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CNN Saturday Morning News
Bush to Cut Trip to Asia-Pacific Short
Aired October 20, 2001 - 07:24 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is cutting short his trip to the Asia Pacific economic summit. He is to leave about a half-day ahead of schedule, but not before addressing his top issue, the international fight against terrorism.
CNN's Andrea Koppel is live in Shanghai with that story -- Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Martin.
Well, it's just coming up on 7:30 in the evening on Saturday night here in Shanghai, and President Bush should be on his way to what is the major dinner of the APEC summit here. Earlier in the day, though, he held a number of meetings as part of his coalition building and the campaign to fight terrorism.
He held two rather significant meetings, one with the sultan of Brunei, and the other with the prime minister of Malaysia. Both of these countries important in this coalition because of their predominantly Muslim population, significant for them to lend their support to the campaign, to underscore the Bush administration's message that this is not a war against Islam.
Earlier in the day, President Bush delivered the keynote address to the APEC summit, and not surprisingly there, the theme of that delivery of that speech was again the war on terrorism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every nation now must oppose this enemy, or be in turn its target. Those who hate all civilization and culture and progress, those who embrace death to cause the death of the innocent, cannot be ignored, cannot be appeased. They must be fought. This is my firm resolve, and the firm resolve of my nation. This is the urgent task of our time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOPPEL: President Bush also repeated the U.S. justification for waging its current military campaign against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, and President Bush reiterated what's become the mantra of these meetings that he's held over the last couple of days with the presidents of China, South Korea yesterday, and today with the prime ministers of Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan, as well as the sultan of Brunei and the president of Peru, that this will be a war fought on many fronts, the not-so-subtle message to some countries like Malaysia and Indonesia which have expressed concerns about this military campaign, President Bush letting them the -- know that they need to do more to stop the flow of money to terrorism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Terrorists want to turn the openness of the global economy against itself. We must not let them. We need customs, financial, immigration, and transportation systems that make it easier for us to do our business, and much harder for terrorists to do theirs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOPPEL: Now, tomorrow, what's come to be known as the Shanghai Accord, this is a statement by the APEC members that essentially speaks out against global terrorism, saying that they will all deny terrorists safe haven, it will be unveiled during the final day of the APEC summit, the first time in 12 years that there has been any statement beyond economic discussions that have been made here.
But President Bush felt that this was again an important forum to make this show of solidarity as the campaign continues.
Now, Martin, I should tell you just on one sort of personal note, President Bush during his meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Koizumi, who he's met a number of times before, was presented with a rather significant gift, and that is a bow and arrow. This is something from the Shogun era. It's known as a Yabusame, and really what Yabusame means is archery from the back of a horse. And traditionally this would have been used by the Shogun to mark the start of combat.
Now, Prime Minister Koizumi himself inscribed this gift and said, this is the quote that's written on the bow and arrow, "The arrow to defeat the evil and bring peace on earth." So Prime Minister Koizumi giving President Bush what he hoped would be a very personal and a very appropriate gift as this campaign continues -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: CNN's Andrea Koppel reporting to us live from Shanghai this morning. Thank you very much .
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