SharedThought

April 29, 2003, Tuesday

LENGTH: 1142 words

HEADLINE: Pool Report No. 1, April 28
Andrews To Dearborn, Mich.

BODY:
The president was accompanied onto Air Force One by Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer. Wheels up at 10:55.

Ari gaggled. . . . . Highlights were announcement that Bush would meet with the heads of the Big Three automakers after the speech, that Bush still wants 100 percent dividend exclusion in the tax cut, that the USS Lincoln speech may be the venue for formally declaring the combat phase in Iraq over and that the road map would be released very soon after a vote tomorrow by the Palestinian parliament.
Ari said the plan was for a number of reporters from Arab newspapers to be allowed into the roundtable; the pool objected strongly to the plan to exclude the White House press. Ari later agreed to the presence of one pool reporter (yours truly).

Uneventful motorcade to the site.

From the roundtable:
The president sat at one end of tables arranged into a rectangle. He was flanked by Dr. Maha Hussain to his left and Tony Antone to his right. . . . .

Bush started off with some brief remarks. “The United States of America will stay in Iraq to provide stability, health, to develop an infrastructure, to provide the conditions necessary for Iraqis to develop their own government.”

The American goal is “to help develop an Iraqi society that is first and foremost free.” “Then we’ll leave,” Mr. Bush said.

None of the participants directly criticized Bush or the United States. No discussion of civil rights. The only overt disagreement came toward the end, when Dr. Asad Khailany, identified in the bio as a Kurd Sunni, made a case for a federated system within Iraq, with the country divided into three regions with considerable autonomy. (He also called for a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.)
Tarik Daoud, identified in the bios as an Arab Christian, who in his presentation earlier had played down the religious differences within Iraq, started to respond with what sounded like an objection to dividing the country. At that point, the president broke in forcefully, though with a smile on his face.

“We’re not going to have a debate on the form of the government,” the president said. “This debate is going to take place in Iraq.”

Later, the president added: “The political issues, which you’re rightly concerned about, become easier to deal with when the human condition is improved in a noticeable way.”

Most of the participants thanked Bush and the United States, and to the degree that they had agendas, they were muted, with the exception of the example above.

Dr. Hussain started by telling the president that people (meaning, I guess, those attending the speech) “are dying to meet you.”

Tarik Daoud said it was wonderful to live in a country that exported freedom. “Don’t do it in a hurry,” he said. “Stay in there as long as we need to.”

The president said he “absolutely” wanted to encourage Iraqi exiles to return to Iraq when the time was right to help the country rebuild. Bush said “it’s going to take awhile for the security to develop and for us to deal with the infrastructure needs.”

“People have been enslaved by Saddam Hussein for years,” Bush said. “To think this is going to happen in weeks is unrealistic.”

Mr. Daoud said Iraq should not be thought of as a country of Shiites and Sunnis, but as a “country of people.”

“Or Methodist,” the president said.

The president talked about there being “a strong nationalism” in Iraq that led him to believe that there would be “a separation of church and state” in the government.

Heydor al-Jebori said he had taken part in the 1991 uprising. When Saddam’s statue fell this month, he said, “we felt we were born again.” Al-Jebori made one of the few specific proposals of the session. Reading from a letter or a document, he said “a timetable should be considered” for the withdrawal of the United States, and he mentioned some possibilities for a length (I heard months but could not make out exactly what he was saying).

One participant, I believe it was Pershang Shukri, but I was hustled out before I could confirm her identity, thanked Bush for “saving us from being killed and tortured” and for “saving us from witnessing the torture of our children before our own eyes.”

Mark Dickow told the president that Iraq could be “a model for peace in the rest of that whole region.” He said he was looking to Bush serving another term, at which point Bush said, “Forget that, please? Let’s just make sure Iraq works.”

Emmanuel Kamber said Iraq’s Christians needed to be taken into consideration. Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, a Shia, said he had met with Mr. Bush a number of times previously to talk about removing Saddam from power. He said most Shiites “don’t want to establish an Islamic Republic, they do not follow Iran.” He said anti-American sentiments among Shiites had been amplified by Al Jazeera. He urged the president to assure that the Shia majority would “have their access to parliament.”

Bush said the protests did not bother him. “The fact that people are able to protest is positive,” he said.

Michael George urged the United States to stay in Iraq as long as necessary. He said the war had brought all Iraqis together. “We’ve got a lot of negative situations,” he said. “We’re here to make some positives out of it.”

The president spoke about how the FBI had sought information from the Iraqi exiles about what was happening inside Iraq, but that the FBI had also been trying to find out whether Iraqis in the United States were the victims of any harassment or violence. He said Mueller reported to him that only on “rare” occasions had Iraqis in the US been mistreated.

Najaf Khalaf told of how, in 1951 after Bechtel built the highway from Baghdad to Mosul, many people in villages along the road named newborn sons “Bechtel.”

A few minutes later, the president said he had heard “the left wing babble about war for oil. Forget it. The oil is the Iraqi people’s oil.”

Abdul Hussain al-Khafaji said Iraq “cannot have an Islamic government” and said the country should aim for a western-style democracy, maybe even based on the U.S. Constitution.

“That’ll be up to the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Later, Bush called the looting of the museums “disgraceful” and went on to address reports that the U.S. was more interested in protecting oil fields than museums and hospitals.

“I’ve heard this ridiculous claim that we were more interested in protecting oil fields than museums,” bush said. He said military forces got to the oil fields first as they moved from south to north. He said the U.S. is “doing everything we can to chase down the treasures” looted from the museums.

Waad Nahir urged the president to pay particular attention to young men in Iraq, especially those 16-30. “If we don’t address them, we risk losing them,” Nahir said.

-Dick Stevenson, NY Times

LOAD-DATE: April 29, 2003