Bush meets economic team to review trends, war impact

Bush meets economic team to review trends, war impact

Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters, Washington

U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday reviewed economic trends, energy supplies, and the impact of the war with Iraq on its neighbors at his first meeting with his economic team since war began, a White House spokeswoman said.

Spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the meeting of Bush's National Economic Council officials did not discuss a possible use of emergency petroleum stockpiles.

She said airline industry troubles -- which the airlines have blamed in part on the war and its anticipation -- were raised at the meeting but were "not a focus" of it.

"They talked about the status of the economy...it was a briefing and a discussion," she said.

Buchan declined to give details of an earlier meeting Bush held with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary John Snow and National Economic Council Director Stephen Friedman.

The Greenspan meeting, the Fed chairman's second visit to the White House on Monday and third since Friday, was one of the "periodic" meetings Greenspan holds to share views with Bush and his aides, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said ahead of the meeting.

Greenspan had met earlier in the day Monday with unspecified members of Bush's economic team.

At the NEC meeting, Bush was told of private forecasters' projections for accelerating economic growth this year and next, Buchan said. She said those forecasts hinged on passage of Bush's proposed $726 billion tax cut.

Said Fleischer, "The trends in the economy remain mixed ... Clearly the economy has emerged from the recession it was in, but it's an issue that the president is still focused on and concerned about, because we want to make sure that people can work."

Bush and his White House have sought to convey continued attention to the economy at a time war dominates the headlines. They are seeking to avoid the fate of former President George Bush, the president's father, whose failure to win reelection was blamed in part on accusations he ignored the economy in the wake of victory in the 1991 war on Iraq.

Asked whether the meeting discussed possible use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Buchan said it did not. "They talked about the (energy) supplies generally, the markets generally."

She declined to detail the discussion on the impact of war on the economies of countries neighboring Iraq.

Bush was to outline to congressional leaders on Monday elements of his almost $75 billion emergency request for war spending, which is expected to include aid for Israel, Jordan, Egypt and other supporters of the U.S. war effort.

The biggest U.S. air carriers have said they could face up to $4 billion in losses from a prolonged war. But the White House has not yet decided whether to support a bailout, which would be the second for the industry since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"Meetings have been held here between administration economic advisors and the airlines," Fleischer said. "The airlines ... even prior to Sept.11, were not in as strong a financial condition as they would have liked."

"Of course, conditions now, prior to the war, also had an economic impact on the airlines, separate and apart from anything that's happened in Iraq. So we will continue to work with them and to listen to them, and I'm not going to prejudge all outcomes," he said.