The President's news conference

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 27, 2004

Sanger [David Sanger, New York Times].

North Korea/Iran

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. You spent a good deal of time before the Iraq war, some in this room, explaining to us why the combination of Saddam Hussein as a dictator and the weapons that you thought at the time he had assembled made a case for regime change. In the case of North Korea and Iran, you have not declared yourself on the question of regime change, though North Korea, your intelligence agencies believe, may have added six or seven nuclear weapons in the past 2 years. And Iran seems to have a covert program, or at least your Government believes it does. Where do you stand on regime change? And how would it be accomplished?

The President. I'll tell you where I stand, David. I stand on the--continuing the six-party talks with North Korea to convince Kim Chong-il to give up his weapons systems. As you might remember, our countries tried a strategy of bilateral relationships in hopes that we can convince Kim Chong-il. It didn't work. As a matter of fact, when we thought we had in good faith agreed to an agreement--I mean, agreed to a plan that would work, he, himself, was enriching uranium, or saw to it that the uranium was enriched. In other words, he broke the agreement.

I think it's an important lesson for this administration to learn and that the best way to convince him to disarm is to get others to weigh in as well--the Iranian situation as well. We're relying upon others, because we've sanctioned ourselves out of influence with Iran, to send a message that we expect them to--in other words, we don't have much leverage with the Iranians right now, and we expect them to listen to those voices, and we're a part of the universal acclaim.

I believe that--and so, therefore, we're dealing--this is how we're dealing with the issue. And it's much different between the situation in Iraq and Iran because of this. Diplomacy had failed for 13 years in Iraq. As you might remember, and I'm sure you do, all the U.N. resolutions that were passed out of the United Nations, totally ignored by Saddam Hussein.

And so diplomacy must be the first choice and always the first choice of an administration trying to solve an issue of, in this case, nuclear armament. And we'll continue to press on diplomacy.

Now, in terms of my vision for the future of the world, I believe everybody ought to be free. I believe the world is more peaceful as liberty takes hold. Free societies don't fight each other. And so we'll work to continue to send a message to reformers around the world that America stands strong in our belief that freedom is universal, and that we hope at some point in time, everybody is free.

Yes.

Federal Spending/Budget Process

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. You talked earlier about the importance of spending discipline in the Federal budget, but you went your entire first term without vetoing a single spending bill, even though you had a lot of tough talk on that issue in your first term. And I'm wondering, this time around, what are you going to do to convince Congress you really are serious about cutting Federal spending? Will you veto spending bills this time?