MS. PERINO: Well, there's a lot of things he didn't mention. There's lots of things he did mention. He can't talk about every single thing every time. As you know, the President talks to Prime Minister Maliki regularly. He talks to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker every single week, if not more often, during the week. And he's constantly pressuring them. And we have people who are there working with them to pull this together.

And just today, look at the reports that they're moving forward, they're making progress on the provincial elections law, which they originally passed in January. Someone had -- Vice President Mahdi had a constitutional question as to whether or not this was the right thing for their country. He had issues that he wanted to be addressed, or he had concerns about a technicality. They were addressed. That's what you would expect in a civil democracy, they have those conversations.

Today what the President was focusing on was the -- revisiting the beginning of the war, talking about what's happening now and talking about the surge, and then the broader global war on terrorism. Just because the President doesn't mention something doesn't mean all of a sudden, Matt, that he's perfectly satisfied. He says repeatedly that he knows that they need to do more.

seen at 14:09, 19 March in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
Next item; Original source; Previous item;