Press Briefing by Tony Snow

August 30, 2007 ,1:04 P.M. EDT,MR. SNOW: Hello, everyone. A quick announcement before I take your questions. President Bush will welcome Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates to the White House on September 17, 2007, in the Prime Minister's dual role as Prime Minister and head of the European Union presidency. President Bush looks forward to discussing a broad range of issues of shared interest, including Afghanistan, the Middle East, transatlantic relations, advancing peace and security in Afghanistan and the Middle East, ending genocide in Darfur, enhancing cooperation on international trade, counterterrorism, energy security and climate change. The President welcomes the opportunity to discuss with the Prime Minister ways to build on our strong relations with the European Union under Portuguese leadership.,Questions.,Q Is the administration trying to get GAO to revise some of their assessments in their Iraq report?,MR. SNOW: No, at this point, I don't think -- you talk about revising assessments and you've got a draft report that's been making its way around -- the Pentagon has suggested that there are some factual -- it believes it has some compelling facts that may bear on some of the conclusions that have been drawn. But it's my understanding that, typically --,Q In what area?,MR. SNOW: I'll refer you back to the Pentagon on that. But the fact is that these are reports that get circulated around for comment and apparently there were some comments. I talked to Geoff Morrell about it -- I know he made some comments to the Pentagon press corps today. But they'll have to -- obviously they're going to be people providing some factual input and some input into the report.,Q The administration, or the White House is not very enthusiastic about this report -- is that correct?,MR. SNOW: No, I don't -- no. I think what we've suggested is, number one, that the standard that is set by the legislation is to assess whether a benchmark has been met. Well, look, it's no secret that many of the benchmarks have not been met. What is significant is that there's progress toward a great number of them.,Again, you're asking us -- you're asking me at this point to make detailed comment on a draft report. I'm not going to do it. Let's wait and see what GAO has to report. It clearly has been leaked by some people who want to get some of the early thinking out, but we'll get a report next Tuesday, I think, and we'll be able to --,Q But wouldn't it fair to assume that the administration has an interest in making it appear better than the negative way in which it seems in the draft?,MR. SNOW: No, I think the administration's interest is making sure that we get a full picture of what's going on in Iraq. And frankly, the people who are going to be best able to do that are the folks who live and work there every day, and that would be General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.,There are a number of reports coming out. We have the NIE, obviously. There's the Jones Commission report. So there are a lot of reports. It's a season of reports. But we are certainly looking forward to hearing from the General who is in charge of overall operations and the Ambassador who works there every day, the folks who have a real grasp of ground truth. All these reports obviously are interesting.,Q Democrats are saying that this GAO report basically shows that President Bush's Iraq strategy is not working. How do you respond to them? Why should they not view it that way?,MR. SNOW: Well, number one, they ought to talk to the Democrats who have just come back from Iraq who said just the opposite. So, I mean, you've had Senator Durbin, Senator Levin. You had a number of key Democrats who have come back and talked about -- Senator Biden, even -- suggesting that there have been, in fact, significant changes under the surge and there have been significant progress.,Again, I would -- if you take a look at what Congress has mandated for this report, it says, have you met these? Have you met them in full? Well, the answer is, you're going to find in a lot of cases, of course they haven't met them. Now, the real question is, do you have progress in the right direction?,The other thing I would suggest is that it would be a mistake to limit one's view of what goes on in Iraq to the benchmarks. For instance, among the benchmarks are not the fact that Sunni Iraqis have, in fact, turned against al Qaeda and have really opened up a front against al Qaeda that is of enormous significance, and also creates a possibility of greater political reconciliation in the long run, as well.,So what you're going to see from Ambassador Crocker and from General Petraeus is a view of what's going on in Iraq that's broader simply than the benchmarks. And I think if you take a look even at the original report on the benchmarks, some of those that were laid out originally -- and I don't have them all in my head right now, but you go back and read the July report -- some of them are not even appropriate right now. There's a critique of some of the benchmarks themselves.,The real question that people have is, what's going on Iraq? Are we making progress? Militarily, is the surge having an impact? The answer is yes. There's no question about it. What you've had is the number of ethnic and religious sectarian killings down by 75 percent. You have a doubling of weapons cache seizures. You have a reduction in bombing violence, in bombing killings of U.S. and coalition forces. There have been a number of -- you have kills and captures way up when it comes to those who have been fighting against the government.,Obviously there's a whole lot that still needs to be done. But on the other hand, again, there's been significant progress on a number of fronts.,Q Tony, where do you get that information that sectarian violence, you said, is down 75 percent?,MR. SNOW: I believe that was -- General Petraeus is -- 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year.,Q The GAO found no difference in overall violence.,MR. SNOW: Well, again, I'm going to wait to see the report. Everybody is speaking knowledgeably of a draft report. The other thing is, how one measures overall violence, it would be interesting to see what that metric is. General Petraeus clearly has a different view of that. I would defer to him on that.,Q Tony, a couple days ago, The Washington Post reported that -- you mentioned the NIE -- they reported that when the NIE went around in draft form, General Petraeus saw it and didn't like some of the findings and succeeded in basically watering down what the spy agencies had come up with. What's the process like? Are you tinkering with these reports?,MR. SNOW: No. Number one, you are saying that it's tinkering with the report when the man who's on the ground, who has the most direct experience, is, in fact, having factual input? No, this is --,Q But clearly they talked to him for factual input earlier in the -- I'm talking about the end of the process. Do you think your 16 spy agencies did this report without --,MR. SNOW: Sixteen spy agencies? You're talking about intelligence agencies.,Q Yes, intelligence agencies. Do you think that they did not -- do you think that they did not reach out to General Petraeus and other commanders earlier in the process? Are you saying that they just made it up on their own?,MR. SNOW: Are you saying that General Petraeus was trying to doctor the report?,Q Well, The Washington Post report suggested that, saying, he "succeeded in having the security judgment softened to reflect improvements in recent months.",MR. SNOW: Well, I think that's -- yes, but that is somebody having factual input into a report, Ed.,Q Is it true you're not going to ask for any more money for this war?