Q The Democrats in the House are out with their resolution — fairly straightforward. Is this something you can live with?
MR. SNOW: Look, Congress is going to do whatever it thinks it needs to do, in terms of resolutions.
[snip]
So as we have said in all cases, members need to understand that their words do travel, and they need to assess what impact they think they may have. But other than that —
Q Tony, to be more specific on that point, there were Republican talking points on the Hill floating around that say that this House resolution Steve mentioned will, “weaken troop morale,” and will, “give comfort to the enemy.” Do you agree with that assessment?
MR. SNOW: Don’t know. I mean, I’ve always said that — and the President has said that those are things that people have to take into account. Certainly, General Petraeus and Secretary Gates thought that they would have an adverse impact when it came to morale, and also that they may provide some comfort to the enemy. But, again, I think these are serious matters that people voting on the resolution are going to have to take into account.
Q But the resolution, itself, the first line says that the United States Armed Forces are serving and have served bravely and honorably in Iraq. I mean, it’s very clearly stating that the supporters of this resolution — there is one Republican who has signed on — believe that U.S. soldiers have served bravely and honorably. So what’s the —
MR. SNOW: Okay, so they don’t want to provide the additional support for their mission, and that helps how?
Q That’s for them to answer. But they say that —
MR. SNOW: That’s what I’m saying.
Q Okay. Well, then what is your problem with it? Because specifically after saying that they believe U.S. soldiers have served bravely and honorably, it says Congress disapproves of the decision of President Bush announced on January 10th to deploy —
MR. SNOW: Well, we disagree, and the President is Commander-in-Chief, and he has the obligation to do what he thinks is best to make this country safe, and that’s what he’s doing.
Q Doesn’t the Congress have the obligation to weigh in on it?
MR. SNOW: Congress has the option of it. Members of Congress can express themselves however they wish.
Q This brings up sort of a very interesting point that I think, if we pull back a second, that a lot of Americans are probably engaged in trying to get their arms around. There was an op/ed piece yesterday by a former Director of the NSA and a former Army senior intelligence official, and he asked the question, can you support the troops and still call for bringing them home? Is the only way to support the troops to follow out what — follow what the President’s sort of continued mission is? What do you think of that?
MR. SNOW: Well, what I think is I’m not going to quite rise to that bait, but I’ll give you an answer that is responsive. The way you support the troops is help them complete their mission successfully. That’s how you support them.
