MS. PERINO: Good morning. As you know, President Bush has left for Camp David. He'll be there until Saturday morning.

One thing I wanted to note for you is that today at the National Press Club, the Office of National Drug Control Policy participated in a release of a survey that was the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. With all the other news out there, I just wanted to highlight this for you. We're very pleased with the survey. It shows that drug use is declining. There's been a 67-percent reduction in meth use for youth. Also in youth drug use, in regards to cocaine, has gone down 33 percent, and 18 percent decrease in youth prescription drug use. And there were other good statistics in there. There were some, such as prescription drug use in adults that we're continuing to be -- continue to rise and present a concern, and something that ONDCP will be working with its partners on. But good to see those numbers coming down.

Also an update for you for next week. In his 2002 State of the Union, President Bush launched USA Freedom Corps, to help Americans connect with opportunities to serve their neighbors. On Monday, September 8th, the President will host an event on the South Lawn of the White House to highlight USA Freedom Corps, and to honor America's volunteers who serve here at home and abroad. Guests will include Americans who have served through national service programs like the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Volunteers for Prosperity, as well as many of the 655 individuals that the President has personally recognized with the President's Volunteer Service Award.

And additional information will be coming from USA Freedom Corps on Monday, detailing the initiative's work to help improve communities and change the lives through leadership and service.

Jen. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q I want to ask about Pakistan. Obviously, the Pakistani government is complaining about the U.S

MS. PERINO: Well, one, in regards to the reports about that incident, we have not commented and I won't today. But what I will reiterate is that we've been working closely with the new civilian government of Pakistan that is feeling its way and working to establish itself. It obviously had a very big scare yesterday with an attack on the Prime Minister's motorcade. And thankfully, that attack was not successful.

We have a lot of cooperation that's ongoing with them, and a lot of need to increase communication. And one of the things you saw just about three weeks ago was a meeting off the coast with Admiral Mullen and other generals, with their generals, so that we can work on jointly tackling the problems that we have in Pakistan. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, I understand that. And we're focused on trying to improve coordination and communication. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'm just not going to comment on the incident in any way. And to answer your question, I would have to do that. So I'll decline to comment on it. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Sure. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Dana, this was the first time that many Pakistanis were demonstrating against Taliban and al Qaeda

MS. PERINO: Are you referring to the attack on the Prime Minister's motorcade? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that what we have said before remains true, which is we have a common enemy in terrorists and in the Taliban. We also have great challenges in a very troubling region in the world, and that is in that Northwest Territory area. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Yes. In fact, that's what I was just saying to Jennifer, that we are working to increase coordination, cooperation and supporting the Pakistanis as we work to fight against the Taliban in a coordinated way.

Matt. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q The Pakistani government is very publicly accusing the U.S. of violating its territorial integrity

MS. PERINO: I don't have any -- I'm not going to comment on reports about an incident. I'm just not going to do so. And so, if you want to ask another question -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: We've been very clear about working in cooperation and coordination with the Pakistanis to help go after the Taliban, which is a common enemy for them, for us and for other free nations around the world. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'm not here to make news about this. You know what the President's position has been. It's been very clear. I'll just refer to his previous statements. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Dana, it's now September. General Petraeus is soon to shift over to CENTCOM. We've been hearing

MS. PERINO: Well, General Petraeus as you'll recall, asked for a 45-day assessment period; that has ended. That was after the President announced that the five brigades would be coming back. That period now having ended, General Petraeus, through his chain of command, has given his assessment, and Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen have briefed the President. The President is now considering his options, and I would expect that as he works through that, as soon as he's finished with it, we'll be able to provide you more information.

I would point out to you I believe that there is a hearing next week that Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen are participating in. I would expect that they would talk about troop levels in Iraq there. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Not necessarily, Mark. It's a little bit premature for us to say. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Let me ask a more general question if I may then. The President has said repeatedly that he sees

MS. PERINO: We have sent more troops into Afghanistan. And if you look at the NATO summit that occurred in Bucharest in April, President Bush said, along with his partners, that he would be increasing the amount of troops. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I refer you to the Pentagon so you can get those. And I don't have any announcement here for you about Afghanistan, but the President sees this as a global war on terror. And we put resources where they are needed. So I'll just leave it at that, and then we'll give you more information as we have it. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't think -- our desire -- our support of Georgia's entry into NATO started long before any of these hostilities began. We believe that they have met the requirements to be included in the MAP process, as has Ukraine. It was decided at the NATO summit that we just talked about, in April, that while that issue was not resolved there in a final way in April, that they would have a foreign ministers meeting in December, in which to finalize that.

And our support for NATO MAP has not changed at all. And in fact, I think that the desire to bring these new countries, these new democracies and these countries that want to live in freedom and help defend each other is even strengthened by the past month's activities. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, again, I think you should separate our support for NATO MAP for Ukraine and Georgia from recent hostilities, because our support for their entry into NATO has not changed. It's been a longstanding position. It's something that the President personally fought for there in April. And so, hostilities of the past month have not changed our support. So yes, we continue to support them, both countries. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Sorry, but the question was not about the hostilities of last month. The question is about NATO

MS. PERINO: Look, I'm not a NATO expert, and I'll refer you to those who are, Andre. But I can tell you that there were plenty of NATO experts there in Bucharest in April of 2008. And if that would have been an issue that would have prohibited them from moving forward on this meeting in December of 2008, I think that would have been voiced then by those people. If you -- this dispute in regards to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the ones that have been zones of frozen conflict that Secretary Rice has talked about, that was well-known going into the April 2008 conference. That hasn't changed. That's been that way since 1992. And so I don't think that's going to change our support for Ukraine and Georgia being given access to NATO so that they can see if they meet the requirements after you get MAP status. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I would go back -- that wasn't the only reason, Wendell. I think you should go back -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Possibly, but I would go back -- look at the statements from such people as Chancellor Merkel leading up to this December meeting. And I think that the support for Georgia's territorial integrity, its independence and its sovereignty has been boldly underscored by not just the United States, but certainly by Europe. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: In the United States? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I would refer you to those statements. I think that's a conclusion that one could come to, yes. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: From my reading of it, I think you can make that argument, yes. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Last one for you, and then I'm going to move on. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Yes, sorry. Secondly, the issue here is even bigger I think, that we discussed. It's bigger in

MS. PERINO: Andre, I think that is obviously your personal view, and it might be the view of the people from wherever you said -- your part of the world. I would say that there are many people who died in this conflict unnecessarily, many innocent people who no longer have a home who are suffering, they have no food. And that is precisely why the United States and its European allies are working on aid packages just to help people have a roof over their head.

And the issue regarding NATO, our support for these countries to be a part of NATO has not changed. It did not -- we were supportive before April and after April. And we'd be happy to put you in touch with a NATO expert who can go into the intricacies of this. But I think that your personal opinion probably doesn't have a lot of place here.

Go ahead, Olivier. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, one, we want some clarification on what is happening in North Korea. I refer you to the State Department's briefing yesterday, in which it described what it knew about reports of new activity, or resumed activity in North Korea. I think the most important thing that we can do moving forward, and why this meeting is important on Friday, is that you had the five parties of the six-party talks unified in a position that North Korea needed to come forward with a verification protocol. And once it did that, under our premise of action for action, then we would move, as well. And I think that that message will be delivered to the North Koreans.

And Secretary Rice said yesterday that negotiations -- tough negotiations like these have their ups and downs. We're going to try to make sure that we keep North Korea headed in the right direction. But up and until they move forward on this verification protocol, which is what the five parties agreed to -- I'm sorry -- the six parties agreed to, then we are not going to remove them from the state-sponsor of terrorism list. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: There's also many other reports of other strikes that we haven't commented on, and so I'm not going to comment. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'm not commenting either way. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, all I can tell you is that I am going to decline to comment on reports about that incident.

Paula. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Okay. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q At the end of the Clinton administration, the White House was criticized for putting out a lot

MS. PERINO: I'll go back and look at the memo, but I think that all the agencies are complying with what Josh asked for. And I think what he was wanting is, one, good government so that you weren't rushing things through at the last minute. And to my knowledge, the agencies that have put forward proposed regulations have done so in a timely fashion and in a way that they can get sufficient public comment so that they meet the obligations and laws of this country. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't remember the memo from May, Paula. We'll go back and look at it and I'll have Tony Fratto get back to you. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Let me refer you to the State Department for that because they talked about it yesterday and they have Chris Hill going there on Friday. We do have people there on the ground, but as -- the State Department I think spoke most authoritatively yesterday on what they did or did not know about that activity. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: One more to Mark -- sorry. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Didn't you see last night that Citgo reversed and they decided that they actually didn't need the -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Yes. So they withdrew their -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Citgo withdrew their request, right. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think they decided that they -- as far as I know -- I'll refer you to DOE for more -- but companies make these requests based on their assessments, and as the hurricane moved out they were able to do a better assessment and realized that they didn't need it. There are other -- there are possible other companies that will be asking DOE for some support from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and DOE will make those decisions as they come in. But they did reverse that last night. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Good morning, everybody. We're on our way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Just two quick phone calls to update you on, and I think that on the other end, they already mentioned this to the press so you won't necessarily need to do a wire call if you don't want to.

President Bush, after takeoff, spoke to Governor Barbour and Mayor Nagin, and then he had a briefing by Dave Paulison, the Director of FEMA, and Gail McGovern is also on board again, and she is the President of the Red Cross.

So I'll turn it over to Dave and he'll give you a little synopsis, and then I'll answer other questions. ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Thanks. Seems like we just did this. (Laughter.) I think the response site went very well, the evacuations went well, very well organized; very pleased with what I saw, all the communication back and forth between the federal, the state and the local going on.

So now we're in the life protection and life-sustaining mode, making sure we have the tarps down there for the homes, we have water, food, cots, blankets, all those types of things we're going to need. People are starting to move back into some of the parishes. We would caution people not to move back in until their parish president says it's safe to move back in. A lot of the areas -- most of the areas don't have electricity; some of them don't have water, and there's no infrastructure in place. There's no grocery stores, gas stations, those types of things.

So what we would tell people, if they're in a safe place, to stay right there until this stuff starts coming back online, because otherwise, they're going to come back in and be a burden on the community, because there is no place to buy groceries or get fuel, or anything like that.

If they do come back in and their parish president says it's time to move back, I would recommend bringing food with your, bring water with you, to make sure you have enough to take care of yourself and your family for a few days until the whole system gets back up and running again.

Most of the hospitals have generators; they're up and running, taking care of the patients. Mid-City Hospital, we had to evacuate this morning because their generator went down. But those patients are already being taken care of.

So, pleased so far with everything. We're going to have to stay on top of it. Obviously with people coming back in and the lack of power -- it's going to be quite a while before power comes back up and running. Now, you guys have been through the drill before. You know what hurricanes do to the power lines. So we caution people not to come back in until they're sure that their parish has power, has water, sewer, and all those types of things it takes to survive. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I forgot to mention something. I'm sorry, I forgot to mention -- Secretary Chertoff has been in Baton Rouge; he will join us today. And Secretary Leavitt was planning to be in the region today; we've asked him to join us for the Emergency Operation Center briefing, as well. So you'll see him. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: I don't think there's anything broken. It was one particular shelter we had problems with that was not a Red Cross-run shelter. That was a city-run shelter. I did ask the Red Cross to put a team in there today, to look at it and give me an assessment of what it's like.

We don't do sheltering, but at the same time, when we see something like that, we want to make sure that people are in a safe place. So I did ask the Red Cross to put a team to go in and look at the shelter, give us an assessment, and hopefully I'll get that when I'm on the ground. But I haven't got a report back yet. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: It was in Shreveport and it was one -- it was located at an abandoned Sam's Club building. I don't remember the name of it. But I heard there were some issues with it, so the Red Cross is going to go in -- although it is not their shelter -- just to go in to give them some advice on how do we get it back up and running. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Well, we're looking -- we have Mississippi's, we're looking at that now. We're going to evaluate it and see what kind of damage they had. Obviously Louisiana got the brunt of the storm this time, so that was an easy one to do. And we've got Mississippi's. Florida submitted one, and I'm sure Alabama and Texas will be doing the same thing pretty soon. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: What it looks like now is Baton Rouge got hit pretty hard. They got hit worse than New Orleans did. So there's obviously no power, lot of trees are down, windows blown out in buildings, roofs gone -- so that type of damage. So we get down, I'll be able to see better, but just based on what my staff is telling me of what type of damage is there. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Well, it looks like it's pretty bad. Of course, now, you've got Houma down south that's got a lot of damage, too. So I wouldn't put one any worse than the other. But Baton Rouge did get a lot of damage that I don't think they were anticipating. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Sorry? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: The President will see the damage in Baton Rouge, and we're going to go meet with the Emergency Management people, get an assessment of where they are and what's going on. He wants to thank people for the hard work they've been doing, and to find out exactly what the big issues are and see if we're missing anything. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: I've been in Washington all week. I was down there in Texas the day before yesterday; I'm going back down to Louisiana today. I was in Louisiana about four days ago, so I'm going back and forth. MS. PERINO: And Secretary Chertoff has been there the whole time. ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: And Secretary Chertoff has been there every day with the Governor, and flying around, giving us regular reports. They've been very helpful for us, by the way, the information he's been feeding back to us, and we've been able to get on top of issues very quickly. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Extremely well. I have to tell you, based on what I saw in Katrina, where there was a lot of uncoordinated activity through the whole emergency management system, what I saw this time was a tremendous amount of coordination. Things are going to go wrong; there's no question about it, when you have a storm like this, things are going to go wrong. But when things happen, the whole federal team pulled together to make it happen.

You know, when we had the hospitals we had to evacuate, that we were going to shelter in place -- NorthCom stepped up to the plate, gave us airplanes, and we got all of those people out of there. So it -- today when we had evacuated the hospital, we had the ambulances there, we were able to move people very quickly.

So that's what you have to do. It's not the fact that you're not going to have problems, it's how you deal with them. And the whole family is pulling together -- HHS, Department of HUD, VA -- everybody is playing a role in this and we're all working together as a team. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: I've already -- we've already got our supplies ready to move in. We're already -- we've got a lot of prestaged stuff in Atlanta, in Florida, and up in North Carolina. I've moved teams into all of those states already -- now, we already had a team in Florida. I moved a team into Georgia, into South Carolina and North Carolina at the state EOC, making sure we got our preparations and we're working together and we're -- so we see where this storm goes and what it's going to do. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Oh, I am. We're well aware -- we have 10 regions around the country; we have not tapped all of them, and we'll move our resources wherever we have a disaster. We have Ike out there, and what's the other one? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Josephine out there, too. So we will be watching those very closely. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Well, you don't remember -- remember in 2004, we had four hurricanes go through Florida, and when I took over emergency management in Miami-Dade County we had five hurricanes in a row lined up out there. So I don't think the worst -- they're just coming pretty fast right now. This is the peak of hurricane season. For the next four weeks we're in the peak of hurricane season. We're going to have to expect these storms are going to keep coming off Africa. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Well, we -- I'm tickled to death it wasn't as bad as predicted. It was still a tough storm. But the levees held, we had -- didn't have a lot of flooding like we had obviously in Katrina. You know, the smaller these storms are, the happier I am. MS. PERINO: Okay. ADMINISTRATOR PAULISON: Thanks, guys. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Thanks, Dave. Anything else? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: There are a couple of reasons. One, they are still evacuation orders in place in New Orleans, okay. The businesses are just being invited back in today and there's -- the Emergency Operations Center overseeing the operations for the whole state is in Baton Rouge, so it's the right place to go to be able to do what he wants to do, which is get some business taken care of to make sure that they have what they need from the federal side. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: We've obviously seen the statements that they've given out over the past little bit of time. A reminder to you that it was the United States, along with the other parties in the six-party talks, the other four -- so the five of the six, united in saying that -- I was going to say a different country -- that North Korea had to comply with the protocol and that one of those agreements was a verification mechanism. We don't have that yet. Our whole premise has been action for action. We have fulfilled our obligations when the North Koreans have fulfilled theirs.

And so we will be taking a assessment along with our international partners. This is not going to be a decision that the United States makes alone. And we're obviously troubled by it and it's very unfortunate for the North Korean people, who could be greatly helped by the action-for-action mechanism. And once North Korea simply agrees to a verification protocol, then the United States would take them off of our state sponsor of terrorism list. But we're not going to do it without it. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I've seen the reports and I don't know. I'd have to refer you to State Department on that. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I can't yet, but I believe that you'll be hearing something later on today from the State Department, and then I'll try to provide for you something. It might be on our way back home on the plane. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I know you're looking for details and I'll see that -- what I can provide you later. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of, no. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Sure, sure. I thought that -- yes, I personally thought it was a very strong speech. And the First Lady could not have looked more beautiful and sounded more positive and set such a great example for Americans in this country. And she's a great person to have been able to step in last night and to be able to be there in the hall. The President obviously couldn't be, but he was pleased with his speech and I think that it accomplished what he set out to do, which is to make the case why John -- for John McCain to be President of the United States. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, we were planning to be down for the entire week -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think that the plan is that he would go to Camp David tomorrow morning and be there through the weekend. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Yes. I think so -- until Sunday. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Carlton just says, back on Saturday, so something to look forward to, Deb. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Oh, the last tee ball game -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Actually, I'm going to give a little bit of update here on that situation. Yes, I will brief on Thursday and Friday -- actually, I think Tony Fratto will brief you on Friday. I have made a decision in working with the White House Correspondents Association President, to let her know -- I'm going to try and experiment, to collapse the gaggle and the briefing, which the -- which someone affectionately called the "griefing." (Laughter.)

And for several reasons -- but try to -- to see if we can try doing a briefing sometime between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. every morning. I think we've proved to you over the past seven days that we respond to all questions at all hours of the day, all hours of the night. And I think the original intent of the gaggle was a great one and worked for many years, but the model is just not necessarily the best in a modern era.

And we also have large international audiences that we are trying to reach that are several hours ahead of us. I think the State Department has recently made this same move. I'm going to try it out and we'll see how it works. And I appreciate anybody's feedback on it. And then if it doesn't work, we'll readjust.

But so I think we'll start that -- we already did that this week, but that was sort of unintentional because of the hurricane. I was going to plan to start it next week. So I'll try it and we'll see how it goes. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Correct. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Correct. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think I'm going to target 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. I'm a little bit of a creature of habit. If I say I'm briefing at 12:30 p.m., it's usually 12:30 p.m. every day, maybe 12:40 p.m. But I think 10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. I do think that because of the amount of questions that come in in the morning, I hope that the press will be better served by this because I'll have more time to track down and get answers that have come in overnight and in the early morning. So that's my hope and we'll give a shot. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Yes, that's what I hope -- sometime between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Maybe I'll try 11:00 a.m. I don't know. I'm just going to see how it goes. But, you know, Europe is between six and seven hours ahead; Asia obviously much farther ahead. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't know if there's too much different between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., and there's a big difference, especially for the press office staff that starts at 6:30 a.m. in the morning. We are in back-in-back meetings until 9:00 a.m. -- and then to gaggle at 9:30 a.m., which has really become a briefing, and then turn around two-and-a-half hours later and do it again is just -- it's not working as well for everybody. So I'm going to give a shot. And again I really welcome the feedback from the press. And we'll see how it works. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I always say that if there's anything about news reporters, the thing they hate the most is anything that affects -- that's new to them and that affects them, and change is very hard for the media. It's like one of the most interesting things. So we'll gently glide into this and we'll adjust if we need to. Okay? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: We have a scheduling update. President Bush will address the GOP convention today, but from the White House. He'll do that from the Cross Hall in the 9:30 p.m. half hour. You'll have to call the convention and get the exact time on that. But he'll be able to address them today. It will be a shorter speech than was planned in the hall, but the entire convention is a little bit shorter.

So the President is very grateful for this opportunity. He's going to express his gratitude to all the people gathered in the hall. He will talk a little bit about the hurricane, but mainly the speech is going to focus on John McCain and why he believes that John McCain has the qualities that are demanded by the commander-in-chief role.

So I think we'll have excerpts for you later today, so we're working on that. But there's a little bit -- everything is fluid, and so just bear with us, but I think maybe by 5:00 p.m. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q The remarks this morning on the hurricane seemed sort of remarkable in that they pivoted back to

MS. PERINO: Some people -- people are welcome to look at it that way if they want to. The President, I can tell you, was not thinking about politics, he was thinking about the people there. And it is a fact that 25 percent of the oil that we use in our country comes from that region. And one of the things that we have been asked about most is if there was damage to the oil rigs, if there was damage to getting -- damage to the production load, and also damage to the pipelines. Thankfully, so far it looks like the assessments are showing that there isn't. But it is certainly an issue that this country is going to have to grapple with. And whether or not other states decide that they would want to open up their shores for offshore oil rigging -- oil drilling will be up to them. But it is something that this Congress needs to deal with.

And they should deal with it when they get back. The President wasn't trying to be overly political, he was stating a fact. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't think -- I looked at those points; I don't think that they were at all even up to the line in terms of being political. And I would say that our opponents, the Democrats, use every day, every opportunity to bash this President, and I just don't think we're going to worry about it. We'll focus on what we need to do.

Right now the industry is trying to do an assessment as to what may or may not be needed going forward in terms of repairs. It also takes them a few days to get back online because they need to -- they brought all their people in for safety sake, and since safety is a priority, they have to take a few more days to get people out there and get the rigs back up. But so far, so good. It looks like that, structurally, everything was sound. And then in terms of supply, the assessment is ongoing and the industry is in touch with Secretary Bodman, and President Bush got an update from Bodman this morning.

Martha. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: One of the things that you learn in hurricanes is that just when you think everything is safe and sound, there are still concerns. And in addition to that, we have many other storms that are churning out there. We have Tropical Storm Hanna, and Ike that's following behind that, and possibly another one behind that. And so it's appropriate that the President be able to be here at the White House.

And he did speak to Secretary -- I'm sorry -- Director Paulison this morning. One of the things that they talked about is, how do you make sure, now that the people have heeded the warnings to evacuate, that they also heed the warnings not coming back sooner than the city officials can take care of -- they have to clear the streets. There's many people still without power, and the reentry plan is really important. We also have an issue to make sure that the hospitals are well equipped and have enough people to take care of those who are either in the storm or critically ill patients that need help now.

And so the President will stay behind. Obviously, the convention is shaved by at least a day, and then the -- well, the program last night was quite truncated. And the President is happy to have a chance tonight to address the GOP. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think the speech originally was around 15 minutes. And this one will be running a little bit less than eight.

Mark. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, we left it up to the convention as to how they were going to decide what to do with the program. Obviously, for Monday, they decided to not have an evening program at all. And then, as of last night, even the convention hadn't made a decision as to what they would do today, and we said we would go along with whatever they decided to do.

And we can control a lot of things. We can control the preparedness, we can control the response, but we can't control Mother Nature's timing. And this hurricane decided to strike when it did, and I think the GOP has handled the timing of the convention and the program in an appropriate way. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I wouldn't put it that way. We were in touch with them and we were trying to figure out what would work best for them, and also what would work best for this President. I mean, the most important thing we can do is make sure that the follow-through is as good as it looks like the preparedness was. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't know the timing of how all of this worked, but the whole convention was turned on end and they're putting it back together, to try to figure out the best way to get the most efficient -- or the most efficient way to get as many speakers to speak as they possibly can. It will be sometime between 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Eastern time I should have said. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: You know what? I'm going to let all the psycho -- leave all the psycho-babble to -- and the political psycho-babble to the press. There is nothing I am going to be able to do to disabuse all of the reporters in the world from any storyline that they want to follow. What I will tell you is President Bush is very pleased that he's going to have a chance to address the GOP Convention tonight. We can't control the timing of hurricanes; that's just the way it is. The President will spend the majority of his speech tonight to rally the party faithful, to make sure they do all they can to elect John McCain to be President of the United States. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think that President Bush, having talked to him just quickly about it yesterday, believes that this is a private family matter, and that the family obviously loves their daughter very much and that this baby, when it is born, will have the full love and support of a very loving family. And the President I don't think will have any other comment on it. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'm trying to figure out what the head of the party has to do with a young teenager's pregnancy. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Because this is now going to be a very important issue in presidential politics. And he is the

MS. PERINO: Oh, really? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think that whether or not this is an issue in the campaign is actually more up to the media than it is to any of the politicians, who have all, across the board, said this is a private family matter and that they support the family. So the media is the one that's going to have to decide whether or not this is a story that they want to follow and they want to exploit. And that will be up to you all. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think the response from all the politicians has been absolutely responsible and supportive of a young woman who is going to grow up faster than any of them would have wanted. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q The Republicans who I've talked to who are raising questions about what this says about John McCain

MS. PERINO: There is no way you're going to drag me into that discussion. I have no doubt that there are some Republicans who may have said that to you. What I can tell you is I speak for the President; the President of the United States believes that this is a matter that this family has chosen to work through together. And I'd refer you to the campaign as to when they knew and when they didn't know. They've all been on the record saying that they -- that Senator McCain knew about it. And Sarah Palin and Todd Palin deserve a lot of credit for standing by their daughter. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q One last question for you, because this is another one that you hear a lot -- this issue is raising

MS. PERINO: You know, I don't think that those questions would be asked if it was Todd Palin that was the nominee. And I think that Sarah Palin has proven that you can choose as a woman to be a mother and be a strong executive, and to have a wonderful, loving family. And that's what she's chosen to do. And I think that's why the party has rallied around her so fully. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Dana, can I just clear something up? You said to Mark's question that the convention -- that you

MS. PERINO: I think that we would have tried to make it work no matter what the convention thought that they could work out. If the hurricane had decided to hit on Wednesday, we probably would have still been able to make the appearance on Monday night. But that's not how it worked out and -- Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think that it was a mutual decision. I think that it worked best -- because also, remember, when you're moving the President of the United States, you can't just run over to Reagan National Airport and hop on a shuttle to the Twin Cities. It takes a lot of logistical effort to move a President anywhere. And thankfully, there's technology that exists today that President Bush can give a satellite address that will be live for the people in the hall. And another reason that the speech would be shorter is that -- I don't know if you've ever been there, but watching something on video for a whole 15 minutes taxes the patience. And so I think that the better thing to do is to do it this way, and have the President focus on the highlights of his speech where he can -- from the longer speech -- to focus on the pieces that he thought were most important that make the case for John McCain.

Jeremy? Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: No, the President is grateful that he's going to be able to address the convention tonight. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Of course he would have liked to have been there. But again, we can't control the timing of the hurricanes, and not just Hurricane Gustav, but the ones that are churning out in the Atlantic. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Okay. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'll let you figure that out. I could ask the same question about the media's approval ratings, but I'm not -- I'm just not going to. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't know how that works. Let me -- I'll check. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

Q Yesterday, the EU issued a condemnation on Russia, did not pursue sanctions. Is there any update

MS. PERINO: I wouldn't put too much stock in what the Kremlin says in terms of what is or is not on the table in another country. But that's not to say that there is anything ruled in or out. We're still working through our process. We certainly welcome the EU's decision yesterday to move forward after the summit that they had, and especially then it recognized Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity and independence. Those are the three key positions that we have been looking for support for Georgia on.

In addition to that, Vice President Cheney will travel to the region today. The trip had been under consideration for quite a while, but obviously it takes on some added significance since the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Vice President will have a bill of particulars to talk about in each of the stops that he goes to, but the message will be clear, which is that we support the territorial integrity in Georgia, Georgia's sovereignty and Georgia's independence, and we have an abiding interest in the well-being and security of this part of the world. You remember Vice President Cheney is going to Kyiv, as well. And so he'll be sending that message.

And we'll maybe have more for you later on. I don't expect any announcements from the Vice President on this trip. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I'll just decline to say. We're trying to wrap it up and narrowing down a response. But what we're also trying to do is work very closely with our European partners. And the fact that they had their summit yesterday and worked through a lot of difficult issues was a good impetus for us. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Okay. Transcript and your responses (0), Email this.