Transcript of Bush's statements to the Press today, April 11, 2004

[Must_B_Free]

Happy Easter everybody. Its our honor to have celebrated this Holy day with family members whose loved ones is in Iraq. Fort Hood is made a mighty contribution to freedom in Iraq, security for the country, value my time with the family members and, those who, uh, sacrificed on behalf of the country

Today I ask for God's blessings for out troops overseas, may he protect them, and may he continue to bless our country. I'll answer a couple of questions, Scott

: Thank you mister Mr President. We're coming off a week in which dozens of Americans have died, we've seen images of incredible violence and chaos. Should Americans embrace for weeks and months of this, and you expect it to abate soon and also what's General Abazeh telling you about how many more troops are needed? :

Yeah I've spoken to general Abazeh twice in the last 4 or 5 days. He knows full well than when he speaks to me, that if he needs additional man power, he can ask for it, Uh, he believes like I believe that, uh, this violence is, uh, part of a few people trying to stop the progress toward democracy. Fallujah, South of Baghdad, these incidents were basically, uh, thrust on the innocent Iraqi people by gangs, violent gangs, and our troops are taking care of business.

Their job is to make Iraq more secure so that a peaceful Iraq can emerge and they're doing a great job, there's a tough week last week, and my prayers and thoughts are with those who paid the ultimate price for our security. A free Iraq will make the world more peaceful. A free Iraq is gonna change the world, and it's been tough, uh, and our troops are, our troops are, uh, performing brilliantly, but it's hard to tell

: do you think it's going to add :

I just know this, we're plenty tough, and we'll remain tough, now listen, obviously we're open to suggestions, uh, the members of the governing council wanted a chance to move into Fallujah to see if they could bring some order to the gangs and violence. And as you can tell, our military is giving them a chance to do so. Uh, obviously, I pray every day there's less casualty. But I know what we're doing in Iraq is right - it's right for long term peace, right for the security of our country, and it's hard work. and, uh, today on, huh, bended knee I thank the good lord for protecting those of our troops overseas and our coalition troops and innocent Iraqis, who suffer at the hands of uh, of some of these, uh, senseless killings by people who are trying to shake out will. Yes sir.

: Mr President, did you see the uh presidential the president;s daily briefing from august 01 :

Did I see it? Of course I saw it, of course I saw it, I asked for it.

: did you see it as a warning of hijackers and how did you respond to that? :

My response was exactly like then as it is today, that I asked the Central Intelligence Agency to give me an update on any terrorist threats and the PDB, uh, was no indication of a terrorist threat
- there was not a time and place of an attack and uh, it was uh, it said Osama Bin Laden had designs on America, well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was, was there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to. As you might recall there were some specific threats for overseas that we reacted to. And as the President, I was to know whether there was anything, any actionable intelligence. And I looked at the August 6th briefing and I was satisfied that some of the, uh, some of the matters were being looked into, uh, and uh, but that PDB said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions about somebody that hated America, well, we knew that.. yeah, Dave

: Thanks for calling on me Mr President, there was in threat PDB specific information about activity that may speak to a larger battle plan, even if it wasn't specific, so I I wonder if you can say what specifically was done and do you think your administration should have done anything more :

Now David, look let me just let me just say it again: Had I known that there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack. I would do everything I can, my job is to protect the American people, and I asked the intelligence agency to analyze the data to tell me, whether or not we faced a threat internally like we thought we faced a threat in other parts of the world, that's what the PDB request was, and had there have been actionable intelligence, we'd have moved on it. I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to in the PDB, but if you're referring to the fact that the FBI was investigating things, that's great (laughs) that's what we expect the FBI to do.

: but wasn't that current threat information?> That wasn;t historical, that was on going... :

Right, and had they found something, they would have reported it to me - that's - we were doing exactly what the American people expect us to do, run down every lead, look at every set of, eh, scintilla of intelligence and follow up on it, but there was, it, you know I can't say it as plainly as this: Had I known, we'd have acted. Of course we'd have acted, any administration would have acted, the previous administration would have acted, that's our job.

: Are you satisfied though that each agency was doing everything it should have been doing :

Well that's what the 911 commission should look into, and I hope it does. It's uh, it's an important part of the assignment of the 911 commission, and I look forward to their recommendations, a full analysis of what took place. I'm satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated that there was going to be an attack on America, at a time and a place of an attack. Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama Bin Laden (smiling) I mean that's.. that was obvious.. The question was, who was going to attack us, you know when and where and with what. You might recall the hijacking that was referred to in the PDB, it was not hijacking the airplane to fly into a building, it was hijacking of airplanes (<--ding ding ding ding - Airplanes with an "S") in order to free someone that was being held uh, ha, as a prisoner in the United States

Thank you

OK, thank you all, Happy Easter to everybody, thank you