Bush: "Russia Is Not An Enemy"

President Bush on Wednesday discounted Vladimir Putin's threat to re-target missiles on Europe, saying "Russia is not going to attack Europe."

Mr. Bush, in an interview with The Associated Press and other reporters, said that no U.S. military response was required after Putin warned that Russia would take steps in response to plans to deploy a U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Russia is not an enemy," Mr. Bush said, sitting in a sun-drenched garden in the resort town hosting the Group of Eight summit Wednesday. "There needs to be no military response because we're not at war with Russia. Russia is not a threat."

Mr. Bush and Putin will meet later Wednesday at the opening of the summit of industrialized nations. Asked if he anticipated a tense encounter, Mr. Bush replied: "Could be. I don't think so ... I'll work to see that it's not a tense meeting."

Putin had rattled nerves in Europe with his weekend declaration that he would retarget missiles on Europe in response to the missile defense shield. "I don't think Vladimir Putin intends to attack Europe," Mr. Bush said.

Later in the day, Mr. Bush cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declaration that it was "too late" to stop Iran's nuclear program as justification for basing a shield in Europe.

"Therefore, let's build a missile defense system," Mr. Bush said, adding that it was time to return to the U.N. Security Council to tighten pressure on Iran to give up its suspected weapons program.

The president says the missile defense system, which would be based in Eastern Europe, is designed to keep rogue states like Iran and North Korea from being able to fire a missile that would hit Europe, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

The meeting, in this picturesque vacation town on the Baltic coast, already has been the subject of violent protests: Weekend rioting in nearby Rostock was called Germany's worst in decades as anti-globalization protesters hurled rocks and bottles at police.

On Wednesday, a motley band of more than 800 protesters — some sporting fluorescent wigs and clown noses — scampered through woods and open fields past police patrols to reach the barbed-wire topped fence sealing off the G-8 summit.

Organizers of the various protest groups claimed victory for getting as far as the barrier, despite being doused by police water cannons and occasionally tackled as they blocked several roads — including the route from the airport as leaders were flying in for the first day of the summit.

"We have successfully taken over all roads leading to Heiligendamm," said Christoph Kleine of the Block G-8 group. "We are very happy with that."

Germany has deployed 16,000 police and have forbidden demonstrations within a four-mile radius of the summit location. In addition, there is seven miles of fences with razor wire surrounding the resort, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante.

Mr. Bush talked with reporters for nearly an hour, touching on subjects from global warming to Iran, the suffering in Darfur to the war in Iraq. The president said he would like to see other countries follow the United States in taking steps against the government of Sudan to stop the misery in Darfur.

"I'm frustrated because there are still people suffering and the U.N. process is moving at a snail's pace," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush is seeking a U.N. resolution to apply new international sanctions against the Sudanese government. It would include an expanded embargo on arms sales to Sudan, prohibit Sudan's government from conducting offensive military flights over Darfur and strengthen the U.S. ability to monitor and report any violations.

On climate change, Mr. Bush said he would not give ground on global warming proposals that would require mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, he backed his own proposal to have the United States and other nations that spew the most greenhouse gases meet and — by the end of next year — set a long-term strategy for reducing emissions.

Mr. Bush's plan addresses "life after" 2012, the expiration date for the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States didn't sign.

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in Japan in 1997, requires industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. The U.S. signed but did not ratify the protocol because it imposed no emissions cuts on developing countries such as China and India.

Mr. Bush wants to bring India, China and other fast-growing countries to the negotiation table. He envisions that each country will set goals on how they want to improve energy security, reduce air pollution and cut greenhouse gases in the next 10 to 20 years.

"The United States can serve as a bridge to help find a solution," Mr. Bush said.

He said that the G-8 summit, running Wednesday through Friday, would produce a consensus for a post-Kyoto framework after the landmark treaty expires in 2012.

Mr. Bush on Wednesday expressed his willingness to work with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate change — but reiterated his refusal to agree to any proposals that require a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Bush said he assured Merkel of "a strong desire" to work with her on a climate change plan to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, detailing two major objectives: "One is to reduce greenhouse gases. Another is to become more energy independent."

Merkel called their lunchtime talks before the start of the G-8 summit "a very good conversation and very good debate" — but acknowledged afterward that "there are a few areas we will continue to work on."

The two did not publicly address their difference over binding emissions cuts — Merkel is for them; Mr. Bush's latest proposal leaves them out — but a Bush adviser said a final statement was in the works.

Merkel — who has made climate change the centerpiece of Germany's G-8 leadership — was using the hours before the start of the summit to champion agreement at the gathering of industrialized nations.

She is pushing specific targets on reducing the carbon emissions believed to cause global warming, including a "two-degree" target under which global temperatures would be allowed to increase by no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Practically, experts say, that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. And a report from a U.N. network of more than 2,000 scientists estimates that the world must stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere within eight years to keep global temperatures from spiking to disastrous levels.

The U.S. has now acknowledged that global warming is a serious problem, and Europe and others have come around to Washington's view that no solution is viable without the participation of developing energy guzzlers such as China, India and Brazil.

Bush adviser James Connaughton said an agreement "is coming together, almost done. There's going to be a strong agreement on a way forward."

Mr. Bush has proposed that the United States and other nations that spew the most greenhouse gases meet and, by next year, set a long-term strategy for reducing emissions. He believes each country should set its own goals on improving energy security, reducing air pollution and cutting greenhouse gases in the next 10 to 20 years.

"The United States can serve as a bridge to help find a solution," Mr. Bush said.

Merkel and Mr. Bush also discussed aid to Africa.

"We want to combat poverty. We want to ensure the freedom of investments. We want to also see to it that globalization respects the social dimension," Merkel said. "We want to work on world trade issues. And there are a number of international conflicts that we wish to concentrate on and that we hope we will together be able to contain."

Leaders also were expected to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin about his increasingly frosty relations with the United States and Europe. The days leading up to the summit were dominated by jarring rhetoric from Putin over U.S. plans to base a new missile defense system in nearby Czech Republic and Poland.

The other G-8 leaders attending the summit are Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is representing the European Union.

Mr. Bush said he and Abe met to discuss North Korea's pledge to close its nuclear reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. "There is a common message here and that is: We expect North Korea to honor agreements."