*EPF101 05/20/2002
Transcript: White House Daily Briefing, May 20
(Cuba/President's speech, Florida Republican Party/fundraiser,
Cuba/President Carter's trip, Cuban government, President's initiative/promote
democracy, Vice President's comments/terror threat) (2020)
White House
Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, and a senior administration official briefed
reporters on Air Force One May 20 as they accompanied President Bush on a trip
to Miami, Florida.
The President will deliver a major policy speech on
Cuba, and will participate in the 100th anniversary of Cuban independence. Later
in the evening, Bush will participate in a fundraising dinner for the Florida
Republican Party.
Following is the White House transcript:
(begin transcript)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press
Secretary
(Miami, Florida)
May 20, 2002
PRESS GAGGLE BY ARI
FLEISCHER
Aboard Air FORCE
One En route Miami, Florida
1:48
P.M. EDT
MR. FLEISCHER: Good morning, or afternoon. Hello, everybody.
I'll give you a brief rundown on the President's day, and then we're joined
today by a senior administration official -- I have to request to do this on
background. If you have any follow-up questions about the President's Cuba
speech, our senior administration official can help you.
As you know,
the President made a speech today on Cuban policy -- I won't get into any more.
He'll participate in the 100th anniversary of Cuban independence today at his
event down in Florida. And then he will participate in a fundraising dinner for
the Florida Republican Party, it's expected to raise $2 million.
Just so
you know, yesterday and today the President reached out and spoke to President
Fox, President Lagos and President Cardoso, prior to his speech, to touch base
and fill them in on what he was going to announce for the new Cuban initiative.
With that, I'm happy to take your questions.
Q: Is that hard or
soft money for the $2 million?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, it's for a state
party, so hard only applies to federal races under the federal law -- state
party money.
Q: Ari, is the President's Cuba speech any kind of a shift
in policy?
MR. FLEISCHER: In terms of the fact that we maintain the
fundamental policy, which is the freedom of the Cuban people, it's not. What it
is, is a way to get freedom to the Cuban people faster. So it builds on the
existing policy; it opens up new doors for trade if Fidel Castro reforms and
performs.
Q: Did Jimmy Carter's trip have any effect on the President's
thinking or the speech today?
MR. FLEISCHER: His speech was a result of
a long-standing policy review. So the direct answer is, this is a reflection of
the President's policy based on a policy review. President Carter spoke today to
a senior State Department official, to fill him in on the trip. But what will be
interesting to note is whether or not President Carter's trip, where for the
first time Cubans got to see a message of human rights and democracy on live
television, this speech, whether or not that helps Fidel Castro to change his
ways and bring democracy and freedom to the last place left in the hemisphere
that doesn't really have democracy.
Q: But before the President had a
very -- had a tough line. He wasn't going to lift the trade embargo. Now he's
saying, I might do that if. I mean, that's a shift.
MR. FLEISCHER: It's
a reflection of the long-standing policy. Maybe if you want, on background.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The embargo is not the policy. The
embargo was a tool to move the Cuban government towards democracy. It's a
restatement of the same policy, just in a different way. This is a challenge to
the Cubans. We're giving them an opportunity to join the rest of the hemisphere
of free, democratic nations. This is their challenge. Okay. This is an
initiative within an existing policy.
Q: What new avenues for trade open
up? You mention that, open up new avenues for trade if Cuba acts in certain
ways. How is that different from the earlier policy, which says there -- the
embargo can't be lifted unless Cuba implements the policy elements --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, clearly as the President said, you
know, democracy comes in steps and we're prepared to reward those steps. We'd
like to see some clear fundamental change not only in his political system, but
the economic system. Overall lifting of the embargo is codified by law, and
that' s why -- the statement is we'll work with Congress to ease any of the
existing sanctions. That's the instinct. It's not what we're willing to do
tomorrow.
Q: The President said that normalization of relations would
come with what he said was a new Cuban government. Is part of the point of this
regime change?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The point of the
President's initiative is to promote democracy. Obviously, if you have a system
which lets everybody vote -- opposition candidates, a free press -- and you lay
out the same ground rules in Cuba that you do in every other country, we're not
creating a lower bar, we're not creating a Cuba exception. If you give the
Cubans the same rights everybody else has, you may very well have a regime
change. But we'll never know until we get there.
Q: And how much did
domestic politics have to do with this policy, with the speech?
SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This is a foreign policy speech.
Q: Did Jeb
Bush have any input into the review, into the development of this speech?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Not to my knowledge, no.
Q: Is
the policy review over?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. If anything,
it's just beginning, again. This isn't going to be a stay document that is the
end result of a product. This is going to be the beginning of an initiative by
the administration. So we're going to be meeting, we're going to be getting
together. This is going to be a living work in progress, and we're going to be
taking this on on a regular basis. So this is not just an end state where we had
a review, we have a finding and we're going to move on.
Q: There's been
some skepticism about Bolton's speech two weeks ago. Skeptics saying, we need
some proof -- the Cubans are saying that in Havana. Is there any thought being
given to making public the basis for the accusations made by Bolton?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You would have to ask the State
Department on that. A bigger issue, though, is Cuba does have a biotechnology
capability. Cuba is closely allied with countries that have used biochemical
weapons against its own people. That should be pause for reflection right then
and there.
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me go back to the previous question, too.
I think you can find in what the President is saying, a helpful parallel in
events from approximately a decade ago in eastern Europe and in the Soviet
Union; clarion calls to freedom and to democracy are welcomed by people who seek
to be free. And that's an important part of our ongoing policy with the people
of Cuba.
Q: Is this similar to the millennium fund approach, where you
get -- where the President announced in his speech before he went to Mexico?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't see how the millennium fund
could be used for a country with which we had no relations.
Q: It says
that if you do this, you get this. You know, if you meet our standards for
democracy and an open government, good things will happen.
SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Good things should happen.
Q: It's not
comparable, it's not part of the same sort of approach?
SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: With regards to the millennium fund, no.
Q: Are
there any proposals for increasing the broadcast to Cuba, aid to dissidents, any
changes in travel policy, remittance policy that will come out as a --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Those are follow-on issues that we're
going to look at throughout the year.
Q: -- here today?
SENIOR
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Not that I know of, no.
Q: Weren't you talking
about direct help for dissidents a year ago, or so? Is that still being
considered?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I wasn't here a year ago.
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I
can't answer that right now.
Q: -- hearing that now? So why aren't we
hearing any of those steps now?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Listen,
it's not a matter that we're not considering them. It's, like you said, you may
not be hearing them, but as we move on throughout the year, we're going to be
looking at all the steps at our disposal, so that we could push this issue
forward.
Q: And, Ari, on the Vice President's comments this weekend,
that terror threat is a certainty, has the White House made a decision to be
more forthcoming about threat information, about the level of concern within the
administration? Is there going to be more information, more sharing with the
public threat spikes and that kind of thing?
MR. FLEISCHER: Our efforts
will be the same as previously. We will carefully review all information and all
times make that difficult judgment call and find that balance between sharing
everything we possibly can, when what we have is helpful, knowable, credible. So
every case presents its own merits.
Q: So there's no new policy? Because
there's some -- there's some talk from intelligence sources the White House is
pushing for more information to be made public than the intelligence community
is comfortable with.
MR. FLEISCHER: If you recall from September 11th
forward, there have been a series of alerts that have been put out -- most
recently prior to this weekend about the banks in the northeast. It wasn't so
long ago. So it always depends on the quality of the information. The
determination is can it be put out in a way that deters attack, helps law
enforcement to deter attack or warns a terrorist that we know they're coming and
therefore stops an attack from ever taking place.
Of course, the
difficulty of that is if you stop something from taking place, you never know
that you are successful. Maybe you were, maybe you weren't. So it's always a
difficult call.
Q: On Cuba, Ari, supporters even of a tough line on
Castro have described the administration's fighting a rear guard action against
all the pressure to ease the embargo, ease travel restrictions. Is that some of
the reason why we're not seeing new specific measures now, tightening sanctions.
MR. FLEISCHER: From what we've heard from supporters, they've welcomed
the President's new initiative. If you have something specific --
Q: In
terms of?
MR. FLEISCHER: "Even supporters are saying it's a rear guard
action," can you site some specifics?
Q: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, she was
referring to the restatement of the President's policy as something they desire,
but they did not expect to see measures such as strengthening of travel
restrictions and so forth.
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm a little confused. Are you
saying that she suggested that this is a rear guard action?
Q: She said
that what the administration is in a position now of defending the existing
policy, rather than tightening -- further tightening the existing policy because
it's politically not sustainable to do that.
MR. FLEISCHER: I'd just say
that what you've heard the President say this morning is a new initiative based
on helping bring freedom to the people of Cuba.
Q: Ari, are either
Senator Graham or Porter Goss traveling on Air Force One today, or any plans for
the President --
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know.
MR. DICKENS: I'll
bring you a list back.
MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know who's traveling, I'll
have to take a look at the list.
MR. DICKENS: I'll come back and read
them out.
Q: Could you bring me a copy of the speech which I don't have?
Please.
Q: Do you have any printed copies?
MR. FLEISCHER: Can we
get copies of the speech to everybody.
MR. DICKENS: Absolutely.
END 2:00 P.M. EDT
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the
Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web
site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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