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Bush on Guantanamo: 'I'd Like it to be Over'
President tells Europeans that some inmates are 'cold-blooded killers'
The Associated Press
June 21, 2006
VIENNA , Austria - President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged European concerns about the 460 detainees the United States is holding at GuantanamoBay, but said some are "cold-blooded" killers that need to be brought to justice.
"I understand their concerns," Bush said at a U.S.-European Union summit being held here. "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with."
Bush said that 200 detainees had been sent home, and that of the 460 remaining, most are from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
"There are some who need to be tried in U.S. courts," Bush said. "They're cold-blooded killers. They will murder somebody if they are let out on the street."
Meantime, Bush and European leaders urged Iran and North Korea to give up military and nuclear ambitions that they said threaten each country's neighbors and destabilize the world.
Bush accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity. And he said that North Korea faces further isolation from the international community if it test fires a long-range missile believed capable of reaching U.S. soil.
"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."
Cafes and cobblestones
Bush, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso appeared together at a news conference during the annual U.S.-European Union summit in this capital of cafes and cobblestones.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier Wednesday that his country will respond by mid-August to the proposals presented to Tehran in early June by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Schuessel said Iran has reached a crossroads. He said the European community welcomes U.S. involvement, particularly the recent historic signal that the United States is ready to join negotiations if Iran suspends enrichment activities.
"I think now is the right moment for Iran to take this offer to grab it and to negotiate," Schuessel said.
His advice to Iran: "This is the carrot. Take it."
If Iran accepts the offer, it has to suspend its uranium enrichment - a process that can produce material for nuclear generators or bombs. Bush said the mid-August timetable "seems like an awfully long time" to wait for an answer. "It shouldn't take the Iranians that long to analyze what's a reasonable deal," he added.
Said Bush: "We'll come to the table when they verifiably suspend. Period."
There were a host of other issues on the U.S.-EU agenda.
Absurd poll?
On terrorism, Bush thanked the Europeans for their support in Afghanistan and Iraq, while acknowledging past disputes about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. "I fully understand we've had our differences on Iraq and I can understand the differences ... but what's past is past and what's ahead is a hopeful democracy in the Middle East," he said.
Bush dismissed as "absurd" a recent poll by the PewResearchCenter for the People and the Press in which European nations said that U.S. involvement in Iraq was a worse problem than Iran and its nuclear program.
Still, anti-Bush sentiment was prevalent. About 1,200 students chanting "Bush Go Home!" rallied at a train station to protest his visit to the capital, where 1,000 police officers were assigned solely to deal with demonstrators. Another 2,000 officers patrolled the city.
Leading the students was U.S. "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq and energized the anti-war movement last summer with a protest outside Bush's Texas ranch. Demonstrators waved black flags, blew whistles, beat drums and shouted, "Hey, ho, Bush has got to go!" Others carried banners and signs that said "World's No. 1 Terrorist" and "Islam is not the enemy."
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