Obama Addresses Troops About 9/11
The president, speaking at Fort Meade, reflected on the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date September 11, 2015.
Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times.
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FORT MEADE, Md. — President Obama said Friday that the presence of Russian military advisers and equipment in Syria
would not change American military strategy in the region, but that
Russian support for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could make
political reconciliation impossible.
“As
long as Assad is there, he has alienated so much of the Syrian
population that it will not be possible to arrive at a peaceful
cease-fire and political settlement, and you’ll continue to have this
vacuum that’s filled by extremists,” Mr. Obama said.
The president’s remarks came during a town hall-style meeting at the military base here, a center for military intelligence and cyberwarfare just outside Washington. Mr. Obama held the meeting on the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
He also spoke about how the United States would deal with cyberthreats from China,
efforts to deal with the flood of refugees in Europe, his handling of
harsh criticism and how he balances the demands of family and work.
He
complained about Congress, its deadlock over a spending bill for next
year, and restrictions on spending levels called sequestration.
“I
hope Congress is paying attention to how you operate and how you do
your job,” the president said to about 150 service members in the
audience, “because if they were as conscientious about it and selfless
about it, then that sequester would be lifted, and we would end up being
in a position where we could make the investments we need to stay
strong, militarily and economically.”
Asked about the refugee crisis, Mr. Obama said there were no quick fixes.
“Unfortunately,
we can anticipate that refugees will be an ongoing problem for decades
to come,” he said, citing failed states, the proliferation of media that
allows people to envision better lives elsewhere, and even climate
change. He said a new international system was needed to handle the
flood, and he promised to begin discussions about creating such a system
at the United Nations General Assembly meeting next week.
“No one country can solve these problems alone,” he said.
He said he intended to speak with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, about China’s cyberattacks during Mr. Xi’s visit to the White House this month. The administration has determined that China was behind the theft
of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans from the
databases of the Office of Personnel Management, but it is still
struggling to formulate a response that does not prompt an escalating
cyberconflict.
“We’ve
made very clear to the Chinese that there are certain practices that
they’re engaging in that we know are emanating from China and are not
acceptable,” Mr. Obama said. “And we can choose to make this an area of
competition — which I guarantee you we’ll win if we have to — or,
alternatively, we can come to an agreement in which we say, this isn’t
helping anybody; let’s instead try to have some basic rules of the road
in terms of how we operate.”
The
president said that the United States would have to respond more
rapidly to cyberattacks, which would require a coordinated response from
the military, intelligence agencies and the private sector.
On
a more personal note, a service member asked how the president handled
all the people “talking smack about you and what you do.”
“You
know, the truth is that not everyone is talking smack about me. But
there is a sizable percentage in Congress that talks smack about me, no
doubt about it,” he said to laughter.
But
he said that he had not entered public service simply to be popular,
and he pointed to his decision to bail out the auto industry during the
economic crisis as an example of a policy that he would never have
followed if he had just followed the polls. The auto industry is now
thriving and has become the core of a rebound in American manufacturing,
he said.
“So
the longer I’m in this office, the more committed I am to making those
calls,” Mr. Obama said. “And part of the challenge in this job is, is
that if it’s an easy question, it doesn’t get to my desk.”
Similarly,
he said that he and his wife, Michelle, raised their daughters with
tough rules and high expectations, telling them “I’m your parent, I’m
not your best friend” when they complained.
He
said he was looking forward to doing many things after leaving the
White House, such as getting out of the security bubble and not shaving
on the weekends.
“And
I can’t just on a Saturday morning go down to Starbucks or something,
not shave,” he said. And when he leaves, “I probably won’t wear a tie
for at least a month.”
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