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Press Gaggle by Tony Snow and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley 11/15/06 (Topic: Iraq Strategy)
— Wednesday, November 15, 2006 — Q But in the past, you were willing to talk to Iran about Iraq. It sounds like you're not willing to do that now. MR. HADLEY: Well, we've talked about that in the past. We had an offer to do that, in a kind of discreet discussion that would be productive. The Iranians went public with it, clearly had an objective or an agenda to do something else with it. And, therefore, it was clear that it wasn't going to serve the purposes we had in mind, so we pulled it down. There's been a lot of talk now -- some people say Iran wants to talk; we're hearing from other channels Iran doesn't want to talk. What I would say to you is, look, it's not the -- what we need is less talk and more action by Iran. May I say a word, by the way, about the press reports today about looking -- and reviews, with respect to the way forward on Iraq? I just wanted to set that in a little broader context. We have been doing, within the government, reviews on the way forward in Iraq: where we are, what have been the barriers to success, what do we need to do to have a way forward. As the President said, things are not going well enough or fast enough. That's been clear for a while. So for many weeks we have been doing a series of reviews, fairly discreetly. JCS has been doing a review, State has been doing a review, NSC has been doing our own internal review, as well, to try and get a sense of where we are, where we need to be and how to get there. Not surprisingly, the President has met with his national security principles yesterday; thought it was high time that these reviews be brought together and put in an integrated form so he can get a look at it and begin getting in his own mind what the way forward needs to be in Iraq. And that's what he's asked to get done. And he chartered yesterday. And it will be, obviously, coordinated within the NSC, because that's what we do -- we coordinate inter-agency activities. And it will draw on the work that will be done. The point I want to make though, of course, is this is not -- this is to try and figure out how we can support the Iraqi government and Maliki in his view of the way forward in Iraq. We think we have a common view on the way forward strategically. We've been hearing from Prime Minister Maliki some of the things he thinks: he wants more control over security forces, he wants to move more aggressively to stabilize the security situation, he wants to accelerate training and maybe enhancing the capabilities of forces. All of these are good things. So he's beginning to articulate what he thinks is the way forward; we need to figure out how we can support, as a partner with Iraq, an agenda for achieving our common objectives in Iraq. And that's what we're trying to do. White House Press Corps | Press Briefing | Tony Snow | News Media | Bush Administration | Steve Hadley | Iraq
Posted by WhiteHousePressCorps.org @ 10:00 PM
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