White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer

Ari & I

latest Ari & I...

Published on Thursday, April 18, 2002

	7/14/03: Ari, in the 2002 election campaign, the Republican Party took in $7.2 million from convicted criminals. Is the President okay with his party taking millions of dollars from convicted criminals?...
	6/10/03: Ari, is the President concerned about a culture of cheating, lying and criminality taking hold in the country? And if he is, what does he plan to do about it?...
	6/9/03: Ari, you said in April that the war was about weapons of mass destruction. The war resulted in thousands of innocent civilian deaths, according to the Los Angeles Times. Do you personally feel any remorse given the public case that is being made that this war was based on that false pretext?...
	5/27/03: Ari, there is a new documentary film by an Irish journalist, Jamie Doran. He alleges U.S. military involvement in a massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan...
	5/19/03: Ari, one of your predecessors, Jerald terHorst, resigned as President Ford's press secretary, he said, as a matter of conscience - because he couldn't defend President Ford's pardon of President Nixon. I was wondering, is there anything President Bush has done as President, that made you think, even for a moment, that you would resign as a matter of conscience?...
	5/14/03: Ari, you said on April 10th, about weapons of mass destruction, "That is what this war was about." On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the group directing U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof...
	5/8/03: Ari, the President was in Santa Clara, California last week. And he appeared at United Defense, a major defense contractor controlled by the Carlyle Group. The President's father is a paid advisor to the Carlyle Group...
	4/22/03: Ari, MSNBC reported this week that Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal rivals that of France and Britain. Given that arsenal, does the President support Syria's call to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction?...
	4/15/03: Ari, a 21-year-old British peace activist, Thomas Hurndall, was shot by an Israeli sharp shooter and killed on Friday. That brings to four the foreign peace makers who -- peace activists who have been shot or killed or wounded in the last couple weeks. I'm wondering if the President is concerned that the Israelis are targeting peace activists?...
	4/14/03: Ari, Lawrence Eagleburger, the Secretary of State under George Bush Sr, told the BBC yesterday: "If George Bush Jr. decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran - after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes"...
	more Ari & I...
	Ari the Evader by Russell Mokhiber...
	Official Transcripts of the Daily White House Briefings...

Ari & I
White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer

Thursday, April 18, 2002 12:15 PM

by Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber: Ari, you said the other day that the United States is "set in stone against military coups of any kind." And yet, there is a long history of the United States organizing coups against democratically elected leaders, including, Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile and Lumumba in the Congo. So, when you said we are "set in stone against military coups of any kind," were you announcing a new policy?

Ari Fleischer: Russell, I think the examples you use are interesting. I think when you talked about Iran, you just went back to 1954. President Bush came into office here in 2001. And one of the great prides and success stories of American politics has been that in the last 20 years, there has been a wonderful sea change in Central and South America, brought in large part, as a result of Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams and others -- Ronald Reagan, George Bush -- who worked very hard to bring democracy to the region. And as a result, there is a difference in the military in those regions. One of the big changes is that the United States military cooperates with militaries of the region -- are focused on making sure that they adhere to the rule of law. And there has been a dramatic and very helpful change that brought democracy to the region. That's why President Bush travelled to El Salvador and Peru, to highlight the importance of democracy. I can't speak to everyone of those examples. But there was differences in America's policies in the past. And I think that governments should be given credit when changes are made. And those changes that began some 20 years ago were continued by successive administrations, including President Clinton.

###

-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber

White House reporter Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter - www.corporatecrimereporter.com. He co-authors the weekly Focus on the Corporation column with Robert Weissman which Common Dreams publishes. He can be reached at: russell@nationalpress.com