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Wallace: Difficult week for Bush administration

Wallace

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government's handling of anthrax outbreaks and the perceived bogging down of U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan this week stymied the Bush administration, which for weeks had been riding sky-high popularity ratings.

White House correspondent Kelly Wallace talked with CNN's Kyra Phillips on Saturday about the concerns and challenges facing the administration.

WALLACE: This has been a very, very difficult week for President Bush because of mounting questions about the progress in the military campaign against Afghanistan and continued concerns about the federal government's handling of these cases of anthrax.

Towards the end of the week, we did see President Bush -- and officials all over the administration -- getting the message out that the federal government would respond much more quickly to any concerns about exposure to anthrax.

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We also saw the president Friday signing a new bill giving sweeping new powers to law enforcement to crack down on suspected terrorists. And during that signing ceremony in the East Room the president talked about the D.C. postal workers. He said he mourned the loss of life for those two D.C. postal workers who died of inhalation anthrax. And then he had a message for the entire country, saying the federal government would do everything possible to protect all postal employees and all postal offices around the country.

Today, the president's radio message was geared to lawmakers, pressing Congress to finish up work on a bill to beef up airline and airport security.

The main sticking point continues to be whether baggage screeners, the people who screen your luggage and baggage, should be federal employees. Democrats say yes. President Bush says the federal government should set standards and do background checks for these workers. He also wants the federal government to have the flexibility to decide if they should be federal employees or private workers.

PHILLIPS: Would those talks include the issue of pilots and handguns?

WALLACE: No. The White House has made it clear that this is not something that President Bush and his top advisers support. They think other measures can handle the job of protecting pilots, such as strengthening cockpit doors, putting armed federal marshals on most planes, doing a better job screening passengers and having more federal oversight of those people who screen baggage.

PHILLIPS: What's happening to protect the president and the people that do work in the White House from anthrax?

WALLACE: White House officials do not like to talk about … what precautions they are taking to protect the president and his top aides. We do know certain things are going on. Obviously, there were big security measures in place before September 11 when it came to White House mail. We are told that those measures have been enhanced, and certainly there's much more screening going on when it comes to mail.

We also know that periodically there is testing of the air around the White House for ... any chemical substances. In fact, our Pentagon colleagues reported that they have these mobile biological units around the Pentagon testing for any chemical or biological agents in the air around the Pentagon.