Press Briefing by Dana Perino

Business Wire, Sept 8, 2008

Thankfully, the policy that the President decided on and announced on January 10, 2007 has been the right one. And now the President is weighing his options for the next announcement in terms of troop levels in Iraq. And I, last week, said that that would be likely this week. I'm going to upgrade that to probable this week, and we'll probably have more for you within the next day or so.

Q But what does it say about the judgment of the military leadership of the country that what you're calling the most important foreign policy national security decision of a generation faced near unanimous opposition from the top military leaders?

MS. PERINO: Well, I would be -- I would caution you that it was near unanimous. I would also point out that President Bush showed tremendous leadership to be able to ask, what are the other options? What else could we do? How can we win?

Remember, a lot of conversation during that time was from members of Congress saying that we are losing and we should leave. And the President instead said, it is tough, it is horrific in terms of the violence, but we are staying, and how can we win? And that was the conversation that went -- that took place those last several months of 2006 and resulted in the policy of the surge.

Q President Sarkozy said just a little while ago that it appears that he's reached a deal for Russian troops to move out of the buffer zones in Georgia. Any reaction to that? And would that have any impact on the civilian nuclear agreement that seems to be on hold and potentially withdrawn?

MS. PERINO: I saw that Reuters report, so congratulations on getting -- I don't believe -- I don't know that we've had an update from the French in terms of their meetings. So let us get that for you and respond. On the Russia 1-2-3 agreement, I don't have anything for you yet, but all the reporting that I've seen on it is pretty accurate in terms of the direction this is going. And I don't think that any -- that today's announcement would change that, but I'll check with State Department.

Q Okay. And the Indian agreement, how does the White House see proceeding with that, given the -- you mentioned the congressional timeline is short, has a 30-day legislative gestation period. What do you see the strategy for going forward?

MS. PERINO: This is an agreement that has enjoyed wide bipartisan approval for the period of time that we've been working on it. It really does deepen the U.S.-India relationship on many levels, and it will help meet India's surging energy needs, as well as help us bring India along as a solution to helping solve the challenges that we face on global climate change. It increases jobs for Indians and for Americans. It increases innovation and competition. Civil nuclear energy is the way of the future if we want to power this country in a way that is clean, renewable, and does not emit greenhouse gases.

We urge Congress to act soon on this important measure. Secretary Rice and her team will be working very closely with members of Congress over the next several weeks to see if we can get this done in a timely fashion. I would say that signs for it to be able to pass are good, given the bipartisan support it's enjoyed in the past. I don't think that anything has changed in that regard. So if they are able to get anything done, this could be one of them.