?
MCCLELLAN: The commission took its own notes and stuff. And so we're working to make sure they have all the information they need to complete their report. And we expect that.
QUESTION: ... taken by the White House?
MCCLELLAN: They'll have all the information they need to complete their work. They were all there, all members I think probably took some of their own notes. They had a staff member there to take detailed notes. And I fully expect, if they have follow up issues they want to address to the administration in those notes or anything like that, we'll work with them to make sure they have the information they need.
QUESTION: Some Republicans on Capitol Hill believe that the work of the 9/11 commission won't be complete until and unless Jamie Gorelick testifies before the commission on her role in building the wall between intelligence and law enforcement. Is that an opinion shared by the White House?
MCCLELLAN: Look, the president, I think even at the beginning of the meeting, he made some brief remarks. He didn't have a prepared opening statement or anything like that, but certainly made some opening remarks at the beginning.
And essentially I think he thanked them for the work that they're doing, talked about how he appreciated what they were doing, and that their work is very important to what we are doing to protect the American people.
And I think that the president looks at this and doesn't believe that there ought to be finger-pointing. We ought to all be working together, to learn the lessons of September 11th and make sure that we are doing everything that we can to protect the homeland and win the war on terrorism. That's the way he looks at it.
QUESTION: The Justice Department keeps releasing documents, they released another -- they declassified 30 pages yesterday, that reinforced the idea that...
MCCLELLAN: I think the president...
QUESTION: ... Commissioner Gorelick has more than she could...
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: No, I understand. That's what the Justice Department did; we were not involved in it. I think the president was disappointed about that.
QUESTION: The president was disappointed in the Justice Department releasing those documents?
MCCLELLAN: Putting that on their Web site, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Why?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: He actually expressed that to the commission as well.
QUESTION: But did he talk to...
QUESTION: How about to Ashcroft?
QUESTION: Yes, to General Ashcroft?
MCCLELLAN: I think it's been communicated to the Justice Department.
QUESTION: So why was he disappointed...
MCCLELLAN: Well, like I said, it's what I said at the beginning. The president does not believe we ought to be pointing fingers during this time period. We ought to be working together to help the commission complete its work. This is very important work that they are doing that will help us in our efforts to carry out the president's most solemn responsibility, which is to protect the American people.
QUESTION: Would he consider releasing his opening remarks to the commission?
MCCLELLAN: We didn't have a transcript. We took notes. But again...
QUESTION: Let's see how accurate the notes are.
MCCLELLAN: Go ahead.
QUESTION: Word from China is North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear weapons and stop making more for a price. Is the president willing to bargain and open a direct dialogue with North Korea or is...
MCCLELLAN: That approach didn't work previously. North Korea violated their agreement. And the president believes that it's important to work through the multilateral six-party talks to bring about a peaceful diplomatic resolution to this concern. This is a very serious concern of ours. It's a very serious concern for countries in the region. And that's why we're working together with China and South Korea and Japan and others to bring about a peaceful resolution.
And we look forward to having working group talks in May at some point, and China I think will be making an official announcement on that. I don't know that they have at this point. But we want to see progress in these talks.
North Korea needs to dismantle its nuclear program in a verifiable and irreversible way, and we want to see progress toward that in these talks. And we're going in these talks without any set preconditions. That's the shared goal of all the countries that are involved in these multiparty talks.
QUESTION: Does the president plan to attend the official dedication of the War Memorial on Memorial Day? If not, now that the memorial is open to the public, will he just...
MCCLELLAN: I think he would be honored to do that. But we haven't announced his schedule at this point. But we will be announcing his schedule soon.
QUESTION: First, just on the commission briefing, are these commissioners paid?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know. I'd imagine they're reimbursed for or are paid for expenses. I don't know. You can direct those questions to the commission. I'm sure that in the legislation they set up some sort of, for expenses.
QUESTION: Is the president watching, at all, this anti-Semitism conference going on in Germany?
MCCLELLAN: Very aware of the discussions when it comes to anti- Semitism. And all of us must speak out and confront anti-Semitism wherever it exists. And the president has a strong record of speaking out on these issues.
QUESTION: Does he send his own communication to them..
MCCLELLAN: Well, Secretary Powell was there representing the administration. And you have comments from him.
QUESTION: Today the history was made at the Capitol, 32 Senators from both parties, under the leadership of Senator Clinton and John (inaudible). The dedicated first ever U.S.-India (inaudible) in the U.S. Senate they call the India Caucus in the U.S. Senate.
Both parties leaders from the (inaudible) time has come for the United States and India to work together and prevent the (inaudible) of Cold War is over now and now work together and fight against terrorism. What I need a comment from the president is that you can say that how the president feels something like this a club or caucus on the Capitol Hill, from the both parties are supporting and not just...
MCCLELLAN: Well, we're working together wit India in a number of different ways to confront common challenges. And we're working together in the war on terrorism. And so he appreciates efforts certainly that move in the direction of strengthening our relations even more.
I'm not sure of the specific step that was taken on the Hill today. But I'll be glad to look at it.
QUESTION: Does the president support something like this, the caucus...
MCCLELLAN: Like I said, I've not seen exactly what action was taken. But I'll be glad to look at it.
QUESTION: After the testimony this morning, President Bush went out to the Rose Garden to let America know everything was OK. But apparently everything isn't OK.
CBS and the New York Times have come up with a poll saying that Kerry's beating him 46 percent to 44 percent. And Democrats are saying that the president has raised more money than they have, outspent them, and he's still in trouble.
MCCLELLAN: Well, one, I think you're getting into campaign questions. I'm sure the campaign would be glad to talk to you about some of those issues in terms of the spending and all the outside groups that are involved in that as well. I think you might want to look at that, too.
But look, this is about making the world safer and better and making America more secure. The president is not driven by polls. There are going to be a lot of polls between now and Election Day.
But there are clear choices that we face as we move forward to win the war on terrorism, and there are clear differences in how we approach the war on terrorism.
There are also clear differences on how we approach our economy. You know, today's GDP numbers are another indication that our economy is strong and growing stronger. There are a number of positive indicators that the economy is moving in the right direction.
But there are fundamental differences on these issues, and we're going to continue talking about the clear choices that we face.
But we are waging a broad war on terrorism to make America safer and more secure and to make the world a better place.
QUESTION: On a day where he's trying to garner the nation's support, as many people were concerned about what he was going to give to the 9/11 commission, his numbers have fallen. What do you think that says to the American public?
MCCLELLAN: There are going to be a lot of polls between now and November.
QUESTION: We're coming upon the one-year anniversary of when the president landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared major combat operations were over under the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Is there now in retrospect a feeling that the president was overly optimistic and maybe misled Americans, and now leading to a certain amount of buyer's remorse in some of these polls, and this is going to be more of a headache than an asset for him?
MCCLELLAN: Well, I think the president was honored to go and thank our troops on board the USS Lincoln for all that they had done in our efforts in Iraq. He was pleased to go to the USS Lincoln and thank the sailors on board the ship and thank the pilots on board the ship and thank other men and women in the military who were on board the ship.
They had completed their mission and were returning back to America. And it was a nice thing for the president of the United States to do on behalf of the nation.
QUESTION: He also declared major combat operations over and gave a sense...
MCCLELLAN: Yes, but let's go back and look at his remarks. He also declared that there is more to do, that difficulties remain in Iraq.
QUESTION: Is it still true that major combat operations are over?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: No, no, no. No. What is said is still correct, but there are still certainly combat operations and dangers that remain in Iraq. I mean, our troops are doing an outstanding job. They are preforming brilliantly in their efforts to bring about a free, peaceful Iraq, which is critical to winning the war on terrorism.
QUESTION: What you said about the Justice Department and the president's displeasure is pretty remarkable. Can you tell us, who conveyed his displeasure to the Justice Department and how? And has the president or anyone at the White House, Judge Gonzales, asked for any kind of accountability on how the Justice Department would have released these documents...
MCCLELLAN: I don't think so on that, but it's been communicated, I believe, at the staff level.
QUESTION: Judge Gonzales or...
MCCLELLAN: It's been communicated at the staff level. I think I'll leave it at that.
QUESTION: Was anyone at the White House aware of those documents or involved in their release at all?
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry? No, we weren't involved in that decision.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLELLAN: Well, actually, I addressed that earlier, I think twice.
QUESTION: Are you upset over the fact that the Justice Department did this without coordinating with the White House?
MCCLELLAN: I think he's disappointed that it was, that that information was placed on their Web site like that.
QUESTION: You mean without clearing it with the White House first? Is that part of it?
MCCLELLAN: I don't know if I -- I think I'm looking more at what happened and what was put up on the Web site. I don't know about what you're asking.
QUESTION: What's the concern? I mean, obviously the president had a concern if he mentioned it to the commission. What is the concern?
MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry? What is the concern? Like I said, he very much appreciates the work that the 9/11 commission is doing. He appreciates the work that all the members on the commission are doing. Their work is very important. He believes that we should all be working together to help the commission complete its work and not pointing fingers at one another.
I think I'll just leave it where I did.
QUESTION: Is he aware that that information is still there?
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Just for posterity, I know you're loathe to name names, but can you tell us by, say, job title, who on the White House staff was in the room?
MCCLELLAN: Who was in the -- oh, in the Oval Office during the 9/11 commission meeting? I said that earlier today when I was asked about it. You had Judge Gonzales. And then you had Tom Manheim (ph), who has been working very closely with the 9/11 commission. He works in our office. I did check with them to make sure that they knew I was going to mention their names.
MCCLELLAN: And then Bryan Cunningham, who is in the NSC counsel's office.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
MCCLELLAN: He works very closely on these issues as well, working to help the 9/11 commission complete their work.
QUESTION: On the issue with Justice, does the president not believe that Gorelick's actions are worthy of looking at? Or is he just concerned with the way...
MCCLELLAN: No, he's not going to tell the commission what to and what not to look at. He thinks that the commission ought to look at everything that will help them complete their important work.
But he did express his disappointment to the commission. I think that I can leave it there. I think that his views have been made known.
QUESTION: Is he aware that those documents are still on the Web site?
MCCLELLAN: I have not looked at the Web site today, no.
Thank you.
END
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