Bush Pleased With Rescue of Aid Workers
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also, President Bush, we mentioned him watching the latest developments from his western outpost, that ranch in Crawford, Texas, that's where we find White House Correspondent Major Garrett, watching things with us. Major, good morning.</s>MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill. Now, top Bush administration officials here in Crawford and in Washington monitored the situation with the eight international aid workers intensively yesterday. Why? Well, because there was a German report early that morning that in fact they had been released. The administration considered that a potentially credible report because four of the international aid workers came from Germany and the organization itself, known as Shelter Now International, is based in Germany. And all day long, Bush administration officials worked feverishly to find out if the workers had been released. Once they had found out they had been, special operations forces were sent into Afghanistan to ferry them back to Pakistan. Late this last evening, at his Crawford Ranch, President Bush interrupted his dinner with the Putins, Vladimir and Lyudmila, to tell the nation about the happy news.</s>GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am pleased with their -- way our military has conducted its operations, and I am glad to report to the American people that this chapter of Afghan theater has ended in a very positive and constructive way.</s>GARRETT: The president said that he never ever considered using the international aid workers as bargaining chip, that that Taliban had often requested that he do, and very glad that all this has ended peacefully for those concerned and their families. The president continues day three of his summit here in Crawford with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The two spent an hour together, just the two of them, last evening. Spent the entire time just talking about the situation in Afghanistan. Not only militarily but a coming government, a U.N. possibly sanctioned government, to provide stability and a completely representative form of government for all Afghans. That was the key topic of conversation. President's taking President Putin on a tour of his ranch this morning. The two will then go to Crawford High School to take questions not from reporters, but from students and other representatives of the Crawford community to talk about U.S.-Russia relations. Bill.</s>HEMMER: All right, Major. Major Garrett, right there in Crawford, Texas. We will have the comments from Presidents Bush and Putin a bit later here live on CNN. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com