[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 48 (Monday, November 29, 2004)]
[Pages 2865-2867]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Exchange With Reporters in Crawford, Texas

November 26, 2004

    The President. I just had a great Thanksgiving with our daughters 
and my mother and dad and my mother-in-law. It's good to be back in 
Texas. I wish the Crawford Pirates all the best in their State playoff 
football game tonight. I know you agree with me.
    I'll take a couple of questions.

Iraq/Iran

    Q. Thank you, Mr. President. If I could ask you about a couple news 
developments today. Seventeen political parties in Iraq demanded 
postponement of the January 30th elections for at least 6 months. I 
wonder about your reaction to that. And there's a tentative deal on 
Iran's nuclear weapons, but I wonder whether you think Iran should be 
trusted, given their history.
    The President. First of all, I appreciate the nations of Great 
Britain and Germany and France who are working to try to convince Iran 
to honor their international treaty obligations. And the only good deal 
is one that's verifiable. And I look forward to talking to the leaders 
of those countries, if they can get Iran to agree to a deal, to make 
sure that it's verifiable. I know that the Prime Minister of Great 
Britain wants a verifiable deal because I've talked to him personally 
about it.
    In terms of Iraq, the Iraq election commission has scheduled 
elections in January, and I would hope they would go forward in January.

[[Page 2866]]

Ukraine

    Q. Mr. President, what are the consequences if Ukraine does not 
comply with international pressure and demands on the elections? And do 
you think that President Putin overstepped his bounds?
    The President. There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that 
placed their election--the validity of their elections in doubt. The 
international community is watching very carefully. People are paying 
very close attention to this, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way 
that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian Government.
    Yes.

White House Press Pool

    Q. Mr. President----
    The President. Identify yourself, please.
    Q. I'm with Bloomberg News. I'm Jay Newton-Small.
    The President. Thank you, welcome.
    Q. Thank you.
    The President. Do you know Scott [Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press]? 
[Laughter]
    Q. Very well.
    Q. We ride in a lot of vans together.
    The President. You might ask him why he didn't shave. But go ahead.
    Pool members. Aw-w-w!
    The President. Well, I was just curious. [Laughter]
    Q. Don't ask me.
    The President. It looks like it's contagious, as a matter of fact.
    Q. Left the razor at home.
    The President. Please, sorry to interrupt.

World Trade Organization Sanctions

    Q. Today the World Trade Organization finalized or approved 
sanctions the European Union will have against the United States, $150 
million worth of sanctions for the Byrd amendment. Do you have any 
comments on that?
    The President. Well, we've worked hard to comply with the WTO. I 
think it's important that all nations comply with WTO rulings. I'll work 
with Congress to get into compliance. As you might remember, we worked 
on the FISC/ETI bill because of the WTO ruling. We expect the WTO, as 
well, to treat our trading partners as they treat us. And that's why, 
for example, I filed complaint on the Airbus situation. We believe that 
the subsidies for Airbus are unfair for U.S. companies such as Boeing.
    Yes, Mark [Mark Knoller, CBS Radio], hi.

Appropriations Legislation

    Q. Hi. Sir, you said you're going to sign the big omnibus 
appropriations bill, but are you bothered by all the examples of 
porkbarrel spending that are in that bill?
    The President. Mark, it's--first, the bill conforms to the budget 
that I worked out with the Congress, and I appreciate that. In other 
words, the size of the bill is a number that we agreed to early on--
earlier this year. And I appreciate that, because part of making sure we 
cut the deficit in half is to work together on the overall size of our 
spending bills.
    Now, secondly, obviously, there's going to be things in these big 
bills that I don't particularly care for, and that's why I've asked 
Congress to give me a line-item veto. And the only way a President can 
affect that which is inside the bill, other than vetoing the entire 
bill, is to be able to pick out parts of a bill and express displeasure 
about it through a line-item veto. I hope the Congress will give me a 
line-item veto.
    Listen, it's great to see everybody.

 Northern Ireland

    Q. Anything on Northern Ireland?
    The President. Well, I talked to--evidently the word's out that I 
made a phone call this morning, and I did so. And I was just trying to 
be a part of the process of getting both Ian Paisley's group--Dr. 
Paisley's group and Gerry Adams' group to the table to get a deal done.
    Q. To get----
    The President. To get a deal done. In other words, to close the 
agreement that they've been working on for quite a while. Hopefully it 
will help. Of course, the primary movers are Prime Minister Blair and 
Bertie Ahern of Ireland, who have been working very diligently on this. 
I appreciate their efforts, and anything I can do to help keep the 
process moving forward, I'm more than willing to do so.

[[Page 2867]]

    Listen, I've got to go eat a burger. Thank you all.

Note: The exchange began at 12:30 p.m. at the Coffee Station. In his 
remarks, the President referred to Prime Minister Tony Blair of the 
United Kingdom; President Vladimir Putin of Russia; Ian Paisley, leader, 
Democratic Unionist Party; Gerry Adams, leader, Sinn Fein; and Prime 
Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of this exchange.