President Bush Discusses War on Terror, Economy with Associa

May 2, 2007,9:44 A.M. EDT,THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all; please be seated. Steve, unlike you, I have trouble finding the front end of a front-end loader. (Laughter.) Thanks for having me. I'm proud to be here with the AGC. It's the oldest and largest construction trade association in our country. I understand I'm not the first Bush to have ever addressed the AGC convention -- a person I now refer to as "41" addressed you. (Laughter.) And I appreciated your hospitality to him then, and I appreciate your hospitality to me today.,Contractors¹⁰⁵ of America Wednesday, May 2, 2007, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. White House photo by Joyce Boghosian" src="/upimg/allimg/20070504/1623000.jpg" width="255" align="right" border="0" /> I want to talk about -- a little bit about our economy and I want to talk a lot about our security. And I thank you for giving me a chance to come by. What I thought I would do is try to keep my remarks relatively² brief and then maybe give you all some time to ask some questions.,First, I want to thank Steve. Steve is a Virginia Tech grad, and our hearts are still heavy as a result of that terrible incident there on the campus. And, yet, the amazing thing about that campus -- and a lot of other places around the country -- is we've got a great resiliency; people bounce back from tragedy. So, Steve, you can tell the Virginia Tech community we're still thinking about them and appreciate very much the great kind of strength of spirit there -- at least I saw that there in Blacksburg, Virginia.,I want to thank two members of the Senate who have joined us. First, John Warner, from Virginia. Senator, thank you for coming; ranking member of the House Military Committee -- Armed Services Committee -- he's a strong supporter of the troops. And I appreciate Senator Joe Lieberman. John is a Republican, Senator Lieberman is an independent. Joe Lieberman is one of these -- I would call him a unique soul who followed his conscience, stood for what he believed in, in the face of a political firestorm. And he proved that if you stand on conviction, the people will follow. And I look forward to working with these two really fine public servants to make the decisions necessary to protect the United States. And I'm honored you all are here and thank you for coming. (Applause.),I like to be in the room of builders and doers and problem solvers and entrepreneurs. And I thank you for what you do every day. Your job is to improve infrastructure⁴ and provide work for people. Our job is to provide an environment so that you can build infrastructure and provide work for people. Our job is not to try to create wealth in government. Our job is to create an environment that encourages small businesses and entrepreneurial -- and entrepreneurs.,I believe this administration has done that, particularly since we cut taxes. You know, most small businesses and self-employed people, people in your line of work, or many of them, are not corporations. They've sole proprietorships, or subchapter S corporations, or limited partnerships⁵ that pay tax at the individual income tax level.,And, therefore, when you cut taxes, we not only -- individual rates, we're not only cutting them on the people who work for you or work with you, we're cutting them on you. And my attitude is the more money you have in your treasuries⁶, the more likely it is you'll be able to expand. The more incentive⁷ you have to buy a piece of equipment, the more likely it is you'll buy one, which means that somebody is going to have to build it for you.,The best way to enhance pro-growth economic policies is to cut the taxes on the American people. And that's exactly what we did. These taxes are set to expire. In my judgment⁸, if Congress really wants to create a pro-growth attitude for a long time coming, they ought to make the tax relief we passed permanent. They ought not to let them expire. (Applause.),My attitude is this about the budget: The best way to balance the budget is to keep taxes low, encourage growth, which enhances tax revenues, and be wise about how we spend money. I worry about the attitude, don't worry, we're just going to raise the taxes on some to balance the budget. No, they'll raise the tax on some and figure out new ways to spend the money.,And we're proving that pro-growth economic policies with fiscal⁹ discipline can work. And our budgets are shrinking [sic]. The best way to keep them shrinking is keep the economy growing and be wise about -- and setting priorities with your money.,There's other things we can do in Washington. We've got to make sure health care is affordable¹⁰ and available, without inviting¹¹ the federal government to run the health care system. Got to do something about these junk lawsuits¹² that I'm sure you're concerned about. We've got to continue to invest in the nation's infrastructure. We also need an immigration system that upholds the rule of law and treats people with respect. We need an immigration system that secures our borders and meets the needs of our economy. As I said in the speech down in Florida the other day, we need an immigration system without amnesty and without animosity. In other words, we need a comprehensive immigration reform.,I want to thank you for the stand you have taken in working with Congress on comprehensive immigration reform. I join you. I will work with both Republicans and Democrats¹⁵ to get a bill to my desk before the summer is out, hopefully. And I thank the leadership in the Senate that's working through this issue. I want to thank Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona for working hard on this, Mel Martinez, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham. There's a series of senators who are working with Ted¹ Kennedy, who is a strong advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. And I appreciate the leadership he's taken, along with Ken¹³ Salazar of Colorado.,We're making progress. There's a lot more work to be done, and your help is important. And so I want to thank you for coming up with a rational, reasonable, logical plan.,I want to talk to you about the other main issue we have here in America, and that is your security. The most important job we have is to secure the United States of America. That's the most important job of the federal government. You expect us to spend enormous amounts of energy protecting you, and that's what we're doing. I vowed¹⁸ to the American people we would not tire when it came to protecting you, and we're not going to. Matter of fact, I spend a lot of time thinking about this issue. I wish I didn't have to spend time thinking about the issue, but I do, because there's still an enemy out there that would like to do America harm. And, therefore, at this hour, we've got men and women in uniform engaging our enemies around the world. Our strategy is, we've got to keep the pressure on them. We would rather fight them there, so we don't have to face them here. (Applause.),And the most visible and violent front of this global war is Iraq. And it's a tough fight. It has been a difficult year for the American people, I understand that. It reached -- last year was, this battle reached its most difficult point to date. The terrorists and extremists and radicals²⁰ set off a wave of sectarian violence that engulfed²¹ that young democracy's capital. It threatened to destabilize the entire country.,So earlier this year I laid out a new strategy in Iraq. I named a new commander to carry it out, General David Petraeus. I want to give you some facts about the new strategy, and talk about why Iraq relates directly to the safety of the American people.,The most important fact about our new strategy, it is fundamentally different from the previous strategy. The previous strategy wasn't working the way we wanted it to work. It's interesting, they run polls -- and I accept that -- and it said, you know, we don't approve of what's happening in Iraq. That was what the poll said last fall and winter, you know. And had they polled me, I'd have said the same thing. (Laughter.) I didn't approve of what was happening in Iraq. And so we put a new strategy in that was fundamentally different.,First of all, Petraeus, General Petraeus is an expert on counterinsurgency, and his top priority is to help the Iraqi leaders -- who, by the way, were elected by nearly 12 million of their citizens -- secure their population. And the reason why is, is that this young democracy needed some time to make important political decisions to help reconcile the country. After a thorough review, we concluded the best way to help Iraq's leaders to provide security was to send more troops into the nation's capital, into the country; was to send reinforcements to those troops which were already there. And their job was to go after the extremists and radicals who were inciting²² sectarian violence. Their job was to help get Baghdad under control. And their job was to continue to train Iraqi forces for the day they can secure the country on their own.,Last week, General Petraeus came to Washington, and he updated me and he updated the Congress on the early stages of this new strategy -- and I repeat, early stages. He reminded us that not all the reinforcements he'd requested have arrived, that it's going to be at least until the end of this summer that he will know whether or not the new strategy has achieved successes.,And that means the strategy is in early stages. My view is the Congress and the country ought to give General Petraeus time to see whether or not this works. And it's interesting, he goes up in front of the Senate and gets confirmed unanimously. And he said, I need more troops, during his testimony²³; send me more troops and I will go implement²⁴ a new plan. They said, okay, fine, we confirm you. And yet there are some doubts in Washington whether or not they ought to send the troops.,The troops are going, the strategy is new, and the General said, let's give it some time to work to see whether or not it's successful, and I'll be able to report back to the country by the end of this summer.,The most significant element of the new strategy is being carried out in the capital. The whole purpose is to secure the capital. My theory is, and it's a good one, is that if the capital is in chaos²⁵, the country can't -- it's going to be difficult for the country to survive.,The strategy is also being carried out in what's called surrounding belts. This is the areas that kind of arc around the capital, and it's a place where there's been a lot of planning and plotting and attacking. Three American brigades, totaling about 12,000 reinforcements, have taken up their positions in the Baghdad area. The fourth brigade, fourth of five, is heading into Baghdad this week. And the fifth is on its way. In other words, you just don't take five brigades and move them in overnight. There's a sequencing that has to take place, and that sequencing is now being completed.,The Iraqis, by the way, have increased their own forces. In other words, this is a joint²⁶ operation. This is the Americans and coalition²⁷ forces helping²⁸ the Iraqis provide security so that the average person can live a peaceful life. That's what they want. And so we've got about a total of 80,000 combat forces now in the Baghdad area -- U.S., combined with the Iraqi forces. The position of the forces is shifting. We used to have our forces live in bases outside the city. They would go in at night or during the day and then leave and go back home at night. They did a fine job, as we expect our U.S. forces to do, the Iraqi forces would do so. And then when they would leave, killers²⁹ would move back in.,And so now we've got American troops are now living and working in small neighborhood posts called joint security stations. This is what's fundamentally different from the strategy. Our troops, with the Iraqis, go into a neighborhood, and they stay. They operate side by side with the Iraqi forces.,What's interesting is, is that the plan, General Petraeus's plan, is to help build trust. And when you build trust, you end up getting people buying into a centralized government, a unity³ government, a country that is united. And not only that, you end up getting cooperation from people. Remember, most people want to live peaceful lives. I hope this make sense to you, because I firmly believe that Iraqi moms want their child to grow up in a peaceful world, just like American moms do.,And so we're seeing some gains. The interesting thing about this is that the nature of this strategy is that the most important gains are often the least dramatic. It doesn't generate much attention when violence does not happen. Instead, some important indicators³⁰ of progress in the security plan are less visible. I would like to share some with you.,The level of cooperation from local residents is important. It's an indication as to whether or not we're making progress: our ability to take weapons off the street and break up extremist groups; the willingness of Iraqis to join their security forces is an interesting measurement. And, finally, it's important to measure the level of sectarian violence. If the objective is to bring security to the capital, one measurement is whether or not sectarian violence is declining. These measures are really not flashy. In other words, they're not headline-grabbing measures. They certainly can't compete with a car bomb or a suicide attack. But they are interesting indications. And as General Petraeus reported, these are heading in the right direction.,For example, General Petraeus reports that American and Iraqi forces received more tips from local residents in the past four months than during any other four-month period on record. People are beginning to have some confidence and they're beginning to step forth³¹ with information, information that will help them live normal lives.,Thanks to these tips the number of weapons caches that are being seized are growing each month. Better intelligence has led American and Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the surrounding belts to conduct operations against Sunni and Shia extremists. My attitude is, if murderers run free, it's going to be hard to convince the people of any society that the government is worth supporting. And, therefore, the Iraqis and U.S. forces and coalition forces are after murderers regardless of their religious affiliation³².,American and Iraqi forces captured the head of a major car bombing ring recently, the leader of a bombing network with ties to Iran, members of a death squad³³ that terrorized a Baghdad neighborhood, the leader of a secret militia³⁴ cell that kidnapped and executed American soldiers. These are just some examples of what happens when you start to earn the confidence of the people.,Baghdad residents see actions, they grow more confident. Interestingly enough, General Petraeus reported that in his short time he's been there, and in the short time that this plan is being implemented³⁵ -- remember, it's not fully¹⁶ implemented: three of the brigades are present, are in place; the fourth brigade has just moved into Baghdad and it will be in place relatively soon, and the fifth is on its way -- that in spite of the fact that we haven³⁶'t fully implemented the plan, the number of sectarian murders in Baghdad has dropped substantially.