Yo, Harper! The President of Nigeria.

There's a lot of issues that I'm sure we'll be talking about today — North Korea and Iran, hopefully the Middle East, maybe some local issues here in Chicago. It's my honor to be here. Thank you for coming. And now I'll start answering some questions, starting with one of the senior members of the press corps — are you over 60? You look like you're about 65. Anyway, go ahead.

[The Supreme Court was] silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.

I am willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court.

At my press conference, they spent a lot of time talking about the world. And I told them today — like I'm going to tell you now — that my biggest job is to protect — is to work to protect the American people. And I think about it all the time. They ask, what's the job like to be President. And the answer to that job is you make a lot of decisions. It's a decision-making experience.

I will be making the troop level decisions based upon what General George Casey recommends. We owe that to our troops. We owe that to their families. We owe that to the Iraqi.

The war on terror goes on. I was most impressed by the resolve of all the leaders in the room. Their resolve is as strong as my resolve.

When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall. Otherwise you're not riding hard.

I spent some time recently with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and had an opportunity to express our heartfelt condolences to the people of London, people who lost lives.

This morning I have been in contact with our Homeland Security folks. I instructed them to be in touch with local and state officials about the facts of what took place here and in London, and to be extra vigilant, as our folks start heading to work.

It is — it seems like to me a fantastic opportunity for the country to make sure that the desires of this country are met, and that is every child become a good reader.

Now, there are governors around the state and the country that that have said, look, give us the flexibility to be able to dovetail the Head Start program into our preschool programs so that all students — so we have a better control over whether or not the students are given the skills necessary so that when hold us to account we can achieve that which we want to achieve, which is excellence in the classroom.

I appreciate the desire for flexibility, I support the governor's desire for flexibility so long as, one, federal monies going to the states are used only for Head Start. In other words, what we really don't want to do is say we're going to focus on Head Start, the Head Start money goes for, you know, the prison complex — I know that won't happen with Governor Ehrlich, but there needs to be a guarantee that the federal money spent on Head Start, only go to Head Start. Secondly, states and local governments must put money into the program, which would lock in the Head Start money for Head Start. So, the flexibility given to the State would not allow the state's budget flexibility. Governors ought to have that flexibility to hope that Congress will provide that flexibility so that when the accountability systems kick in, fully kick in, that a governor can truthfully say, well, I've had the tools necessary to make sure the Head Start program fits into an overall comprehensive plan for literacy and math for every child in the state of Maryland, in Governor Ehrlich's case.

I don't know if the people in the State of Maryland know this, I know the Governor does — the teachers here and the program here uses a strategy, what they call a Center for Improving Readiness for Children, Learning and Education, C.I.R.C.L.E., which is a model program.

And the research — I see some of my friends from the National Research Council, the National Institutions of Child Health who are here.