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MS. PERINO: Good morning. I have a few announcements for you. You saw the employment report released this morning, the loss of 84,000 jobs and an increase in the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent. There's no question that the labor market is not as strong as we'd like and these were disappointing numbers. We want to see the economy return to job growth and we understand that this is a difficult time for many Americans. We want everyone who wants to work to be able to find a job.

It's important for Americans also to know that in addition to these numbers, there are other numbers that show that the economy is starting to show some signs of growth. For example, the growth rate from last week, and also on productivity and exports, those numbers have been positive, which show that our economy is quite resilient even in spite of the high energy prices and the housing crunch and the credit market issues that are impacting our economy.

We also believe that the economic stimulus plan is continuing to have the effects that we wanted it to have, and that combined with monetary policy will continue to generate growth through this difficult period.

Also, President Bush will welcome President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia to the White House on September 20, 2008. Colombia is a strategic ally of the United States, and this visit underscores the deep friendship and extensive cooperation between the United States and Colombia.

Also, on hurricane issues, the federal government continues to assist state and local governments to help them respond to Hurricane Gustav. The job is not over and the federal government continues to help them, especially in regard to the power situation. We're doing what we can, but we want to help those families get back to their homes and those businesses get reopened.

The main priorities of state and local officials are power restoration and reentry of those who evacuated. There are roughly 900,000 Gulf Coast residents that still remain without power, and a majority of these are in Louisiana. Full restoration is expected to take weeks in some areas, especially in the coastal areas. We have moved federal resources into that area and FEMA could provide you more.

In addition, we are also carefully watching and preparing for Tropical Storm Hanna. This time of year is the peak of hurricane season, and so we're seeing lots of activity in that area. This morning President Bush called the governors of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia to discuss preparations for Hanna.

FEMA Administrator Paulison has also reached out to several east coast governors, since the storm is predicted to come up the coast and even our way here in Washington, D.C., just to make sure that they have what they need and if they need help with plans as they prepare. So Secretary -- let's see -- FEMA Administrator Paulison will have a conference call for the media at 3:00 p.m. today for anybody that wants updates from him there.

Finally, in the President's radio address he will discuss the ongoing recovery from Hurricane Gustav and preparations for the upcoming storms in the Southeast. He will also address the fact that after the past four weeks of a break, Congress returns to Washington for a short time before they leave again for the campaign trail. He would like to reach out and let them know that we want to work together on bipartisan measures to help strengthen America's economy.

For example, we have the Colombian and Korean free trade agreements, which are important. If you look at those productivity and export numbers, it underscores the importance of trying to get these free trade agreements done when Congress comes back. We also want to extend relief from the alternative minimum tax and obviously deal with energy, which is America's biggest concern right now, the high price of gasoline. So that will be in the radio address. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q Since the President has the troop level recommendations before him for Iraq, can you explain to

MS. PERINO: I think you might be comparing the surge process to the -- I'm not -- the surge process, in terms of the policy process -- Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't recall in the last few times when President Bush has worked with, or has gotten recommendations from General Petraeus, that we have gone too far outside. Of course we -- the President gets an update, as he did on Wednesday evening from Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates.

They took Secretary -- I'm sorry -- General Petraeus' recommendation and ran that through the chain of command. And then they presented it to the President. He's obviously talking to his national security team, and we'll be consulting with members of Congress before we move forward. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, I would think that it shouldn't take too much longer. Obviously, he gets updates regularly, so he's well-informed as to the state of affairs in Iraq.

And because he has that regular -- those regular updates, it shouldn't take too long to be able to make a decision, especially since we're on the trajectory of success that we've been on. The question on the President's mind has been how do we make sure that we cement those gains, and not jeopardize those gains and be able to continue the process of return on success. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't want to put -- I'll let the President make his announcement next week. But he obviously listens to the commanders on the ground and to his military advisors.

And certainly there is something to be considered here when you look at the economic, political and diplomatic aspects of this, how many troops do you need to be able to help support some of those diplomatic efforts. So that's why Secretary Rice's involvement is very important too.

Matt. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q Dana, you painted a fairly upbeat picture of the economy despite the job losses, and yet most economists

MS. PERINO: Look, we've gone through the recession thing before. I just told you that the last two quarters showed growth. There's plenty of economists out there and they have -- they're very -- I'm sure they're very intelligent and they have a lot of resources at their fingertips, but I just haven't heard anybody talking necessarily about a recession.

The economic stimulus plan that we put in place is having the strong impact that we wanted it to have. One of the keys of that stimulus package was that it be stimulative, and we don't think that we need to consider a second stimulus right now.

One of the things we were concerned about and we warned about in the last supplemental, where we extended unemployment benefits -- which was not our preference, and we actually were able to shave back from 16 weeks back to eight weeks how much longer those benefits would be allowed -- part of what we were concerned about is that it lengthens the amount of time that people would be out of work.

And I think we're seeing that reflected in some of those numbers today. So we would want to approach any next steps very carefully. We need to do a couple of things in the meantime. One is continue to work through the housing crunch, through FHA Secure, or trying to help people stay in their homes through HOPE NOW. In addition to that, there's the credit market issues, and also the high energy prices.

But there are other things that we can do, which is to -- if we were to be able to work with Congress in a bipartisan way to push forward on these free trade agreements, we could increase the amount of exports that we are -- that are leaving this country and that are really helping us -- helping fuel the economic growth that we have.

But there's no question that a 6.1 percent unemployment rate is absolutely unwelcome. It is too high in the President's mind. Compared to other countries it's relatively good, but when it comes to America, that's never good enough for us. We want to make sure that anybody who wants to find work can find work. And so we'll continue to work with Congress. We'd like to work with them in a bipartisan way. They've got three weeks to do something before they leave for the campaign trail, so we hope we can get something done.

Brianna. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q You pointed -- one of the positive numbers that you're pointing to is the growth rate for the last

MS. PERINO: No, that is precisely the reason that we did the economic stimulus package is so that we could get our country back on a footing of growth so that it could help get us through an economic downturn. So that's exactly why we did it.

And it's having the intended impact. The job growth has not caught up to that though, and we hope to see that towards the end of the year. That was what -- you know, we always said when we did the economic stimulus package in January/February, when it was signed, that it was going to take awhile, maybe through the end of the year, before we started seeing turnaround on the job number situation. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Okay, you know what, as I said, there are so many economists all over this country that will have lots of different opinions. I'm sure CNN has lots of different economists; you can look towards them.

But what I can point to you is the numbers that we have on -- that this country's economic growth rate over the past two quarters has been strong. And a lot of that is due to the economic stimulus package, which is what we acted on, because we recognized that we were going to be on an economic downturn.

I think you could flip the question on them and say, well, what if we hadn't had the economic stimulus package -- then where would we be? So I don't think it's false. The numbers are real. The numbers have come in. So if they want to argue the numbers, I guess they can do that amongst themselves. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q Dana, to the Woodward book, if you have any comments on the Woodward book in general? And particularly

MS. PERINO: Okay. I haven't -- I don't have a copy of the book yet. We did receive one or two at the White House late yesterday evening, and they are working through it. So all I know is the coverage of the book that I've seen, and that I've read in news reports of it.

I would say that in general, the President of the United States, any President of the United States is criticized for lots of different things. I think the results of the surge are undeniable. And in Washington, sometimes you see that the process has been -- comes under extra scrutiny, and can be picked apart in ways that aren't reflective of the end result.

This President, it seems to me that he gets criticism that if he's perceived to be careful or deliberative, he's accused of being slow. And if he is decisive, he is accused of being impulsive and rash.

So with that said, I would just point to the fact that we would not comment on any of the assertions in the book regarding the allegation that you brought up. What I can tell you is we have extensive cooperation with Prime Minister Maliki. Our ambassador sees him almost daily. President Bush speaks to him by secure video teleconference at least every other week, if not more. And we have a good idea of what Prime Minister Maliki is thinking, because he tells us very frankly and very candidly, as often as he can.

And that's one of the reasons we've been able to succeed in a lot of these different areas, especially in the economic, diplomatic and security areas. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: As I said, I would not comment on it. To the extent that they have any concerns, because we have the relationship that we have with them, which is one that's very frank, open and candid and we have contact with them every single day, I'm sure that they'll be talking about it.

Laurent. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Why am I not denying what allegations? Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I didn't deny it. I said I declined to comment on it. And I will decline to comment on it. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I don't believe so. I don't think that they're going to be coupled. We still have some things to work out with them. And our negotiators had a little bit of a break over the past week and I'm sure they'll be starting that up again early next week and let me give you an update when we -- when they get back. But I don't think that that announcement would be coupled. If that changes I'll let you know. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, we take our relationships with countries on a case by case basis. We have had a long and bad history with Libya, and that began to turn around when they turned away from nuclear weapons and terrorism. That country has radically changed its behavior. And Secretary Rice's trip signifies a new chapter in U.S.-Libya bilateral relations. What we want is to establish full relations with Libya, including hopefully being able to announce a U.S. ambassador soon. It's a symbol of the evolution of our relationship with Libya, that we are working on evolving a relationship that could be built on trust and mutual interest and mutual benefit. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Well, I would say that we are increasing our cooperation where we can with any country that is willing to work with us to fight against terrorism. And Libya has certainly changed its behavior when it came down to the -- their weapons of mass destruction and their capability of producing weapons of mass destruction, and also their pledge to work with countries on matters of the global war on terror. And I'll let Secretary Rice read out her meeting after she's able to attend and meet with the officials there.

Goyal. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q Two quick questions. One, is President aware of secretive letter was written by the State Department

MS. PERINO: Let me just reiterate something that the State Department has said the past couple of days, which is that questions for the record -- they're also called QFRs -- that are asked for, from Congress to the administration, often are not made public. Congress usually treats those as a direct communication between the executive branch and the legislative branch. The QFRs that were made public reiterated our longstanding position and we hope that this -- we could put this behind us and be able to move forward and get this agreement done. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q And second, as far as cross-border terrorism and Afghanistan situation and the attacks in Pakistan

MS. PERINO: I'm not sure which question you want me to answer, but let me take -- Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: I think that would remain to be seen. The President has asked his intelligence community every week -- every day that he sees them, but I know that he has threat assessment every week at his intel briefing and he wants to know where we are in the process of tracking him down and bringing him to justice.

Violence will go down once people renounce terrorism and that's why we're working with countries like Pakistan. We respect Pakistan's sovereignty. We are working to cooperate with this new civilian government. You said that Zardari will be the next President -- we'll see what happens in tomorrow's elections, although I think that you're probably on the right track there.

And we'll continue to work with them. We need to have their cooperation. One of the reasons that they're -- that Zardari will become the President is because, unfortunately, his wife was killed by terrorists, so they have a mutual interest in trying to go after terrorists, and that's what we're going to continue to do with them.

Paula. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: Look, let's just see if they can even get a bill to our desk and then we'll -- or a bill out to the floor and then we'll do a statement of administration policy. But I think a clean bill that would allow for exploration of more resources here in our own country offshore; also here -- in the West for oil shale; and also extending renewable energy tax credits. Those are the three main components of an energy bill that we would like to see.

We don't think it should become a Christmas tree that's just brought down of its own weight, because we won't be able to support it. If they're serious about trying to work on an energy bill that would help this economy, then they should go ahead and pass a clean bill. We've given them the road map to do so. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MS. PERINO: As I said, let's just see -- let's see what kind of bill that they can put forward and we'll take it from there. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

Q I'm sorry, one more question on those economic growth numbers or the job loss numbers -- you did

MS. PERINO: You know what, Paula, as I said, when it comes to economics, what I can do is point you to the numbers, which is that productivity was at 3.4 percent, which was considered a good number by the economists that look at this from our perspective. And we're going to continue to work with Congress. What we'd like to see is everybody who wants to have a job in America should be able to have a job. Read more Comment (0), Email this.