*EPF502 04/13/01
Excerpts: Administration Official April 12 Briefing on Crew Homecoming
(Recent events counterproductive for advancing US-China relations) (4740)

Briefing reporters on board Air Force One en route to Texas April 12, a senior administration official said President Bush spoke by phone to the homeward bound U.S. E-P3 crewmembers and told them that China's decision to keep them on Hainan Island for 11 days is "not consistent with the relationship we hope to have with the Chinese."

"I think what the President did was send a clear signal that the U.S. would not want something like this to be repeated, and doesn't think this is consistent with a productive relationship, and that the U.S. does want to have a productive relationship with China, but it takes two to have that productive relationship," the senior official said.

"The President felt very strongly that we should not -- that we could not be put in a position of being sorry for something our crew had done when they had done nothing wrong," said the official.

"Members of our military and the President are interested in talking with the Chinese about their practice of tailing our planes which are operating legally in international airspace, and about whether there are some unsafe practices involved here," said the senior official.

The senior official also said President Bush says he thinks "we really need to send a signal to try to help advance the relationship, to send a signal that what has occurred is not consistent with our hopes for a good relationship, but that we do have mutual interests. ..."

Following are excerpts from the White House transcript:

(begin excerpts)

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Waco, Texas)

April 12, 2001

REMARKS BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TO TRAVEL POOL

Aboard Air Force One
En Route to Fort Hood, Texas

5:30 P.M. EDT

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: . . . honestly, that was an emotional moment as we heard the description of the plane taking off and leaving Hainan Island.

Then today, [President Bush] and the Vice President were having lunch and watched the crew land in Hawaii. And that was a great feeling for him to watch the 24 servicemen and women arrive home. But for me, I felt like one of the most emotional and I guess compelling moments was when he actually had a chance to talk to the service crew. Because, as you all know, as we've been briefing you for the last week and a half, he has been having detailed discussions with the General each time, so it was almost like he was getting third-party reports on them, and suddenly, for the first time, he was able to talk to them himself.

And he said -- he obviously welcomed them home and he was speaking with Lt. Osborne was on the other -- all of the crew members were in the room, and the Lt. was speaking on their behalf, and the President could hear what he was saying. The military personnel had set it up so he could hear -- it was a two-way conversation.

Q: Was the President on a speaker phone on the other end?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: He was actually on a phone, but there was some sort of speaker set up on the office so he could hear what the Lt. -- they were able to hear him and he was able to hear Lt. Osborne respond. Opening, he obviously said, welcome home, we're so proud of you. He first asked, is everyone there, can everyone hear me. And Lt. Osborne said, we're all here. And he welcomed them home, said, we're so proud of you. And Lt. Osborne responded, "Thank you, sir. Thank you for getting us here."

He talked about how much America appreciates their service and the way -- the professional way in which they carried out their duty. He talked about how pleased he was that they will be able to be with their families for Easter.

This is a direct quote. He said, "As an old F102 pilot, let me tell you, Shane -- and that is Lt. Osborne -- you did a heck of a job bringing that airplane in."

This is also another direct quote. He said -- I couldn't write them all down fast enough, but I got a couple of them. "We're really proud of you. You represent the best of America." He told the crew that he was going to be making a statement to the American people in which he was going to outline to them our belief that we did nothing wrong, that we were operating in full compliance with all laws and procedures. He said he looks forward to hearing their perspective and having a full debriefing on their perspective of what they saw during the accident.

He told them that he was going to say in his statement that China's decision to keep them on Hainan Island for 11 days is "not consistent with the relationship we hope to have with the Chinese." He said he understand from General Sealock that -- he told the Lt. he understood a number of his troops were quite high-spirited and that they has sometimes maybe been a little bit of a challenge for the Chinese. He was just joking with them, that he understood they had a great esprit d'corps.

Q: What did they do? Did they just sing songs, or making them --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'm not really sure. The General just mentioned a couple of times that he thought they were a high-spirited group that might present somewhat of a -- that might be making life interesting. I heard the General say one time, might be making life interesting for the Chinese.

At the very end he said, "You make your country proud." That's, again, a direct quote. And Lt. Osborne said, "Thank you for getting us home so quickly. Happy Easter, sir."

And the President also told them if they were ever in Washington, to knock at his door. They kind of laughed, and he said, no, I mean that, knock on my door. I'd love to see you. If you're ever in Washington, come visit.

Q: Does that mean there's no plan to bring them into the White House officially?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: There's no plan at this point, David. Actually, we have not discussed it. The President brought that up on his own in the conversation. The plan right now is to get the debriefings that they need to have done, done quickly so that they can, in fact, be home and enjoy some time with their families. And then I think I heard that they're going to get some time off, that there will be some leave period, I think, at some point.

Q: You said the President looked forward to hearing their perspective. Is he going to personally debrief them or question them at some point?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I imagine he will get reports, Scott, from -- the military has procedures that govern how they debrief someone after situations like this. I noticed that the Lt. said in his statement publicly that, we have to be debriefed and then be debriefed. So I guess they have to -- it's an exchange of information between what those on the ground know, what those in the crew knew. And so there will be an exchange of information. And I imagine he'll get reports on that. I'm sure he'll read them with great interest. But I don't know of any plans for him to personally do that.

Q: -- in Washington, was that a direct quote?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: "If you're ever in Washington, knock on my door." That is a direct quote.

Q: How long did that conversation last, do you know?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, I'd say six or seven minutes, maybe, something to that effect.

Q: You said it was at 1:15 p.m. from the White House?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It was at 1:15 p.m. from the White House; it was in the Oval Office.

Q: And where were they at that moment?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: They were on the ground in Hawaii. It was after they'd landed. I assume they were in a room at the military base where they landed in Hawaii.

Q: Was there some sense that the President today had to come out and reiterate, this isn't an apology, we still think they did something wrong? Because the Chinese have been spinning this as a moral victory.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, I think the President himself felt that it was important -- obviously, this is a day where we were celebrating a homecoming, but he this morning told us that he thought there was a larger point here, that it's very important -- that this is an important relationship between our country and China and we need to get it right. And he said he felt it was important for him to make a statement. So he felt strongly that there was a larger point here.

In fact -- and I will tell you again, there were some who were advising, well, let's just enjoy the homecoming, this is a great day. But the President himself responded and said, I think we really need to send a signal to try to help advance the relationship, to send a signal that what has occurred is not consistent with our hopes for a good relationship, but that we do have mutual interests, and the world has an interest in making sure that we are able to use determined choice -- that we make a determined choice. Because -- that was designed to send a signal that China has to choose to work with us to have a productive relationship.

And I think throughout this situation the President showed that he was firm and he was patient, but as he said, he is going to stand for American values and American interests.

Q: There's been throughout this and then again today a kind of implied consequence. When he said today that he didn't feel that China was acting in sort of accordance with a productive relationship -- so then what? Is there a consequence for all of this that he intends to exact on China?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, David, again, I think today is the time to welcome the crew home. To talk about what we think -- where the situation stands today, to let it be known that we did not feel that this was the way to forge a productive relationship between our two countries. The next step will be the discussions the two governments have agreed to have. And as he said today -- you've heard that the Chinese have been talking about an explanation; well, members of our military and the President are interested in talking with the Chinese about their practice of tailing our planes which are operating legally in international airspace, and about whether there are some unsafe practices involved here.

So I would -- no, no decision on that, David.

Q: Is the relationship different as a result of this -- in his mind, is the relationship with Chinese and the United States different than it was 11 days ago? According to him, it's been different in his mind since the Clinton days. He thinks of them as a competitor. Is it now different still?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think this underscored the President's point that China is a strategic competitor. That's the way he framed it during the campaign, and I think the last 11 days has underscored the fact that they are, in fact, as he said during the campaign, a competitor who does not share our values in some cases, particularly in the areas that he mentioned today -- human rights and religious freedoms -- but yet, we do share common interests. And it's important to the world and important to both our countries and important to all our children's future that we are able to make that determined choice of a productive relationship even though we are competitors in some cases.

Q: Does the President believe that the relationship has been damaged by this episode?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, again, I think what the President -- I'll just refer you to what the President said, which is that it is in all our interests to make a determined choice to have a productive relationship --

Q: -- on shaky ground here.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: -- that incidents like what we have seen the last 11 days are not consistent with that goal. So, yes, don't attribute those words to me, but I think what he did was send a clear signal that we would not want something like this to be repeated, that we do not think this is consistent with a productive relationship, and that we do want to have a productive relationship, but it takes two to have that productive relationship.

Q: There's been some talk about China's trade status on [Capitol] Hill. Does he think that moving forward, opening up trade is the best way to foster this kind of relationship? I mean, is that still part of the equation in his mind?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You heard it mentioned today that we do have a mutual interest in trade to boost prosperity in both our countries. And as he talked about through the campaign, one of -- as you know, Dick, there's a difference of opinion even within the Republican Party and certainly -- well, in the Democratic Party as well, about there are some on both sides of the political spectrum who don't want to trade. The President's view has always been that trade introduces values and helps introduce freedom into a country such as China. So he thinks it's both productive for American interest and for prosperity for American farmers, for example, but also productive in advancing our values.

Q: Now that the servicemen and women are on American soil, what do we know about the condition of the plane?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know the answer to that question. The plane -- I think I would refer you to the Defense Department on that.

MR. FLEISCHER: Mike, there's really no new information on that.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think in the letter there was an agreement that we would -- part of the discussion would be about the return of our plane. That's one of the things they will be talking with the crew about, about how much of the -- they have standard operating procedures that involve getting rid of sensitive equipment and codes and things like that. And one of the things they will be debriefing the crew about is -- as to how much of that they were able to accomplish.

Q: Whose idea was it to put "very" in front of "sorry", and how did the President react to that idea?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know whose idea it was. I know he approved that on Thursday. The President felt very strongly that we should not -- that we could not be put in a position of being sorry for something our crew had done when they had done nothing wrong.

And so on Thursday -- well, on Wednesday, in the Oval Office, was the first time that the President talked about -- it was the President himself who said, is there a way that we can address both our concerns? And that was the beginning of looking for some common ground. We could acknowledge and address China's concerns. But he felt very strongly that we should not imply that our crew did anything wrong. In fact that pilot, as he said today, did an extraordinary job to save 24 lives and get that plane down. And he signaled the -- they issued a may-day call, they followed all the standard procedure. They tried to contact the tower, to the best of our knowledge. And so he did not want to say that they did something wrong.

Now obviously, as he said in his very first statement, by the way, which was kind of overlooked, way back last Tuesday, he said -- I guess it was the second one.

Q: The second one.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That we certainly understood it was unusual for a United States military plane to make a landing at a Chinese air base. We certainly understood that. So from the very beginning he had no problem acknowledging that it was unusual circumstances, and that -- he had no problem saying we were sorry that we had -- for the loss of life of the pilot, or for the fact that we had to make a landing without their permission, which normally you would want to get permission.

Q: Even in a mayday situation, that's warranted? It was a mortally wounded aircraft, wasn't it? It was going to crash in the ocean, or --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: And again, he didn't want to imply that he thought our crew had done anything wrong. And he commends our crew for what they did.

Q: But yet we expressed regret for it.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Regret that we were not able to get permission. Because normally, I think at any U.S. control tower, normally you would like to get permission before you land in somebody's airspace.

MR. FLEISCHER: Mark, in that same sentence, continued to say that the United States was very -- that he was very pleased that they were able to land safely.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That they were able to land safely. And so that's a long answer to a short question. I was there when he approved the use of sorry on Thursday. He actually looked at the language and said he was comfortable with it. I don't know where the very sorry came from.

Q: But again, not a lot of back and forth?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I was at Camp David, and I don't -- I think Condi just went to him -- I don't recall there being much discussion about the very sorry. Again, I think that was again a matter of degree. If you're sorry, of course you're very sorry.

Q: Was there any discussion at all about the trip to China this fall? I'm assuming he's still going, and if that's the case, does he view this as an opportunity to have something of a summit with Jiang Zemin, to talk about -- his determined choice --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We haven't really talked about that, gone forward about that trip, David. We'll have an update on that.

. . .

Q: Because Republicans outside the administration have speculated that is plane went into real Chinese airspace at first in order to activate their radar -- I guess we do that a lot, because we can get more data that way -- and then went out. Have you heard anything like that?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I have not. And in fact, in one of our first meetings, I recall asking, are we absolutely sure it was in international airspace? The reaction, unequivocally was the response.

. . .

Q: Now that this is over, are there any private citizens that were helpful to the President in kind of what was the thinking over there, or liaisons?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Martha, I think we had a lot of different offers of help. I'm not aware of any specific actions, no, of any private citizens. One thing that has not been reported that the President did do, he made several calls the day before yesterday, I believe -- earlier this week.

What day is today, Thursday? It might have been Monday and Tuesday. He made calls to foreign leaders. He called Tony Blair, he called Chretien, he called the -- Brazil, Cardoso -- I'm still trying to get all these names -- he called Chirac -- just to update them and personally let them know what the situation was, to bring them up to date on what the United States was hoping to accomplish, and to let them know if they wanted to join quietly in letting the Chinese government know that it's actions were inconsistent with hopes for a productive relationship in the world, that he would certainly welcome that. And so some of them may have done some of that. I don't know. You'd need to contact them to find out how they followed up. I know that he did have personal discussions with those leaders.

Q: You all have said that you won't comment about conversations he had with his father on this, that or whether or not. But isn't it true that Dr. Rice and others within the administration spoke to former President Bush?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think others in the administration spoke to a lot of people.

Q: Including him?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think including President Bush, correct. They consulted with a lot of different experts on China, and certainly President Bush is someone who has a lot of expertise in China. I know Condi talked with Brent Scowcroft. There were a lot of -- Secretary Baker talked with some people. There were a lot of -- a lot of different people. I think President Carter offered at some point to -- there were a lot of people who offered, called in and offered help and offered -- but the President felt that he ought to keep his own conversations and who he chose to speak with, in terms of former Presidents, as a matter -- a personal matter.

Q: Here's an easy one. Was he immensely pleased, relieved, I mean, can you describe his mood as this ended?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Dick, I think obviously pleased that our crew members are home. The situation became very personal yesterday, when he was able to meet with the family. When we had set up that meeting with the family, we thought that he was going to be reassuring them that he was doing everything he could to try to get their son home. And instead he had the happy opportunity to be able to say -- he was so pleased to let them know that their son was coming home. He's obviously very pleased by that.

I think one of the things that America has seen through this is, they've been able -- they've learned something about the President, that he has been firm, yet patient. He has been very engaged, whether it's talking with foreign leaders or setting the guiding -- setting in place the strategy by which we would implement his decisions.

He's been very steady and measured throughout. And so I think this has given the American people an opportunity to watch the President, and to assess the way he would handle something like this. And one of the things he said from the very beginning, to all of us, the first day, he said -- that first morning we had a meeting with Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld in the Oval Office, he said, my first priority is the people. And remember, back at that time, it was assessing the status of the people, because we didn't know, we hadn't seen them or had any contact with them. And he said also that it's important that we try to avoid letting this escalate.

. . . And the President said, remember, this is not a crisis. If he can continue what he needs to do from there, we should continue our business.

Ari gave me an example today that I didn't realize -- Bob Zoellick, our Trade Representative, during the midst of all this was able to accomplish a very significant new trade regime on the resolution of banana imports. And Bob apparently sent to the President an update on Tuesday. And Ari called Bob today to congratulate him, and the President had called him on Wednesday to talk through the progress that had been made.

So the President has been doing -- he's obviously been very focused on this situation and getting updates and wanting a lot of updates and wanting to hear firsthand things like General Sealock's report. But he's also been working on other business as well throughout.

Q: Can you give us a little bit of the President's thinking in not picking up the phone and calling President Jiang? I would have thought that in a situation like this the temptation would have been very great for him to say, this is the President of the United States, what's going on.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, Mark, remember, at the time when we met to discuss all -- actually, that was broached at one point. The President himself said, should I call. And the collective consensus was, no, and for a couple of reasons. One is, you can only play that card once. And remember, at the time when it was most critical, when we had not yet seen the crew or been able to independently assess their safety, at that point, basically senior Chinese officials were not responding to the Secretary of State. They were not returning phone calls, they were not coming to the phone. And so the feeling was, well, do you want to at this point -- you normally involve the President at a point where you think it could make a difference. And we weren't at the point where we'd even talked to them to know what would make a difference at that point.

I remember Condi Rice saying, you only play that card once. And the other feeling was that that would immediately raise the decibel level. And we hadn't talked with enough of their people. We had not, for example, until Tuesday heard their public statements about apologize, and the feeling was just the fact of a call from the President would have the effect of escalating this incident, and that was what we were trying not to do, was not to escalate it.

Q: The tone of the remarks at the White House was so much more forceful and firm than the contrition we saw in the statement. Was he angry, the President, during this confrontation, the standoff?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't think I would use that word. I think at times he was concerned that it was taking so long. But, no, again, he was very measured throughout it all. He was calm. Obviously, he wanted to bring our people home, but as he said, diplomacy sometimes takes time. It sometimes takes longer than any of us would have liked.

Q: -- were those words you would use -- frustrated or running out of patience?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. No, again, because I think that implies something that's not measured, and I think he was always very -- he was basically reminding the rest of us, remember this takes time; remember, this is not a crisis. We know the people are being well cared for.

Q: Did he get teary at all? He's a teary guy sometimes.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You know, it's interesting because both Condi and I told him last night on the plane that in North Carolina, when he walked out on stage -- actually, he only said the first half of his sentence. He said, I'm pleased to announce that shortly a commercial charter flight will be landing on Hainan Island. And there was another half to the sentence, to say, to bring home our crew. And he never got there. The crowd just erupted, and they started chanting, "USA." And I have to admit, I had tears in my eyes, and Condi told me she did, too.

And he sort of teased us about that, but I suspect -- I later heard him sort of describe it as a very emotional moment.

Q: -- any high fives -- today, any kind of celebration when the plane finally landed?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, he said, this is great news, or good news. He and the Vice President were sitting at lunch.

Q: Staff-wide, there wasn't any kind of high-fiving in the hall?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Smiles.

END 6:05 P.M. EDT

(end excerpts)

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