Text: Bush, Musharraf News Conference

U.S. President George W. Bush and Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, left, answer questions on the war on terrorism, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (J. Scott Applewhite - AP)

BUSH: I admire your courage. And I thank you very much for working on common strategies to protect our respective peoples.

We had a good discussion here today. We talked about how our intelligence cooperation can continue.

I want to remind the people of Pakistan and the people of America that because of the good work of our intelligence forces and Pakistani intelligence forces, as we helped people in the United Kingdom, we prevented the loss of innocent life.

That kind of cooperation is necessary in a world in which extremists and radicals are willing to achieve political objectives.

We talked about the earthquake recovery.

And our nation was proud to support you, Mr. President, because we care when we see people suffering.

And I was briefed by you and your administration when I was there. And I was impressed by the great organization and compassion shown for the Pakistani people by your government.

I hope all is going well, particularly for those who suffered mightily.

We talked about economic development and the need to move forward on reconstruction opportunity zones as well as a bilateral investment treaty.

In other words, our relationship is more than just helping to secure our respective homelands. Ours is a relationship that recognizes that, through economic prosperity, people can embetter themselves.

We had a very interesting briefing on the federally administered tribal areas. The governor of the areas are with us here. And he briefed me and members of my national security team on the strategy to strengthen governance and to promote economic development.

We talked about education. The first time I ever met President Musharraf, he talked about the need to make sure the school systems in Pakistan worked well.