White House Gaggle

By Scott McClellan
December 1, 2004

Office of the Press Secretary
(Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Aboard Air Force One

En route Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

9:19 A.M. EST

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me start with one announcement to add to the

schedule. The President will meet with King Abdullah of Jordan on
December 6th, at the White House, to discuss developments in the Middle
East, as well as key bilateral issues. And the President looks forward
to welcoming King Abdullah back to the White House on December 6th.
King Abdullah and Jordan have certainly been a staunch ally in the fight
against terrorism and King Abdullah has been someone who has played a
key role in helping to bring stability to Iraq and peace for the Middle
East.

Q At the White House?

MR. McCLELLAN: It will be at the White House on December 6th.

The President is having his usual briefings right now, aboard the
airplane. The President looks forward to going to Halifax and Pier 21
to personally thank the Canadian people for their kindness and
hospitality following the September 11th attacks. The people of
Halifax, as well as provinces in the Atlantic region played a very
helpful role to Americans who were in need during this difficult time.
They took in stranded Americans — the President will talk about it –
more than 33,000 Americans were stranded in Canada on September 11th and
right after September 11th because of the flights that were diverted, or
landed in Canada.

The President will also talk about the bilateral relationship with
Canada. Canada is a great friend, and the President will talk about the
importance of our relationship and continuing to strengthen what is
already a good relationship. And he’ll talk about our ties and our
common values that we share.

The President will also talk about the importance of reaching out to
some of our closest allies over the next four years. And in that
respect, he’ll talk about how he wants to foster a wider international
consensus on three big goals. And those begin with, you know, first a
commitment to defend security and spread freedom by making sure that we
build effective multi-lateral institutions. And so he’ll talk about the
importance of working through multi-lateral institutions and the
important role they can play to make the world a better place; but it’s
important that those institutions focus on results and focus on our
collective security. So he’ll talk a little bit about that.

And the second commitment, he’ll talk about the importance of continuing
to work together to fight the global war on terrorism with all our
resources. Obviously, that — with Canada, in particular, that includes
both staying on the offense against terrorists in places across the
world, as well as strengthening our defenses in North America. And
we’ve worked very closely on border security and other areas, and so the
President will touch on that as well.

Then the third commitment the President will talk about is the need to
enhance our own security by advancing freedom and hope and democracy in
the broader Middle East. He’ll talk about how advancing freedom is key
to making the world a more peaceful and stable place. And he’ll talk
about the importance of supporting efforts in the broader Middle East to
promote freedom and hope and democracy.

And that’s kind of a quick summary of the remarks today.

Q Is there anything new about that? He’s been trying to do all three
of these things, anyway.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, some of these efforts are things that have begun
more recently than others. Obviously, the war on terrorism is an
ongoing priority of the international community. And advancing freedom
– the broader Middle East initiative is something we have talked to
leaders with and have gotten strong commitment from the international
community to work together on the broader Middle East initiative.

Q Is he hoping –

MR. McCLELLAN: These are the great goals, as he will refer to them,
where we should work together to strengthen our alliances and build
international consensus.

Q Is there any hoping to move the debate beyond Iraq, where a lot of
our allies –

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Iraq is part of that, and certainly, I mean, what
he’ll talk about, as he did in the meetings with Prime Minister Martin,
he’ll thank the Canadians for their efforts in places like Afghanistan,
Haiti and their contribution of troops there. And he’ll talk about
their contributions of financial resources to the efforts in Iraq. And
Prime Minister Martin — I think he’ll refer to some comments Prime
Minister Martin made about how, you know, whether we disagreed in the
past, we all agree now on the importance of moving forward to build a
free and peaceful Iraq for the Iraqi people.

Q Is there anything between this wave of foreign leaders coming to
the White House and either this three-part, great goals that you talk
about, or some broader reconciliation effort with other countries? Or
are the leaders coming through the White House — is that just
backlogged meetings after campaign –

MR. McCLELLAN: It certainly depends — I mean, for various reasons.
Sometimes leaders are already coming to Washington, and these are — I
think it depends on each meeting, we talk about each one, individually,
probably a better way to approach it. That’s why I announced King
Abdullah today and what the purpose of that meeting was. Obviously,
he’s someone that the President has met with on a number of occasions
and has worked very closely with.

Q Can I ask you, the number of U.S. casualties spiked last month to,
I think, 134. Should Americans brace for this level of violence through
the Iraqi elections? Or is this because of the Fallujah offensive?

MR. McCLELLAN: There were tremendous sacrifices for the efforts to
bring stability to the Fallujah area, both Iraqi forces, as well as
American forces. We’re all working together to bring about stability
throughout Iraq, so that we can move forward on elections at the end of
January. And the Iraqi election commission has set the date for January
30th, and we are all committed to helping the Iraqis move forward to
hold these elections. But we’ve always said that as we move closer to
elections and move forward on building a democratic Iraq, that the
terrorists and the Saddam holdouts would become more desperate and seek
to derail that transition.

What we are seeing is that they are being defeated, but we cannot forget
the sacrifices of our men and women in the military who are partnering
with the Iraqi people to prevail in this central front in the war on
terrorism.

Q Sounds like you’re bracing Americans to hold tight, it could be
this bad for a couple more months.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the President has talked — the President
has regularly spoken about what we are working to achieve in Iraq, what
we are working with the international community to achieve in Iraq. And
coalition forces are there, partnering *closely with the Iraqi forces to
build a brighter future for the Iraqi people. And certainly that is
critical — a free and peaceful Iraq is critical to making the world a
safer and better place.

Q Does the President –

MR. McCLELLAN: And we always remember the sacrifices of our men and
women in the military are helping to make the world a better place.

Q Does the President think there should be a new election in Ukraine
to end the suspicions of a rigged election?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean, there are a number of ideas that have been
discussed. But what the President has said is that our position is that
there should be a democratic outcome that reflects the will of the
people in Ukraine. And you heard him say yesterday how he had spoken
with President Kwasniewski, and President Kwasniewski and some other
European leaders are traveling to Ukraine today to help move forward on
a resolution that achieves that result in a peaceful way. So we look
forward to hearing more about those discussions after they take place.
We continue to urge the process to move forward in a peaceful way and
achieve that democratic solution, and as it reflects the will of the
people.

Anything else? Thanks.

END 10:29 A.M. EST