FEBRUARY EDITION

President Bush Conference on Hamas Election Victory
James S. Brady Briefing Room


Q Mr. President, is Mideast peacemaking dead with Hamas' big election victory? And do you rule out dealing with the Palestinians if Hamas is the majority party?

THE PRESIDENT: Peace is never dead, because people want peace. I believe --  and that's why I articulated a two-state solution early in my administration, so that -- as a vision for people to work toward, a solution that recognized that democracy yields peace. And the best hope for peace in the Middle East is two democracies living side-by-side. So the Palestinians had an election yesterday, and the results of which remind me about the power of democracy. You see, when you give people the vote, you give people a chance to express themselves at the polls -- and if they're unhappy with the status quo, they'll let you know. That's the great thing about democracy, it provides a look into society. And yesterday the turnout was significant, as I understand it. And there was a peaceful process as people went to the polls, and that's positive. But what was also positive is, is that it's a wake-up call to the leadership. Obviously, people were not happy with the status quo. The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find health care. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories. I like the competition of ideas. I like people who have to go out and say, vote for me, and here's what I'm going to do. There's something healthy about a system that does that. And so the elections yesterday were very interesting. On the other hand, I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got an armed wing. The elections just took place. We will watch very carefully about the formation of the government. But I will continue to remind people about what I just said, that if your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace. And we're interested in peace. I talked to Condi twice this morning. She called President Abbas. She also is going to have a conference call today about the Quartet -- with the Quartet, about how to keep the process on the road to peace.

Q If I can follow up, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Are you cautioning Prime Minister Abbas not to resign? And --

THE PRESIDENT: We'd like him to stay in power. I mean, we'd like to stay in office. He is in power, we'd like him to stay in office. Sorry to interrupt. I knew this was a two-part question, so I tried to head it off.

Q Will this affect aid to the Palestinians? Will you be able to work with Hamas if they're -- assuming they take on a large share of the government?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I made it very clear that the United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally, Israel, and that people must renounce that part of their platform. But the government hasn't formed yet. They're beginning to talk about how to form the government. And your question on Abbas was a good one. And our message to him was, we would hope he would stay in office and work to move the process forward. Again, I remind people, the elections -- democracy is -- can open up the
world's eyes to reality by listening to people. And the elections -- the election process is healthy for society, in my judgment. In other words, it's -- one way to figure out how to address the needs of the people is to let them express themselves at the ballot box. And that's exactly what happened yesterday. And you'll hear a lot of people saying, well, aren't we surprised at the outcome, or this, that, or the other. If there is corruption, I'm not surprised that people say, let's get rid of corruption. If government hadn't been responsive, I'm not the least bit surprised that people said, I want government to be responsive. And so that was an interesting day yesterday in the -- as we're watching liberty begin to spread across the Middle East.

Let's see here. Yes, David.

Q Mr. President, good morning. I have a different question, but I'd like to pin you down on this point about Hamas because I don't think you've  completely answered it. Are you ruling out dealing with a Palestinian government comprised, in part, of Hamas?

THE PRESIDENT: Dave, they don't have a government yet, so you're asking me to speculate on what the government will look like. I have made it very clear, however, that a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal.
 

MIDDLE EAST

IRAQ

At least 100  Shiite worshippers killed  near the Iranian border

Photo: A woman sits on a destroyed car at the site where two suicide car bombers detonated vehicles in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq- Suicide bombers struck in eastern Iraq and the capital on Friday, killing at least 100  Shiite worshippers near the Iranian border and eight Iraqis at a hotel - the second attack against a compound housing Western media and contractors in less than a month. At sunset, hours after the nearly simultaneous bombings of two mosques in the border town of Khanaqin, dozens of people were still searching for relatives and friends. Others collected shredded copies of the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an. One survivor, Omar Saleh, said he was on his knees bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded at the Grand Mosque. "The roof fell on us and the place was filled with dead bodies," Saleh, 73, said from his hospital bed. The bloodshed came as the United Nations' top human rights official added her voice to calls for an international inquiry into allegations that Iraq's U.S.-backed government tortures and abuses prisoners, including Sunni Arab insurgents. "I urge authorities to consider calling for an international inquiry," Louise Arbour, a Canadian, said in Geneva, where she serves as the UN's high commissioner for human rights. Friday's attack in Khanaqin was ominous because it took place in a largely peaceful area about 10 kilometres from Iran. So few incidents have occurred there Iraqi authorities believe they can soon take over security responsibilities from the U.S.-led coalition. That assumption has now been called into question. It was the deadliest attack since Sept. 29, when three suicide car bombers struck in the mostly Shiite town of Balad just north of Baghdad, killing at least 99 people. Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew condemned the attacks in a statement Friday. "These attacks on Shia mosques during Friday prayers targeted innocent Iraqis in a place and time meant for peace and contemplation. Canada condemns these acts of hatred and cowardice," he said. "The perpetrators of today's bombings were trying to destabilize Iraq's political process and create further sectarian strife. Canada encourages all Iraqis to remain resilient and unified in their efforts to create a stable and democratic Iraq. We stand with Iraqis to decry these acts of terror and attempts at provocation, and remain fully committed to assisting with the reconstruction of Iraq." On Friday, the suicide bombers wandered into the Sheik Murad mosque and the Grand Mosque during noon prayers and detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, police and survivors said. The blasts ripped down part of the Grand Mosque's roof and heavily damaged the other place of worship. Salem Ali Mohammed, 32, said he was in the Grand Mosque's washroom when he heard a strong explosion. "I thought a rocket had hit the mosque," he said. "I walked toward the prayer room and saw that the ceiling had collapsed and dead bodies were everywhere." Kamran Ahmed, director of the Khanaqin General Hospital, said 74 people were killed and at least 100 were wounded at the mosques, which are about a kilometre apart in the largely Kurdish town about 145 kilometres northeast of Baghdad. In Baghdad, the attack on the Hamra hotel began about 8:12 a.m. when a white van exploded along the concrete blast wall protecting the compound, blowing a hole in the barrier. Less than a minute later, a water tanker packed with explosives plowed through the breach in an apparent bid to reach the hotel buildings. But the driver, apparently blocked by smoke and debris, detonated his vehicle just inside the barrier, destroying several nearby homes and blowing out windows in the hotel. Eight Iraqis were killed and at least 43 people were wounded, officials said. "What we have here appears to be two suicide car bombs (that) attempted to breach the security wall in the vicinity of the hotel complex, and I think the target was the Hamra Hotel," U.S. Brig.-Gen. Karl Horst told reporters at the scene. News organizations housed at the Hamra include NBC News and The Boston Globe. The tactics in the Hamra attack were similar to those employed in the Oct. 24 triple vehicle assault on the Palestine Hotel, where employees of The Associated Press, Fox News and other organizations live and work. In that attack, which killed 17 Iraqis, one vehicle blew a hole in a concrete blast wall, opening the way for a cement truck packed with explosives to penetrate the compound. The truck detonated only about a metre or two into the compound after U.S. troops raked the vehicle with automatic fire and the driver got stuck in debris. A third vehicle went off a short distance away. Mike Boettcher of NBC News, who was in the Hamra when Friday's bomb exploded, said on the Today show that "we were blown out of our beds." "We got down on the floor and crawled, and then the second bomb hit, and we were blown back," Boettcher said. "To be in the middle of this - not a pleasant experience, but I feel a lot more sorry for those people who were killed just outside our compound, who didn't have that blast wall to protect them. That saved our lives." Sa'ad al-Izzi, an Iraqi journalist with The Boston Globe, said he awakened "to a huge explosion which broke all the glass and displaced all the window and doors frames." The latest attacks in Khanaqin and Baghdad have brought to at least 1,617 the number of Iraqis killed in suicide attacks since the Shiite-led government took power April 28, according to an Associated Press count. At least 3,429 have been wounded. The attack against the Shiite worshippers occurred amid rising tensions between Iraq's majority Shiite and minority Sunni communities. Tensions escalated after last weekend's discovery of 173 malnourished detainees, some bearing signs of torture, in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad seized by American soldiers. Most of the prisoners are believed to have been Sunni Arabs, and the discovery lent credence to allegations of abuse levelled against troops controlled by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. -By R. Reed.

Last minute efforts to win Sunni support of constitution face deep divisions

Photo: An Iraqi food distribution agent counts copies of the new constitution in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq- With U.S. mediation, Shiite and Kurdish officials negotiated Sunday with Sunni Arab leaders over last minute additions to the constitution, trying to win Sunni support ahead of next weekend's crucial referendum. But the sides remained far apart over basic issues - including the federalism that Shiites and Kurds insist on - and copies of the constitution are already being passed out to the public. Though major attacks have waned in recent days, violence continued with insurgent violence killing 13 Iraqis. In one attack, masked gunmen in police commando uniforms burst into a school in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, pulled a Shiite teacher out of his classroom and shot him to death in the hallway in front of his students, still sitting behind their desks, police said. A suicide car bomb killed a woman and a child in the southern city of Basra. A U.S. marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Saturday, the military announced. It was the ninth American to be killed in a series of offensives the military has been waging the past week in western Iraq in an attempt to knock al-Qaida militants and other insurgents off balance and prevent attacks during Saturday's national vote on the constitution. The death brought to 1,953 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Sunni-led insurgents are trying to prevent Iraqis from voting with a wave of attacks over the past two weeks. The government has launched campaign to convince Iraqis to go to the polls despite the threats - and despite calls by some Sunni Arabs for a boycott. "We think (a boycott) would weaken Iraq because the only way that Iraq can recover is done by concentrating on the political process, writing the constitution and participating in it," government spokesman Laith Kubba said. "Any act that calls for violence or boycotting would deviate the country from its course." Kubba fiercely denounced the insurgents, calling them "rats spreading plague among the people." Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said the number of foreign militants involved in Iraq's insurgency has fallen to around 900, from up to 3,000 three months ago. Their ranks have fallen because of deaths in U.S. and Iraqi military offensives - but also because al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has started sending fighters to other Arab countries to build terror networks there, Jabr said in an interview with the Arab daily Sharq al-Awsat. Iraq's Sunni Arab leaders are calling on their followers to turn out in force to vote in the referendum - but to vote "no" to defeat a draft constitution they say will break Iraqi into pieces, with Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the north and south, with the Sunni minority left poor and weak in a central zone.

Though a minority, Sunnis can defeat the charter if they garner a two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces - and they have the potential to make that threshold in four provinces. But turnout is key, since they must outweigh Shiite and Kurdish populations in some of those areas. Even with copies of the official text of the constitution being distributed to voters to consider before the polls, all sides were debating last-minute changes in a bid to swing some Sunnis to a "yes" vote. Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani met with Sunni Arab leaders Saturday and Sunday trying to convince them on the changes, officials from all sides said. The United States is eager to see the passage of the constitution, since its rejection would prolong Iraq's political instability for months - and could hamper the U.S. military's plans to start pulling out some troops next year. But there appeared to be too wide a gulf to convince Sunni leaders to drop their opposition. While Shiite and Kurdish parties were willing to make some cosmetic additions to the draft, they rejected what they called central changes sought by Sunnis, particularly ones aimed at reducing the strong powers the charter gives to regional administrations over the central government. The Sunnis seek in particular changes to the constitution's articles outlining the purging of members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party - most of whose major figures were Sunnis - and others allowing provinces to join together into "regions" under a single administration that would have considerable powers. "We don't want a federal system. It shouldn't be a system of regions, it's a system of provinces," Saleh al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician, said. He said the Sunnis want the articles on de-Baathification rewritten to "not single out the Baath party." The federalism terms are central to the constitution as it stands and the Shiite and Kurdish parties staunchly oppose them. Many of the same issues Sunnis are trying to change in the last minute talks were the subject of rancorous debate during the drafting of the constitution, which ended with the Shiites and Kurds approving the draft to be put to a referendum over Sunni opposition. In other violence Sunday, gunmen killed the bodyguard of a legislator in the northern city of Mosul and shot to death three Iraqi contractors in two attacks, in Baghdad and the town of Beiji to the north. Four policemen were slain in two separate Baghdad shootings, and an Iraqi was killed by gunmen in front of his shop selling construction materials in the capital. In Samarra, insurgents also killed the owner of a refrigerator repair shop. The bullet-riddled body of a woman in her 20s was found by the side of the road in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora, an area of frequent insurgent slayings. By Kasem Zahra

JORDAN

Al-Zarqawi threatens Jordan's king, says bombers did not target Amman wedding

AMMAN, Jordan- An audiotape in the name of "al-Qaida in Iraq" threatened on Friday to chop off King Abdullah's head and bomb more hotels and tourist sites. The speaker on the tape, identified as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also said the group's suicide bombers did not intend to bomb a Jordanian wedding party at an Amman hotel last week, killing about 30 people. "Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off," al-Zarqawi said, referring to the king. Al-Zarqawi told Jordanians to stay away from bases used by U.S. forces in Jordan, hotels and tourist sites in Amman, the Dead Sea and the southern resort of Aqaba and embassies of governments participating in the war in Iraq, saying they would be targeted. He underlined that "al-Qaida in Iraq" is not targeting fellow Muslims. "People of Islam in Jordan, we want to assure you that we are extremely careful over your lives . . . you are more beloved to us than ourselves," he said. The authenticity of the audiotape, posted on an Islamic militant web forum, could not be confirmed independently, but the voice resembled that of al-Zarqawi on previous tapes. The tape was posted following widespread outrage over the Nov. 9 bombings against three Amman hotels that killed 59 people, 30 of them in a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding party held in a ballroom. Even contributors to militant web forums who lionize al-Zarqawi and praise his attacks criticized the bombings, saying he should avoid civilians. Al-Zarqawi insisted that the striking of the wedding party at the Radisson SAS hotel was a "lie" and a "forgery" by Jordanian security officials. The Radisson bomber struck a hall where Israeli intelligence officials were meeting at the time, al-Zarqawi claimed. But part of the roof fell in on the wedding hall, either from the blast or even, he said, from a separate bomb placed in the roof, though not by al-Qaida. "Our martyred brother's target was halls being used at the time by intelligence officers from some of the infidel crusader nations and their lackeys," he said. "Our brothers knew their targets with great precision." "God knows we chose these hotels only after more than two months of close observation (that proved) that these hotels had become headquarters for the Israeli and American intelligence," he said. "People of Jordan, we did not undertake to blow up any wedding parties," he said. "For those Muslims who were killed, we ask God to show them mercy, for they were not targets. We did not and will not think for one moment to target them." Al-Zarqawi accused the Jordanian government of hiding casualties among Israeli and American agents. "I defy the renegade government to show us the losses among the Jews," he said. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev called al-Zarqawi's claims "ludicrous." "This man has the blood of many innocents on his hands, most of them Muslims," Regev said. "To claim that those innocent victims in Jordan were working for Israel is simply ludicrous and deserves ridicule." The Radisson attack involved two bombers: an Iraqi husband and wife. Witnesses told Jordanian security officials that the couple talked their way into the wedding, telling hotel employees they wanted to watch, then went to different sides of the hall. When the woman's explosives belt failed to go off, her husband told her to leave, then he jumped on a table in the ballroom and set off his blast, Jordanian officials have said. Radisson spokesman Bassam al-Bana denied al-Zarqawi's claims about an intelligence meeting, telling The Associated Press, "There were no meetings of Israelis there." The only Israeli killed in the blasts was an Israeli Arab attending the wedding. Four Americans were killed in the triple bombings, including Syrian-born moviemaker Mustafa Akkad and his daughter. Earlier Friday, thousands of flag-waving Jordanians thronged downtown Amman in the "March of the Nation," a noisy, emphatic demonstration against the hotel attacks. "Al-Zarqawi, you coward, what brought you here?" the angry crowd shouted. "Cease, cease, al-Zarqawi, you are a villain!" the throng chanted. "Cease, Cease, you terrorist, you are a coward!" Jordanian television reported that 100,000 people marched; however, that estimate could not be independently verified. The size of the crowd appeared to be much larger than protests in the days right after the bombings. "I came specifically to say to those terrorists and al-Zarqawi that we are all united against them. We do not want them on our land," said Ghazi al-Hajjaj, 43, who travelled from Tafila, 185 kilometres south of Amman, to attend the rally. Palestinians from Jordan's 13 refugee camps also participated.

.