Bush Says U.S. Won't Attack North Korea

President Bush speaks during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds) (Ron Edmonds - AP)

He said he hopes that congressional and Justice Department investigations "find the facts" and that he hoped it was "sooner, rather than later." He said he doesn't think the scandal has undermined Hastert's credibility as a leader.

"Denny's very credible as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Most of the questions at the news conference dealt with North Korea, with Iraq a close second.

Bush rejected criticism from Democrats that his administration had not paid enough attention to the brewing North Korean nuclear crisis. "The North Korean situation was serious for years," he said in a veiled swipe at former President Clinton.

Bush said that Pyongyang had broken a 1994 deal negotiated by the Clinton administration in which Pyongyang had promised not to develop a nuclear program.

"It's the intransigence of the North Korean leader that speaks volumes about the process," he said of Kim Jong Il. "It is his unwillingness to choose a way forward for this country _ a better way forward for his country. It is his decisions."

As to direct talks with North Korea, as the U.N. secretary general and many other diplomats have urged, Bush suggested that direct Clinton administration contacts with the communist regime showed they were unprofitable.

"Bilateral negotiations didn't work. You know, I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn't work," Bush said.

He called anew for a resumption of six-way talks among North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States. Such talks have been suspended since November 2005.

Bush said that North Korea with its actions "has once again chosen to reject the prospect for a better future."

North Korea has said that one reason it tested an atomic weapon is to stave off an Iraq-style pre-emptive attack from the United States.

But, Bush said, "The United States affirmed that we have no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. We affirmed that we have no intention of attacking North Korea."

In answer to a question he asked himself _ why the U.S. doesn't take military action against North Korea _ Bush said: "I believe the commander in chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military."

He was asked about a recent comment by the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner, that Iraq was drifting "sideways" and that the U.S. should consider major changes if Baghdad doesn't get the violence under control within the next few months.

"I appreciate Sen. Warner from going over there and taking a look," said Bush. "I completely agree."

Still, he insisted, "We're constantly changing tactics."

Warner was one of several prominent Republicans who have expressed misgivings recently about the course of U.S. policy there.

Bush dismissed as "just not credible" a controversial new study that contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war. The study was based on interviews by researchers with Iraqi families and suggests a far higher death toll than other estimates.

Bush, who in the past has suggested 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, would not give a figure for overall fatalities.

"I do know that a lot of innocent people have died," he said.

On another subject, Bush was asked about legislation authorizing construction of a 700-mile fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexican border and whether the fence would be solid and unbroken, or a "virtual fence" that relies on electronic sensors.

"We're going to do both. Make sure we're going to build it in a spot where it works," he said. Bush said the fence, on which construction has already begun, would be a combination of an actual barrier and electronics.

"You can't fence the entire border," he said

Bush used the opportunity to put in a plug for his proposal, stymied so far in Congress, to establish a guest-worker program "so people aren't sneaking in in the first place."