White House Press Secretary Dana Perino responds to a question, Friday, Oct 5, 2007, in the White House press briefing room in Washington.
From today’s press briefing
Q Dana, why did the President feel the need today to weigh in on the subject of the CIA interrogation program in what was ostensibly to be a statement on the economy? Did he feel that the disclosures about the harsh treatment of detainees were somehow casting the administration in a bad light?…Dana Perino: I think the President today wanted to make sure that, given that there is so much interest, going on two days, that he had an opportunity when he -- when he saw members of the press, that he take that opportunity to remind everybody of -- we are in a war.
One of the things he's really concerned about is that every day that we get farther away from 9/11, that people will start forgetting the threats that we're under, and al Qaeda is very serious, they're very patient. And the best source of information about how they're trying to harm us is from the terrorists themselves. And that's why we created the interrogation program, and it has saved lives.
The excerpt below was almost the Quote of the Day--Go Dana!
Q ….You said there's no shift in policy --Dana Perino: Well, what would make it better, what would make it better, that we should tell everybody exactly what we have?
Q Not everybody -- not everybody.
Dana Perino: You want to know the techniques that we use so we can tell al Qaeda exactly what we're going to do? That's absurd.