Bush meets with defense, foreign policy teams

updated 7:52 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2005

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush, taking a break from a day of discussions with his administration's top advisers, said Thursday he understands and respects the views of antiwar advocates like the woman camped outside his Texas ranch to mourn the loss of her son, but that it would be a mistake to bring U.S. troops home now.

Bush said he had "heard the voices of those who say pull out now, and I've thought about it."

"They are crying," he said, and they want to reduce U.S. losses in war-torn Iraq.

Bush said he understood their pain. But on the issue of withdrawing troops, he said: "I just strongly disagree. Pulling our troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy."

Bush spoke to reporters as he played host to his administration's top national security, foreign policy and defense advisers.

Iranian president to receive U.S. visa
Bush also indicated that the new Iranian president will receive a U.S. visa to attend an annual United Nations gathering next month and welcomed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's warning to Tehran about consequences of its nuclear ambitions.

Bush said U.S. investigators still have not yet determined what role Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have played in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Even so, Bush said, the United States has separate obligations to other countries as the host nation for the United Nations, which is headquartered in New York.

Keeping up with an annual tradition, Bush was meeting with his defense and foreign policy teams on at his ranch, where he is spending August.

Vice President Dick Cheney and top-rung advisers, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were at Crawford for talks about issues ranging from ongoing violence in Iraq and standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs to anti-American sentiment abroad, especially in the Middle East.

Important issues at stake
The unhurried pace of this one-stoplight town stands in sharp contrast to events across the globe: Suicide bombings in Iraq. On-again, off-again negotiations with the reclusive North Korea. Iran's decision to restart sensitive nuclear work in defiance of European-led negotiations. The pullout next week of some 9,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

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