WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama expressed optimism Wednesday night that Chrysler could remain a “going concern,” possibly without filing for bankruptcy, a generally upbeat assessment on one of numerous challenges he has confronted in a whirlwind first 100 days in office.
Obama said “unions and creditors have come up with a set of potential concessions that they can live with,” adding, “All that promises the possibility that you can get a Chrysler-Fiat merger.”
Obama made his remarks at a prime-time news conference that capped his 100th day in office, a time of national testing given a deep economic recession and unprecedented credit crunch.
At a town-hall style meeting in Missouri earlier in the day, as well as in the White House East Room, Obama said progress has been made in rebuilding the economy, and more remains.
“And all of this means you can expect an unrelenting, unyielding effort from this administration to strengthen our prosperity and our security — in the second hundred days, and the third hundred days, and all the days after.” At his news conference, Obama also said he had no second thoughts about having approved the release of Bush administration memos detailing the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects.
“I do believe that it is torture,” he said flatly of waterboarding, which simulates drowning. He appeared to acknowledge that useful information had been obtained in interrogations in which it was used, as assessment made in a memo by his administration’s top intelligence official.
The president said it was not possible to know whether the same information could have been obtained if waterboarding had not been employed.
“I’m absolutely convinced we are not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are,” said Obama, who has come under criticism from numnerous Republicans for his decision to release the memos.
