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CNN Sunday Morning

Bush Mulls Over Number of Issues

Aired August 18, 2002 - 10:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour in Crawford, Texas, where President Bush is taking a vacation on his ranch, but it's a working vacation, of course, and there are a number of issues on his plate. Let's go right to CNN senior White House correspondent John King. John, is it a vacation or not?
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president is said to be on vacation. He's been moving about the country in recent days, most of last week, but we're actually not supposed to see him until Thursday of this week. So some time on the ranch for the president. We'll see if we see him before Thursday. I bet we will.

One of the things the president is considering down here is U.S. policy toward Iraq, and if and when there might be a U.S. military response designed to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The president said on Friday that he's listening to the debate going on in the country, including a debate within his own Republican Party, and if the president is watching television this morning, watching the Sunday morning news shows, I can tell you, he may come away from the debate a little confused.

On the one hand, Republicans like Richard Pearl, someone who served in the Reagan administration and is now an adviser to the Pentagon, said that this administration should consider the European allies irrelevant as it decides whether to go forward with military action. One member of the U.S. Senate, though, Richard Lugar, a key voice on international affairs, says no, the president must work closely with the allies.

Another senator, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, complains that this issue is being, quote, "talked to death while the president mulls his options," and I can tell you that certainly is the view of the Bush administration.

The president says this public debate is healthy, but certainly it puts more pressure on the president to explain his views. White House Communications Counselor Dan Bartlett saying this morning on ABC that the president has made no decision yet as to how to go forward, and therefore all these questions about whether he would seek congressional approval are premature at this point. The discussions will continue at mid-week when the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comes here to Crawford to pay a visit to the president at the ranch -- Catherine.

CALLAWAY: Condoleezza Rice also heading that way too? KING: She is. She comes down on Monday. Her deputy, Steve Hadley (ph), has been with the president the first two weeks of his vacation. There's always a top National Security Council official with the president, but certainly with the top NSC official, Condy Rice here in Crawford, as the defense secretary comes, the president has two of the top players on his national security team as he mulls not only the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan but the possibility of confrontation down the road with Iraq.

CALLAWAY: All right, thank you. That's CNN's senior White House correspondent John King. Thanks, John.

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