Bush: World watching Ukraine 'very carefully'
President speaks on Iran, WTO, spending bill
 |  President Bush stopped on his way to get a burger and spoke to reporters Friday. |
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 CNN's Jill Dougherty on the disputed election in Ukraine.
 Iran wants to run some uranium enrichment machinery.
 A spending bill OK'd by Congress is full of pork-barrel money.
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CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- As officials meet in Ukraine to hammer out a solution to what opposition leaders say was a fraudulent election, the "world is "watching very carefully," President Bush said Friday.
Bush spoke to reporters on subjects including Ukraine outside The Coffee Station, a restaurant in Crawford, near his ranch.
"There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that place their elections, the validity of their elections, in doubt," Bush said. "The international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it'll be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government."
The two Ukraine candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko opened talks Friday with Russian and European mediators to try to end a crisis that has prompted more than six days of mass street protests.
The roundtable discussion was the first face-to-face meeting between the two men since the votes were cast.
An election commission said last week that Yanukovych won the election with 49.46 percent of the vote to Yushchenko's 46.61 percent. But four of the panel's 15 members voted against the final report in a raucous meeting that was broadcast live on Ukrainian television.
In Crawford, about two dozen demonstrators backing liberal opposition candidate Yushchenko were among those gathered outside the restaurant where Bush had lunch with his family.
Bush also addressed Iran's nuclear program.
The administration believes Tehran is attempting to build a nuclear weapon, and while it welcomed this week's commitment to suspend uranium enrichment, it has said it needs "proof" of Iran's intentions.
Friday, Bush said the only solid deal is "one that's verifiable."
"I appreciate the nations of Great Britain, Germany and France, who are working to try to convince Iran to honor their international treaty obligations," he said. "I look forward to talking to the leaders of those countries, if they can get Iran to agree to a deal, to make sure it's verifiable. I know the prime minister of Great Britain wants a verifiable deal, because I've talked to him personally about it."
Asked about a possible delay in Iraqi elections -- a group of 15 political parties called Friday for the elections to be postponed past the planned January 30 date, saying there isn't time to prepare, campaign and create a secure environment -- Bush said, "the Iraqi Elections Commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would hope they'd go forward in January."
The World Trade Organization gave the European Union and six trading nations final clearance Friday to impose multimillion-dollar sanctions against the United States in a dispute over anti-dumping measures. Dumping refers to selling goods below what it cost to produce them.
A law passed in 2000 lets U.S. companies get proceeds from duties Washington levies on foreign products dumped in the United States, according to The Associated Press. U.S. officials say the law levels the playing field for American companies.
The U.S. steel industry, and pasta and candle makers, have benefited most from the law, the AP reported.
In response to the sanctions, Bush said, "We've worked hard to comply with the WTO. I think it's important that all nations comply with WTO rulings. I'll work with Congress to get into compliance."
But, he said, he believes in standing up for U.S. companies.
"We expect the WTO, as well, to treat our trading partners as they treat us," he said. "That's why, for example, I filed a complaint on the [Europe-based airplane maker] Airbus situation. We believe the subsidies for Airbus are unfair for a U.S. company such as Boeing."
The European consortium has accused Washington of similar favoritism toward Boeing.
On the congressional $388 billion spending bill, Bush said he would like line-item veto power from Congress so he could trim pork-barrel spending or "things ... I don't particularly care for."
In 1996, Congress passed an act giving the president the line-item veto -- the power to reject sections of spending bills -- but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1998.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
