Q Right. Why shouldn't Tom Ridge appear before Congress and testify?
MR. FLEISCHER: This is an issue that came up when the president created the Homeland Security Council, and the president shared at that time directly with members of Congress his thinking, so this is directly from the president. The president believes that the best way to structure the Homeland Security Council is to pattern it after the very successful and bipartisan National Security Council. That has been a bipartisan tradition of the national security adviser going back decades, where that person, the adviser to the president, is just that, an adviser to the president, and is not a briefer to the Congress. There are many other people who fill that role both in the Homeland Security Council side as well as the national security side. So the president is satisfied that Congress receives through open testimony the information that it is due and deserves from the appropriate officials.
Q Like who? Like who?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, when it comes to homeland security, that's a combination of the FBI, the CIA, the --
Q But not the homeland security?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct. That's what I'm saying. The answer to Jim's question is no, the president does not think he should.
Q But why not? The public is directly involved in this.
MR. FLEISCHER: For the same reason that advisers to the president, the assistants to the president, the national security adviser to the president -- there's a long-standing bipartisan tradition that those officials' jobs is to be in an advisory capacity to the president, not a testimonial capacity to the Congress.
Deb?
Q Ari, if I could just to back to the first question, you said before that people who work for Senator Daschle had been informed. Were people who work for Senator Byrd informed as well?
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm not going to get into every person who was notified. But again, as I say, the notifications were made exactly as they should be made, and I think that will become increasingly clear as Congress just has a chance to talk to themselves.
Q And that would mean to everybody directly in line?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think I've done my best to be respectful of people who I think are still trying to talk to each other up on the Hill and answer the question.
Q Should Tom Ridge testify before Congress?
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me come back to that.