White House Press Corps.org: Press Briefing by Tony Snow 1/18/07 (Topic: Iraq)

Daily adventures with the

in their own words

Press Briefing by Tony Snow 1/18/07 (Topic: Iraq)
— Thursday, January 18, 2007 —

Q Two questions on public perceptions. Are you saying that four years into this war, the American people don't have an accurate picture of what's going on in Iraq?

MR. SNOW: I think, Wendell, four years into a war, the picture constantly changes. The picture that we saw in April of 2003 was different than the one we saw a year ago. If you think a year ago, Wendell, there was considerable optimism, Democrats and Republicans both coming back from the region saying, you know, we think things are going okay. We've had the election. They did not anticipate the, I guess, eruption of sectarian violence.

What is important is that the American people not only understand the violence, but they also understand the response and the nature of the response and the way in which we're building capacity among the Iraqis, and the assurance that what a lot of Americans want to see, which is going after the sources of violence -- because I think there's been a notion that our guys are just wandering around getting shot at rather than moving aggressively against an enemy, and at the same time, that the Iraqis are carrying their weight, that they're now devoted $10 billion out of $11 billion of their national surplus to reconstruction.

That's putting their money where their mouth is, talking about the importance of arming up and being fully equipped and ready, making clear to everybody that they are not going to be permitting anybody to commit acts of violence, and nobody gets a free pass just because of their sectarian belief or affiliation.

All of those are important data points that I'm not sure everybody has had a chance to take into account, and therefore, we understand this is going to be important to talk about it a lot.

Full Press Briefing

Posted by WhiteHousePressCorps.org @ 10:23 PM

0 Comments: