Bush on the NIE, Karzai on Islamic Terrorists
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 9:40 am by Neal*** Scroll for Updates ***
This excerpt is from yesterday’s press conference with President Bush and Afghanistan’s President Karzai:
Q My question —
PRESIDENT BUSH: What was that question?
Q Why is that declassification not —
PRESIDENT BUSH: Because I want you to read the documents so you don’t speculate about what it says. You asked me a question based upon what you thought was in the document, or at least somebody told you was in the document. And so I think, Jennifer, you’ll be able to ask a more profound question when you get to look at it yourself — (laughter) — as opposed to relying upon gossip and somebody who may or may not have seen the document trying to classify the war in Iraq one way or the other.
I guess it’s just Washington, isn’t it, where, you know, we kind of — there’s no such thing as classification anymore, hardly. But, anyway, you ought to take a look at it and then you’ll get to see.
You’ve got a two-part question.
PRESIDENT KARZAI: Ma’am, before I go to remarks by my brother, President Musharraf, terrorism was hurting us way before Iraq or September 11th. The President mentioned some examples of it. These extremist forces were killing people in Afghanistan and around for years, closing schools, burning mosques, killing children, uprooting vineyards, with vine trees, grapes hanging on them, forcing populations to poverty and misery.
They came to America on September 11th, but they were attacking you before September 11th in other parts of the world. We are a witness in Afghanistan to what they are and how they can hurt. You are a witness in New York. Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or a woman to jump off that high? Who did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again? That’s why we need more action around the world, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to get them defeated — extremism, their allies, terrorists and the like.
On the remarks of my brother, President Musharraf, Afghanistan is a country that is emerging out of so many years of war and destruction, and occupation by terrorism and misery that they’ve brought to us. We lost almost two generations to the lack of education. And those who were educated before that are now older. We know our problems. We have difficulties. But Afghanistan also knows where the problem is — in extremism, in madrassas preaching hatred, preachers in the name of madrassas preaching hatred. That’s what we should do together to stop.
The United States, as our ally, is helping both countries. And I think it is very important that we have more dedication and more intense work with sincerity, all of us, to get rid of the problems that we have around the world.
More:
The “Jennifer” to whom the President was responding is leftwing stooge Jennifer Loven who works for, surprise, the A(wt)P.
Hugh Hewitt on the NIE.
The declassified portions of the document (PDF).
UPDATE:
John at powerlineblog.com has these posts, Bush and Karzai on the NIE, and To Change the Subject, Ask for Something You Can’t Get.