Q Thank you, Mr. President. Many in this country and around the world believe that the United Nations involvement in Iraq is necessary because the way you've conducted the war in Iraq is illegitimate and has lowered the moral standing of the United States around the world. However, one could also argue that the United Nations has moral authority problems of its own with the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, for instance. How do you respond to those who think that the United Nations has greater moral standing in the world than the United States? Or do you think the United States maybe is held to a higher standard than the United Nations?
THE PRESIDENT: I think the United States is a strong, compassionate nation. And as President of a strong, compassionate nation, I'll do what it takes to defend us. We're at war. We're at war with an enemy who killed thousands of our citizens on September the 11th, 2001. And since that time, they've killed hundreds elsewhere. They're killers, and I have an obligation to defend our country.
And the war on terror is a different kind of war. It requires international cooperation to fight it. And there's excellent international cooperation in the war against terror. There's excellence -- there's excellent intelligence-sharing, not only with nations in the G8, but nations throughout the world. There's excellent law enforcement operations -- joint operations. We have got special forces from Europe side-by-side with special forces in the United States in remote regions of Afghanistan trying to find remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda. There's substantial cooperation.
Snip...
Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?
THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040610-36.html
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