June 1, 2007
WASHINGTON, -- PRESIDENT BUSH: It is my honor
to welcome the President of a free Iraq back to the
Oval Office. President Talabani, thank you for
coming. I admire your courage. I admire your
dedication to a united Iraq. I admire the leadership
you have shown, and I welcome you.
We had a good conversation today about a variety of
subjects. I told the President that I'm fully
committed to helping the Iraqi government achieve
important objectives, we call them benchmarks,
political law necessary to show the Iraqi citizens
that there is a unified government willing to work
on the interest of all people.
The President fully understands the need for the
Iraqi government to meet certain benchmarks, and he
is dedicated to achieving those benchmarks. We're
working very hard, for example, on getting an oil
law with an oil revenue-sharing code that will help
unite the country. Working very hard on de-Baathification
law -- reform, as well as provincial elections.
We talked about a lot of issues.
And I want to thank you very much for your vision,
Mr. President, and your willingness to take the hard
steps necessary to get the job done.
I told the President the decision I have made --
I've asked one of my top aides, Meghan O'Sullivan,
to return to Baghdad. Meghan has been a integral
part of our team here at the White House. She has
been in Iraq before. She's going back to serve with
Ambassador Crocker, to help the Iraqis -- and to
help the Embassy help the Iraqis -- meet the
benchmarks that the Congress and the President
expect to get passed. I want to thank Meghan for her
dedicated service to a free Iraq.
Mr. President, it is important that you succeed.
Failure in Iraq would endanger the American citizens
because failure in Iraq would embolden the enemies
of a free Iraq. David Petraeus said, public enemy
number one in Iraq is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda happens to
be public enemy number one in America, too. And that
should say loud and clear to citizens who still
remember the lessons of September the 11th that it's
in our interest to help the Iraqis defeat al Qaeda.
We must not let al Qaeda have a safe haven in Iraq.
We must not retreat in the face of the unspeakable
violence that they perpetuate on your citizens. We
must help you prevail. And if all Iraqis showed the
same courage you show, we will prevail. And there's
a lot of courageous Iraqis there.
I'm confident we can succeed, Mr. President, and I
want to thank you for coming here to the White House
to join me. |
President George W. Bush listens as President Jalal
Talabani of Iraq addresses members of the media in
the Oval Office Thursday, May 31, 2007. White House
photo
President George W. Bush welcomes President Jalal
Talabani of Iraq to the Oval Office Thursday, May
31, 2007. White House |
|
PRESIDENT TALABANI: It is an honor meeting our great
friend, who we consider the hero of liberating Iraq,
President George Bush, who was always with Iraqi
people. Also I must tell you that I'm committed as
the President of Iraq to benchmarks and to do our
best to achieve some progress forward for national
reconciliation, for passing the law -- oil law, de-Baathification,
and investment, and other laws which are now under
discussion. And I think we are due to finish all of
these and send it to parliament to be achieved.
At the same time, we are committed to do our best to
train our army and our forces to replace gradually
the American forces in taking responsibility of the
security of our country. Of course, we are very
grateful to the American people. And I present my
condolences to the sacrifice which these glorious
people America has always presented for liberating
peoples all over -- (inaudible) -- and for Iraqi
people and others.
We are always committing our desire to strengthen
the unity of Iraq and the unity of the national
government, to have the collective leadership in
Iraq for getting the oil problem. And I briefed his
excellency, Mr. President, about what we have done
and what we have achieved for this purpose.
I'm glad to have the support of President Bush and
the Congress. I'm grateful to Congress. I told
President Bush that I'm grateful for the Congress
for the last decision and for the decision, which
was the resolution that was taken by Congress, the
resolution of liberating Iraq at the time of
President Bill Clinton.
So we are determined to success. Of course, you have
problems. I don't think that everything is okay,
everything is good, we have no problems -- no, we
have problems. We have serious problems with
terrorism. The main enemy of Iraqi people is al
Qaeda and terrorists cooperating with them. But
there are groups who are now raising arms against
us, now we are negotiating with them to get them
back to the political process of the Iraqi people.
You have good achievements also. We hope that this
will lead to more big steps forward to national
reconciliation in Iraq.
We are also determined to improve our political and
economic life in Iraq. We achieved -- unfortunately,
media only concentrating on negative sides of Iraq.
They are not concentrating on big achievements in
Iraq, economic achievements, raising the salaries of
the millions of Iraqis, improving the social life
and the -- that all the universities, schools,
hospitals are working well in Iraq. Besides the
problems which we have -- we don't deny it -- we are
trying to overcome these difficulties. But we have
some achievements. Thanks to the United States of
America and our great friend, President Bush, we
achieve some good, important success.
Besides some failure in the security, we have also
successes in bringing democracy for the first time
to Iraq. All kinds of democratic rights are now
available for Iraqi people. We have free election,
we have now parliament elected by people. We have
authorities -- presidency, prime minister -- chosen
by the people. This is happening for the first time
in the history of the Iraqi people.
Also we have some kind of success in rebuilding our
country. Not all parts of Iraq are terrible. You
have in the north of Iraq, Kurdistan -- in Iraq
living in peace, security and prosperity. And also,
in the south, you have about nine provinces now
secure and gradually -- days ago the American forces
delivered the responsibility of security to the
authorities in Iraq -- so we are going forward --
with difficulties; I don't deny difficulties, I
don't deny shortcomings, I don't deny that still we
are suffering from some problems. But we are
determined to benchmarks, and we are determined to
move forward and to achieve, as Mr. President
mentioned.
Now we are due to have the oil law, which will
revolution for all Iraqis; due to review the de-Baathification.
We have our new draft for this. We have another
draft for investment. We are encouraging investment
from outside to Iraq. And we are going to renew the
local elections -- in near future for this.
But again, I am grateful to the American people, to
the President of the American people, for what they
have done for my people, for Iraq. We are now living
in much better situation than we had in the past.
And we are facing common enemy, which is still -- al
Qaeda is the enemy not only of Iraq and America, but
all people of the world. Look to the Arab countries,
everywhere; al Qaeda -- in Morocco, in Saudi Arabia,
in Egypt, al Qaeda is starting to work against all
peoples of Middle East. So we are fighting this
enemy. And as President Bush said, there must be no
place for al Qaeda in Iraq or in other places,
because if they can have such a kind of bases, they
will threaten Europe and United States of America.
Again, Mr. President, thank you very much for your
kind visit, and for your important words you say.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you.
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