Transcript for July 23

MR. BOLTEN: The view of the president is that Israel has a right to defend itself, and that, in support of that, the administration needs to support U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which says that the democratically-elected government of Lebanon should control its entire territory, and Hezbollah should release its control, particularly of, of southern Lebanon. So the administration will support the efforts to put that Security Council resolution firmly in place.

MR. RUSSERT: But my question is does the president agree with the Israeli ambassador that Hezbollah should be totally eliminated?

MR. BOLTEN: It would be great if Hezbollah were, were completely gone, but the important part right now is that Hezbollah be put into a situation where they can no longer effectively threaten Lebanon’s southern neighbor, Israel.

MR. RUSSERT: But isn’t the United States encouraging Israel to eliminate Hezbollah? Have we not sent them accelerated, precision munitions and bunker, bunker-buster bombs?

MR. BOLTEN: We’ve got a long-standing military and diplomatic close alliance with Israel, so there shouldn’t be any surprise that the, the U.S. government is providing munitions to them. But...

MR. RUSSERT: But we’re accelerating the delivery.

MR. BOLTEN: I believe that’s correct, that the, the administration—more in the ordinary course of things, as the, as the Israelis have requested munitions—is providing them. But that’s, that’s the nature of the relationship. Remember, stepping back here, this crisis was created by a terrorist attack, ongoing now, by Hezbollah against the sovereign territory of Israel. We’re going to help our ally defend itself.

MR. RUSSERT: Lawrence Kaplan in The New Republic describes this as a proxy war. And let me read to you his thoughts. “America’s proxy war. The administration views the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah as a classic case of great-power brinkmanship—in this case, pitting the United States against Iran. ... The Bush team has spent many more hours encouraging Israel than constraining it. The administration, after all, has no more use for Hezbollah than Israel. ... The administration views [Hezbollah] as a crucial proxy for Iran.” Is this a proxy war?

MR. BOLTEN: I don’t think so. This is, this is a situation in which Israel is, is trying, I believe, to live at peace with its neighbors to, to protect its own territory and citizens, and the United States is going to support them in that. This is not, this is not a place to fight a proxy war against Iran, although Iran bears a substantial burden of responsibility for the, the despicable behavior of Hezbollah and needs to be held to account.

MR. RUSSERT: But it is day 12, the United States has not called for a cease-fire, the United States has accelerated munitions to Israel. Haven’t we given Israel a green light to go in there and destroy Hezbollah?

MR. BOLTEN: Here’s what we said to Israel, is that we support Israel’s right to defend itself. We’ve also encouraged the Israelis to exercise the most extreme caution possible under the circumstances to minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. And we’ve also tried to do everything we can to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis that your reporter was talking about at the top of the, at the top of the broadcast. That’s what Secretary Rice is going to be talking about. All of, all of those things, ameliorating the humanitarian crisis, getting a sustainable cease-fire, and then hopefully we can turn promptly to efforts—international efforts in assisting Lebanon with its reconstruction.

MR. RUSSERT: Ken Mehlman, who ran President Bush’s re-election effort in 2004, now chairman of the Republican Party, gave a speech on Tuesday to the Christians United for Israel. And this is what Mr. Mehlman said, “We stand for Israel because their war is our war too. ... Today we are all Israelis.” Does the president believe that this is our war?

MR. BOLTEN: The president believes that, that all freedom-loving people deserve support. That’s in Israel, in Iraq, everywhere around the world. And that all those who will stand with us to reject terror and support freedom deserve our, our support. And that’s, that’s our effort in the, in the Middle East. That’s our effort in Iraq and that’s our effort around the world.

MR. RUSSERT: But is Mr. Mehlman right? Is their war our war?

MR. BOLTEN: We are allies and we will support Israel in its—in exercising its right of self-defense, but at the same time we’ll do everything possible to, to make sure that, that the, the crisis there has minimum possible impact on, on civilians that, that can possibly be sustained.

MR. RUSSERT: But in terms of the Arab world when the chairman of the Republican Party, close friend of the president, says, “Today we are all Israelis,” what single message do you think that sends?

MR. BOLTEN: The message, the message it should send is that we will support freedom-loving people who reject terror and we are, we are doing that as much as standing by the Israelis as we are by standing by the free national unity government in Iraq who, who are, after all, Arabs.

MR. RUSSERT: So an attack on Israel is an attack on the United States?

MR. BOLTEN: Well, that’s, that’s generally true with respect to allies is that that’s the nature of an alliance, is that an attack on an ally has to be considered an attack on your ally as well. But like I say, that, that doesn’t apply exclusively to the Israelis. That, that applies to, to Arabs, it applies to our European allies and it applies to our allies all over the world.

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