Interview of the President by RTL and N-TV, German TV
November 7, 2007
Interview of the President by RTL and N-TV, German TV
Map Room
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Q Mr. President, in a couple of days the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel will come to your ranch, which I think is a special privilege. What will you do with her on the ranch on a weekend like that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we will — if she wants — we’ll do anything she wants. If she wants to go for a hike, I’ll go for a hike. If she — I look forward to showing a piece of property I dearly love.
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“And I’m not going to try to put Angela Merkel in a position that she nor her Bundestag is comfortable with.”
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“Q But you still have as a last option the military option. Do you think that that could be an option in the future? You even mentioned the possibility, the chance of third world war — you were serious about that?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, absolutely serious. I said, if you want to avoid World War III. I didn’t say I’m for World War III.
Q Oh, no, I didn’t say that. But you mentioned it in that respect, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: But I said if you — the reason I said that is because this is a country that has defied the IAEA — in other words, didn’t disclose all their program — have said they want to destroy Israel. If you want to see World War III, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon. And so I said, now is the time to move. It wasn’t a prediction, nor a desire.
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“And our biggest job is to protect our — see, that’s an interesting difference between, say, Germany and America. We’ve been attacked.”
