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.