Full text of Bush news conference

So we’re making good progress. We’ve reduced our troops from 160,000 more or less to 139,000. As you know, I announced to the country that we would step up our deployments—step up deployments and retain some troops for the elections. And then I said we’d get them out, and we’ve done that. In other words, the withdrawals that I said would happen, have happened.

Go ahead; I can see you’ve got a follow-up right there on the tip of your tongue.

Q Do you feel that the number of troops that you’ve kept there is limiting your options elsewhere in the world? Just today you had the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency say that he was now concerned that the North Koreans, for example, could put a weapon, a nuclear weapon on a missile that could reach Japan or beyond. Do you feel, as you are confronting these problems, the number of troops you’ve left tied up in Iraq is limiting your options to go beyond the diplomatic solutions that you described for North Korea and Iran?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I appreciate that question. The person to ask that to, the person I ask that to, at least, is to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my top military advisor. I say, do you feel that we’ve limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq? And the answer is, no, he doesn’t feel we’re limited. He feels like we’ve got plenty of capacity.

You mentioned the Korean Peninsula. We’ve got good capacity in Korea. We traded troops for new equipment, as you know; we brought some troop—our troop levels down in South Korea, but replaced those troops with more capacity. Let me talk about North Korea, if you don’t mind. Is that your question?

Q Go right ahead. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m surprised you didn’t ask it. (Laughter.)

Look, Kim Jong-il is a dangerous person. He’s as man who starves his people. He’s got huge concentration camps. And, as David accurately noted, there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don’t know if he can or not, but I think it’s best when you’re dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il to assume he can.

That’s why I’ve decided that the best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries. It used to be that it was just America dealing with North Korea. And when Kim Jong-il would make a move that would scare people, everybody would say, America, go fix it. I felt it—it didn’t work. In other words, the bilateral approach didn’t work. The man said he was going to do something and he didn’t do it, for starters.

So I felt a better approach would be to include people in the neighborhood, into a consortium to deal with him. And it’s particularly important to have China involved. China has got a lot of influence in North Korea. We went down to Crawford with Jiang Zemin, and it was there that Jiang Zemin and I issued a statement saying that we would work for a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula.

And so when Kim Jong-il announced the other day about his nuclear intentions and weapons, it certainly caught the attention of the Chinese because they had laid out a policy that was contradicted by Kim Jong-il, and it’s helpful to have the Chinese leadership now involved with him. It’s more—it’s better to have more than one voice sending the same message to Kim Jong-il. The best way to deal with this issue diplomatically is to have five other—four other nations beside ourselves dealing with him. And we’ll continue to do so.

Finally, as you know, I have instructed Secretary Rumsfeld—and I work with Congress—Secretary Rumsfeld has worked with Congress to set up a missile defense system. And we’re in the process of getting that missile defense system up and running. One of the reasons why I thought it was important to have a missile defense system is for precisely the reason that you brought up, that perhaps Kim Jong-il has got the capacity to launch a weapon, and wouldn’t it be nice to be able to shoot it down. And so we’ve got a comprehensive strategy in dealing with him.

Ed, yes.

Q Mr. President, good evening.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Sir, you’ve talked all around the country about the poisonous partisan atmosphere here in Washington. I wonder why do you think that is? And do you personally bear any responsibility in having contributed to this atmosphere?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m sure there are some people that don’t like me. You know, Ed, I don’t know. I’ve thought long and hard about it. I was—I’ve been disappointed. I felt that people could work—work together in good faith. It’s just a lot of politics in the town. It’s kind of a zero-sum attitude. We can’t—we can’t cooperate with so-and-so because it may make their party look good, and vice-versa.

Although having said that, we did have some success in the education bill. We certainly came together as a country after September the 11^th. I appreciate the strong bipartisan support for supporting our troops in harm’s way. There’s been a lot of instances of bipartisanship, but when you bring a tough issue up like Social Security, it—sometimes people divide into camps.

I’m proud of my party. Our party has been the party of ideas. We said, here’s a problem, and here’s some ideas as to how to fix it. And as I’ve explained to some people, I don’t want to politicize this issue—people say, you didn’t need to bring this up, Mr. President, it may cost you politically. I don’t think so. I think the American people appreciate somebody bringing up tough issues, particularly when they understand the stakes: the system goes broke in 2041.

In 2027, for those listening, we’ll be obligated to pay $200 billion more dollars a year than we take in, in order to make sure the baby boomers get the benefits they’ve been promised. In other words, this is a serious problem, and the American people expect us to put our politics aside and get it done.

You know, I can’t answer your question as to why. I’ll continue to do my best. I’ve tried to make sure the dialogue is elevated. I don’t believe I’ve resorted to name-calling here in Washington, D.C. I find that to not be productive. But I also understand the mind of the American people. They’re wondering what’s going on. They’re wondering why we can’t come together and get an energy bill, for example. They’re wondering why we can’t get Social Security done. And my pledge to the American people is, I’ll continue to work hard to—with people of both parties and share credit, and give people the benefit of the credit when we get something done.

Yes, sir.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Just to follow up on Ed’s question, we like to remind you that you came to Washington hoping to change the tone, and yet, here we are, three months into your second term and you seem deadlocked with Democrats on issues like Bolton, DeLay, judges. Is there any danger that the atmosphere is becoming so poisoned, or that you’re spending so much political capital that it could imperil your agenda items like Social Security, energy?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so, Bill. I think when it’s all said and done, we’re going to get a lot done. I mean, after all, one of the issues that people have been working on for a long time is class-action lawsuit reform, and I signed that bill. An issue that people have been working on for a long time is bankruptcy law reform, and I signed that bill. And the House got an energy bill out recently, and I talked to Senator Domenici the other day and he’s upbeat about getting a bill out pretty quickly and get it to conference and get the issues resolved.

I’m pretty aware of what the issues might be that will hang up a conference, and I think we can get those issues resolved. We’re more than willing to help out. So I do believe I’ll get an energy bill by August.

There’s a budget agreement, and I’m grateful for that. In other words, we are making progress. No question the Social Security issue is a big issue, but it’s—as I said before, we hadn’t talked about this issue for 20 years. And they thought we had it fixed 20 years -- 22 years ago, for 75 years, and here we are, 22 years later after the fix, talking about it again. And it’s serious business. If you’re a grandmother or a grandfather listening, you’re going to get your check. But your grandchildren are going to have a heck of a price to bear if we don’t get something done now.

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