January 13, 2006: Text: President Bush and Chancellor Merkel (AP)

  • We talked about the war on terror. I told the chancellor that there’s still an enemy that wants to do harm to the American people and others who like freedom, an enemy there that lurks, and that we’ve got to share information and share intelligence and to work carefully to protect our peoples, that the threat is real, and that my obligation as the president of this country is to do everything in my power to protect the people. And we can’t do it alone.
  • The answer to your question is: Guantanamo is a necessary part of protecting the American people. And so long as the war on terror goes on, and so long as there’s a threat, we will inevitably need to hold people that would do ourselves harm in a system in which people will be treated humanely and which ultimately there is going to be an end, which is a legal system; waiting for our own courts to determine how that’s best to proceed.

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