Full text of Bush news conference

See, the U.N. needs reform. If you’re interested in reforming the U.N., like I’m interested in reforming the U.N., it makes sense to put somebody who’s skilled and who is not afraid to speak his mind at the United Nations.

Now, I asked John during the interview process in the Oval Office, I said, before I send you up there to the Senate, let me ask you something: do you think the United Nations is important?

See, I didn’t want to send somebody up there who said, it’s not—it’s not worth a darn; I don’t think I need to go. He said, no, it’s important. But it needs to be reformed.

And I think the United Nations is important. As a matter of fact, I’ll give you an example. Today I met with the United Nations representative to Syria, Mr. Larsen. He’s an impressive fellow. Now, he’s delivered—to Lebanon, excuse me—he’s delivered a very strong message to the Syrian leader, though, that the world expects President Assad to withdraw not only his military forces, but his intelligence services, completely from Lebanon.

And now he is in charge of following up to make sure it happens. I think that’s a very important and useful role for the United Nations to play. We have played a role. France has played a role. A lot of nations have played roles. But the United Nations has done a very good job in Syria—with Syria in Lebanon of making sure that the world expects the Lebanese elections to be free in May, without Syrian influence. He’s an impressive fellow. I applaud him for his hard work.

But there’s an example of why I think the United Nations is an important body. On the other hand, the United Nations has had some problems that we’ve all seen. And if we expect the United Nations to be effective, it needs to clean up its problems. And I think it makes sense to have somebody representing the United Nations who will—who will be straightforward about the issues.

Stretch. You mind if I call you Stretch in front of—

Q I’ve been called worse.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

Q Getting back to Social Security for a moment, sir, would you consider it a success if Congress were to pass a piece of legislation that dealt with the long-term solvency problem, but did not include personal accounts?

THE PRESIDENT: I feel strongly that there needs to be voluntary personal savings accounts as a part of the Social Security system. I mean, it’s got to be a part of a comprehensive package. The reason I feel strongly about that is that we’ve got a lot of debt out there, a lot of unfunded liabilities, and our workers need to be able to earn a better rate of return on our money to help deal with that debt.

Secondly, I like the idea of giving someone ownership. I mean, why should ownership be confined only to rich people? Why should people not be allowed to own and manage their own assets who aren’t the, you know, the so-called investor class? I think everybody ought to be given that right. As a matter of fact, Congress felt so strongly that people ought to be able to own and manage their own accounts, they set one up for themselves. You’ve heard me say, I like to say this, if it’s good enough for the Congress, it is—it ought to be good enough for the workers, to give them that option. The government is never saying, you have to set up a personal savings account. We’re saying, you ought to have the right to set up a personal saving account so you can earn a better rate of return on your own money than the government can.

And it’s that difference between the rate of return, between what the government gets on your money and what a conservative mix of bonds and stocks can get on your money that will make an enormous difference, and a person being able to build his or her own nest egg that the government cannot spend.

Now, it’s very important for our fellow citizens to understand there is not a bank account here in Washington, D.C., where we take your payroll taxes and hold it for you and then give it back to you when you retire. Our system here is called pay-as-you-go. You pay into the system through your payroll taxes, and the government spends it. It spends the money on the current retirees, and with the money left over, it funds other government programs. And all that’s left behind is file cabinets full of IOUs.

The reason I believe that this ought to work is not only should a worker get a better rate of return, not only should we encourage ownership, but I want people to have real assets in the system. I want people to be able to say, here’s my mix of bonds and stocks that I own, and I can leave it to whomever I want. And I hear complaints saying, well, you know, there’s going to be high—Wall Street fees are going to fleece the people. There’s ways to have fee structures that are fair. As a matter of fact, all you got to do is go to some of these states where they’ve got personal accounts available for their workers, and you’ll find that the fees will be fair.

People say, well, I don’t want to have—take risks. Well, as I had a line in my opening statement, there are ways where you don’t have to take risk. People say, I’m worried about the stock market going down right before I retire. You can manage your assets. You can go from bonds and stocks to only bonds as you get older. In other words, we’re giving people flexibility to own their own asset. And I think that’s a vital part of making sure America is a hopeful place in the future. So not only will these accounts make the system work better, but the accounts are a better deal. The accounts will mean something for a lot of workers that might not have assets they call their own.

David.

Q Mr. President, in your question—your answer before about Iraq, you set no benchmarks for us to understand when it is the troops may be able to—

THE PRESIDENT: In Iraq?

Q In Iraq, yes—about when troops may be able to come back.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q Based on what you’ve learned now in two years of fighting the insurgency and trying to train the Iraqi security forces, can you say that within the next year you think you could have very substantial American withdrawal of troops?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I know there’s a temptation to try to get me to lay out a timetable, and as you know, during the campaign and—I’ll reiterate it—I don’t think it’s wise for me to set out a timetable. All that will do is cause an enemy to adjust. So my answer is, as soon as possible. And “as soon as possible” depends upon the Iraqis being able to fight and do the job.

I had a good video conference recently with General Casey and General Petreaus—General Casey is in charge of the theater; General Petreaus, as you know, is in charge of training—and they we’re upbeat about what they’re seeing with the Iraqi troops. One of the questions I like to ask is, are they able to recruit. In other words, you hear—you see these killers will target recruiting stations, and I’ve always wondered whether or not that has had an effect on the ability for the Iraqis to draw their fellow citizens into the armed forces. Recruitment is high. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that people want to serve, they want their country to be free?

The other question that—one of the other issues that is important is the equipping issue, and the equipment is now moving quite well. In other words, troops are becoming equipped.

Thirdly, a fundamental problem has been whether or not there’s an established chain of command, whether or not a civilian government can say to the military, here’s what you need to do—and whether the command goes from top to bottom and the plans get executed. And General Petreaus was telling me he’s pleased with the progress being made with setting up a command structure, but there’s still more work to be done.

One of the real dangers, David, is that as politics takes hold in Iraq, whether or not the civilian government will keep intact the military structure that we’re now helping them develop. And my message to the Prime Minister and our message throughout government to the Iraqis is, keep stability; don’t disrupt the training that has gone on—don’t politicize your military—in other words, have them there to help secure the people.

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