22 October 2001
Transcript: Pentagon Briefing on Afghanistan, Oct. 22
(SecDef Rumsfeld, JCS chair Myers briefed) (6020)
The United States and coalition air forces have in recent days been
seeking out troop concentrations of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said October 22.
Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that the United States
is "happy and eager and willing to do what we can to help seek out and
destroy the Taliban and al-Qaida forces." He said the U.S. is, and has
been, ready to have the anti-Taliban alliance forces move, both north
and south.
Asked whether the air attacks on ground forces were timed to allow the
anti-Taliban opposition to capture the Afghan capital of Kabul before
the onset of winter, Rumsfeld said the reason for the attacks "is to
destroy Taliban and al-Qaida forces."
Also at the briefing, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard
Meyers said air strikes on October 21 focused on eight planned
targets, including Taliban forces deployed and in garrison. About 85
aircraft were used, he said, including about 75 carrier-based planes
and the rest long-range bombers.
On October 20, air strikes included terrorist forces and camps among
six planned targets, Myers said. About 90 strike aircraft were used,
including about 85 tactical jets, primarily carrier-based. The rest
were long-range bombers, he said.
Asked what the U.S. policy would be regarding military actions during
the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, Rumsfeld said he recognized the
sensitivities of some participating governments. He added that dealing
with terrorists sooner is likely to result in fewer terrorist attacks,
and that "history is replete with instances where Muslim nations have
fought ... among themselves or with other countries during various
important holy days for their religion and it [has] not inhibited them
historically."
Humanitarian daily rations continued to be airdropped, said Myers;
52,000 were dropped on October 20, and an unannounced number October
21. The total to date is about 700,000 daily food packages, he said.
Following is a transcript of the briefing:
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
October 22, 2001
(Also participating: Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Slides and videos shown in this briefing are on the
Web at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/g011022-D-6570C.html)
Rumsfeld: Good afternoon.
At Whiteman Air Force Base on Friday, a number of you will recall that
I was asked repeatedly about newspaper reports that had appeared that
morning concerning U.S. Special Forces inside of Afghanistan --
reports that appeared, obviously, as the result of someone in the
Pentagon leaking classified information. When I was asked those
questions, the U.S. Rangers were still in Afghanistan, which of course
I knew. I knew that they had not cleared Afghan airspace or returned.
As a result, I refused to respond to the questions.
The fact that some members of the press knew enough about those
operations to ask the questions and to print the stories was clearly
because someone in the Pentagon had provided them that information.
And clearly, it put at risk the individuals involved in the operation.
I recognize the need to provide the press -- and, through you, the
American people -- with information to the fullest extent possible. In
our democracy, the work of the Pentagon press corps is important,
defending our freedom and way of life is what this conflict is about,
and that certainly includes freedom of the press. And you can be
certain that I will answer your questions directly when I can and that
we'll do our best to give you as much information as we can safely
provide.
This weekend, for example, we released footage of those Special Forces
operations -- the first time, to my knowledge, that such footage has
been provided. But we cannot and will not provide information that
could jeopardize the success of our efforts to root out and liquidate
the terrorist networks that threaten our people. To the extent that
the Taliban and the al Qaeda know the goals and the purposes of our
operations, they will be in a better position to frustrate those goals
and those purposes. It is not in our country's interest to let them
know when, how, or even why we're conducting certain operations.
The Americans who conduct those operations are a tough and proud
bunch. Their cause is a just one. It's to stop terrorists from killing
Americans and others. They are dedicated to that cause, and they are
ready, at a moment's notice, to risk their lives for it.
And they are not a force that's sent out against their will. They're
an all-volunteer force of patriotic Americans whose fellow citizens,
men and women and children, have been attacked by terrorists.
And my heart goes out to the families and friends of the two members
of the helicopter crew who were killed in the helicopter accident and
crash in Pakistan.
Needless to say, I'm proud of those brave Americans, and I know that
the American people share in that pride.
I noticed that the press is now reporting on the meetings that Torie
Clarke and I have had with members of the Pentagon press corps and
with some of their bureau chiefs. I have in those meetings indicated
my support for the principles of how the Pentagon and the press can
deal with each other during a period of conflict. I've also agreed, as
some may have read, to have daily press briefings here, five days a
week. Some will have more substance than others, I suspect. It's not
clear to me that it's necessary or even desirable, but I've acquiesced
in that, and we will be available.
We certainly want to work out ways to work with the press that makes
the most sense from all of our standpoints. Because the nature of this
conflict is so different from previous ones, I suspect that old models
won't work and that what we'll have to do is to work together and find
ways that do make sense as we go forward, because of the notable
differences between this conflict and previous conflicts.
General Myers?
Myers: Just quickly, operations are ongoing in our campaign against
terrorism and are proceeding according to our plan.
I'll give you a synopsis of our weekend activity. On Saturday, U.S.
forces struck in six planned target areas that included airfields and
air defenses, command and control facilities, and terrorist forces and
camps. We used a total of about 90 strike aircraft, with about 85 of
them tactical jets, primarily off our carriers. The remainder were
long-range bombers.
We continued our humanitarian airdrop mission Saturday, with four
C-17s delivering approximately 52,000 rations.
On Sunday we struck in eight planned target areas that included
airfields, command and control facilities, and Taliban forces deployed
and in garrisons. We used, again, about 85 strike aircraft on Sunday,
with about 75 tactical aircraft, principally from carriers, and the
balance long-range bombers.
We flew additional airdrop missions on Sunday, with four more C- 17s,
and that brings our total of rations delivered to date to about
700,000.
We dropped leaflets on Saturday in three locations in northeastern
Afghanistan and on Sunday in three more in the North, South, and West.
We also flew our Commando Solo radio broadcast missions, in
conjunction with the Saturday and Sunday operations.
We've got some videotape for you now, and I'll show you a couple of
clips which depict air operations from the weekend. All are similar in
that they depict strikes on Taliban armored forces. These clips are
pretty representative of a great deal of the strikes in the past two
days, as our operations involved a greater emphasis on fielded Taliban
forces, rather than fixed structures. These should speed by pretty
quickly.
The first is from yesterday. It's a hit on a Taliban tank set up in
the defensive position and trying to find cover in a wadi in western
Afghanistan, near Herat.
The second clip from Saturday shows a hit on a Taliban armored vehicle
set up at a security outpost in the Kandahar military training
facility and deployment area.
Finally, also from Saturday, here's a hit on an armored vehicle
positioned in a revetment in the southern plains of Afghanistan near
Kandahar.
Once again, I'd like to say, you are seeing visible military
operations that are focused on Afghanistan. But this is a war against
global terrorism, and you are seeing a very visible element of the
military, yet other things are being done by other elements of our
government. And I'm not going to go into those specific elements
again, but things are going on besides what you see here on these
videotapes, plus we're getting great contributions from allies and
friends in a variety of ways that we're very happy about.
We're now ready to take your questions.
Rumsfeld: Charlie?
Q: Mr. Secretary, have you found out anything on how you respond to
the charges from the Taliban that U.S. jets bombed a hospital near
Herat, killing perhaps more than a hundred people? And adding to that,
are U.S. forces now directly -- directly -- attacking Taliban forces
protecting both Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif?
Rumsfeld: The Taliban have said they have shot down at least two
helicopters, which is false. They have not. They have indicated that
they have captured some Americans, which is false. They have not. And
we have absolutely no evidence at all that would suggest that that
allegation that you cited is correct.
Q: (Off mike.)
Rumsfeld: I'm sure it's not. But I don't have the kind of information
that I do on the other situations.
Q: And on the attacks on the Taliban forces protecting --
Rumsfeld: It's true. The United States has been engaged in various air
activities that have addressed Taliban and al Qaeda forces for the
most part in the North, some north of Kabul, and some north -- en
route to, yes, Mazar-e Sharif.
Myers: On the hospital, Charlie, we are -- as the secretary said,
we're not quite as certain about that yet, so we're going to continue
to look. The last thing we want to do is cause any civilian
casualties. So we're still looking. We don't have the evidence yet.
We'll spend some time to figure out what the ground truth is, if we
can do that.
Q: General --
Rumsfeld: The other thing you should say is when you see these
constant reports in the press and the television that the United
States and coalition forces are bombing Kabul or bombing Kandahar, 99
percent of the time it's just not true. Most of the effort is outside
of those cities, and to the extent it is inside the city, it is on a
military target that has been carefully selected.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Q: General Myers, from a military-strategy point of view, what is the
significance of the timing of moving now toward the Taliban fielded
forces in those two areas?
Myers: Let me say first -- I'll talk about the timing in just a
minute. But in a general way: This is not a linear war; this is not a
sequential war. To think about this in terms of phases, as we have
other conflicts -- we've just got to clear our minds of that. We are
fighting an enemy that uses asymmetric means, so we're going to use
all means available to us -- some asymmetric, some very conventional.
You saw that today on the clips.
We have a notion of things we would like to happen, but it's not in
the sequential sense or this linear sense that our brains tend to work
in. We've been working this very hard, ourselves, to accommodate our
thinking so we can be agile, more flexible in our responses. This is
tough work, but don't think about it in terms of phasing -- in "once
we're done with the bombing campaign, now it's the ground campaign" --
that is not how this is going to go.
So, in that regard, it's just simply as we said: Now we're starting to
work on some Taliban targets that are arrayed out in the field against
folks that we would like to help. And that's what we're about.
Rumsfeld: Yeah.
Q: Mr. Secretary, two questions, but I know by your proviso, I'll pull
a Jamie McIntyre: one for you and one for General Myers, if I may.
You came down a couple of weeks ago and you were rather incensed about
classified information -- leaks of classified information, and you
sort of threw down the gauntlet in this building, saying that people
would be sought out and punished. Are you now trying to find out who
leaked the information as to Friday's raids?
And to General Myers: Even though you're not going to tell us
specifically, you did give us a pretty good rundown on the Friday
raids. Are commando-type raids ongoing, as we speak, in Afghanistan?
Secretary, the leaks?
Rumsfeld: As a matter of fact, I am too busy, then, to run around
trying to find who did that. I don't know if anyone is, to be
perfectly honest. I'd certainly hope that the people who were
parachuting in don't find the person.
Myers: In terms of ongoing -- perhaps ongoing ground action, we simply
can't talk about that right now. Like we said Saturday: Some things
are going to be visible, some invisible.
And I'm not going to get into the details.
Q: Well, a follow-up: One could assume it would be more than just the
Friday, is that correct?
Rumsfeld: That's three. (Laughter.)
Q: A follow-up, sir. I'm allowed a follow-up!
Q: Mr. Secretary, do you believe that the recent anthrax mailings are
the work of al Qaeda, and do you have any idea what the source of this
anthrax might be?
Rumsfeld: I don't. And no.
Q: General Myers, can you tell us, please: Have you been able to
analyze any of the material that was recovered by the Rangers in the
weekend action at Kandahar and the complex? Are you able to share any
of that with us at this point?
Myers: It certainly hasn't come to our attention whether we'll be able
to share it or not. It remains to be seen. Part of it is just the
laborious task of going through and translating it. And translators
are at a premium for all the government agencies today. So it'll take
some time.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Q: General, I wanted you to take another crack at this tragedy
question. You tried, using terms like "linear" and "not sequential or
linear." In layman's language, could you give a sense how the strategy
unfolding over the last two weeks is different than, say, going to the
Gulf War or NATO's attacks against the Serbs in '99?
Myers: Well, I think the Gulf War is a perfect example, where we tried
to set conditions with the air war, and then we had a ground component
that went in and finished the job. You shouldn't think of this in
those terms.
What we talk about right now, for the most part, is a very
conventional piece of this problem. It's much broader than that. It
includes -- we've talked about this -- it includes almost every agency
and department in this government, and we're all interconnected in
ways that we probably haven't been. The closest analogy would be the
drug war. But things aren't going to happen in a linear sense.
Q: I'm talking military, though, not with Treasury or Justice --
Myers: Well, I know you're talking military, Tony, but that's the
whole point: This is a different kind of conflict. This is asymmetric
warfare. We have to use all the instruments of national power. The
president has been pretty clear on this. The secretary has talked
about it at length. And that's what we're talking about here. Much,
much different.
Q: General Myers --
Q: General, could you --
Rumsfeld: Wait a second. Yes.
Q: Is the reason for the attacks on the front lines to help the
opposition take Kabul before the winter?
Rumsfeld: The reason for the air attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda
forces is to destroy Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
It happens that they are arrayed against, for the most part, Northern
Alliance forces north of Kabul and in the northwest portion of the
country. And our efforts from the air clearly are to assist those
forces on the ground in being able to occupy more ground.
Q: Mr. Secretary, what is the rationale for not explaining where the
operation forces attacked the airfield over the weekend? Inasmuch as
the bad guys know what was attacked and there's no big surprise to
them, why not reveal to the American people where this operation took
place?
Rumsfeld: We probably could.
(Pause.)
Q: Would you? Where did they take place?
Rumsfeld: I'm trying to think if there -- what was the logic. (To
General Myers) You had the press briefing.
Myers: Yes, and we said it was about 60 miles southwest of Kandahar.
And it's a --
Q: But you refused to name the airfield, which made no sense to us. I
was just wondering what the rationale was.
Myers: If I'd have known the name of the airfield at the time, I would
have named it. This is not one that is on most -- this is not one that
is in a letdown plate for --
Q: Dry lakes airstrip?
Myers: It's a relatively unimproved airstrip.
Q: That's dry lakes airstrip, then -- (inaudible) -- right?
Myers: I'll check it. [Bibi Tera, about 80 miles from Kabul]
Q: Secretary Rumsfeld, you seem to be suggesting that the news-media
reporting on Friday somehow jeopardized or put in jeopardy the lives
of U.S. troops. Rumsfeld: It did not. They all returned safely.
Q: And I was going to say, if that was the case, I was wondering what
in particular you thought jeopardized the mission.
Rumsfeld: No, no. I just think that the idea of someone in this
building providing information to the public and to the al Qaeda and
to the Taliban when U.S. Special Forces re engaged in an operation is
not a good idea, besides being against -- a violation of federal
criminal law.
Q: Well, which information reported on Friday prior to the operation
do you think crossed the line?
Rumsfeld: I think --
Q: (Inaudible) -- question.
Rumsfeld: I think that the release by a person in the government who
had access to classified information to the effect that the United
States of America was planning and was about to engage in a special
operation in Afghanistan clearly was (a) a violation of federal
criminal law, and second, it was something that was totally in
disregard for the lives of the people involved in that operation.
Anyone who decides that it's -- for whatever reason, maybe they want
to seem important, maybe they want to seem knowledgeable, they totally
disregard the fact that people's lives could be put in jeopardy by
giving notice to the al Qaeda and the Taliban that U.S. forces were
planning to make an entry into their country. That does not seem
complicated to me, and it seems so self-evident, that it just floors
me that people are willing to do that.
Yes?
Q: Mr. Secretary, you, in your opening remarks, pointed out that there
was video coverage of this operation for the first time -- a special
operations
--
Rumsfeld: I think so.
Staff: Yes, sir.
Q: But this was video coverage and selection of material that was
controlled absolutely by the military and the government. Could you
talk about why that's preferable, in your opinion, to having these
decisions made by media independent of government?
Rumsfeld: Well, in the normal conflict you have a front and you have
media embedded in the U.S. troops. In the case of the special
operation, where people parachute in to a hostile environment, it
obviously is not some place that the press is going to be parachuting
in with a very small -- relatively small number of American Rangers
and special forces doing that.
Q: Why is that?
Rumsfeld: Because -- why is it that the press should not be
parachuting in?
Q: As opposed to a military photographer, who is still necessarily --
is still a cameraman with camera equipment.
Rumsfeld: Well, it seems -- I'm amazed at the question. I would think
that the world would fully understand that it does not make sense,
when a handful of American soldiers are parachuting into a hostile
place and are going to be fully occupied in dealing with the
opposition forces and shooting them, to the extent it's necessary,
collecting intelligence, photographing things so that they know what's
going on, and then being extracted -- the idea of embedding a press
pool into that group seems to me to be outside of the realm of
reasonableness.
Q: But, then again, Mr. Secretary, you can put reporters on the Kitty
Hawk, let's say, couldn't you?
Rumsfeld: That's true.
Q: Will that happen?
Rumsfeld: It might. And it is possible at some point we could do that.
We just have not thus far because of the discussions we've had with
the people involved, and they felt that it would not be appropriate at
this time. And it may very well become appropriate at some other time.
Q: Can you say why it would not be appropriate?
Rumsfeld: Yes?
Q: Mr. Secretary, you had -- actually, I have to ask two questions,
because Jamie touched on one. What would you say if people in the
White House were leaking this, number one? And number two, also could
you clarify, over the weekend, Secretary of State Powell seemed to
indicate that the military would prefer stopping its action before the
winter sets on. Can you clarify that?
Rumsfeld: Sure. We're back at two questions for everybody. It would
sure be easier if we did one, we could get a lot more people in.
I couldn't care less where the source of the leak is; the
responsibility is the same. It puts people's lives at risk and it's
just terrible.
It is terrible. And I just can't imagine people being that
irresponsible that they're willing to do that.
With respect to Secretary Powell's remarks, I've not read them all. I
haven't seen a transcript. I've read a few press reports. Clearly,
there's been a lot of talk of the weather. It makes things somewhat
more difficult in the northern part of the country.
But there's no timetables on this. The task is clear. We're going to
root out al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership and the Taliban
government, and that's just a part of the effort that will be
conducted worldwide.
Yes?
Q: Did you -- did your guys come out with more people than they went
in with on this? Did you bring someone out?
Rumsfeld: You know, here -- let me explain the problem here. The short
answer is no, we did not take any prisoners or bring out any detainees
for interrogation.
Q: Or defectors, volunteers, people who wanted to come out?
Rumsfeld: The answer is no.
Now I don't know that answering it that way makes a lot of sense, and
let me tell you why. They may not know whether we did or not. In war,
things are confused, and they may not know. And so it may have been
better for me
-- and I thought about this before I came down here and decided to
answer it just the way I have -- but in the future, I'm not going to.
(Chuckles.)
Our goal is not to demystify things for the other side. This is a very
complicated set of problems. The goal is to confuse, it is make more
difficult, it is to add cost, it is to frighten, and it is to defeat
the Taliban and the al Qaeda.
And I answered it honestly because it just struck me it would be a
useful example. But in the future I'm not going to answer it.
Q: Well, can I just ask you something, then?
Rumsfeld: Mm-hmm.
Q: I mean, I do understand what you're saying, but as members of the
news media, with great respect, how do we evaluate your credibility
when you are answering us? Can you say to us, "I'm simply not going to
answer," or are you opening the door, with great respect, to the
possibility of less than truthful answers?
Rumsfeld: No, absolutely not. I've already announced that from this
podium. You will receive only honest, direct answers from me, and
they'll either be that I know and I'll answer you, or I don't know, or
I know and I won't answer you. And that'll be it.
Yes?
Q: Can you give us any --
Q: Mr. Secretary, could you go back to the civilian casualties
question again? You probably know that al Jazeera television has the
last 24 hours been presenting pictures of children all bandaged, and
old people, and so forth. They're claiming they came as a result --
Rumsfeld: There's nothing we can add to that at the moment. I mean,
the general's answered it to the best of his ability, and I've
answered to the best of my ability.
Q: If you could go back on al Jazeera, what would you say about that?
Rumsfeld: Well, we have seen repeatedly things that are not true put
out by the Taliban. We have seen them escort people to things they
wanted seen, and we have seen the things they wanted seen, and the
lies they have been putting forward, carried across the globe on
television and in the press.
Now, what can one do about that? All one can do is to answer directly
when we know for a fact it's true and say so; when we know for a fact
it's not true, we'll say so; and when we don't know, we'll say so. And
that's what we just did. We have no evidence that that's the case at
the present time.
Q: Mr. Secretary, you said on Friday that there was some coordination
between U.S. troops and the rebels in the north on the ground; in
fact, the U.S. was --
Rumsfeld: That's true.
Q: -- providing direct assistance. But you said it was less so in the
south.
Rumsfeld: That's true, also.
Q: Has that changed at all over the weekend? Is there any greater
coordination now than there was on Friday?
Rumsfeld: Not from the standpoint of air-ground coordination, to my
knowledge.
Yes?
Q: Can we return to the Northern Alliance and your sense of timing,
which I
-- it baffles me that you are now hitting certain troops that they've
been begging you to hit for several weeks, and you seem to be
indicating there is no sense that you are now ready to have them
advance. Is the United States now ready to have the Northern Alliance
advance toward Kabul because you are taking down these front-line
troops?
Rumsfeld: Well, first, let me parse that question a little bit.
Q: It's just one question.
Rumsfeld: The impression that you have left by the question is that
it's true that they have been begging us for weeks -- several weeks,
to be precise, I think -- to hit the troops in front of them. That, to
my knowledge, is not true.
First of all, there is no "they" in singular. The Northern Alliance is
a group of separate elements that have somewhat consistent interests,
but, on the other hand, they also have competing and conflicting
interests. And they do not always agree with each other as to what
should be done.
You will find that throughout this effort, you will be hearing, I
suppose via cell phone, from people who are talking to people on the
ground in the various factions that comprise the Northern Alliance, as
well as in the south. And people will be saying things that they
believe will advantage them -- not only vis-a-vis Taliban and al
Qaeda, but also vis-a-vis some of their fellow Northern Alliance
forces or factions, if you will.
The United States and the coalition forces have, for a period of days,
been seeking out concentrations of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. We
have had uneven success. To the extent we have excellent ground-to-air
coordination, the success improves. To the extent that some of the
forces move forward against Taliban and al Qaeda forces, our success
improves because it flushes them.
I have heard the same stories you have. But the correct answer is the
one I've just given. We are happy and eager and willing to do what we
can to help seek out and destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
Q: Can either of you --
Q: Mr. Secretary --
Rumsfeld: Excuse me. Excuse me. He asked another piece of the
question, which I believe was: Are we now ready to allow the forces to
move? We have been ready and we certainly are ready to have the
alliance forces move, both north and south.
Q: And that is an indication that some of the other political pieces
of the puzzle, which I understand are not your problem on the one
hand, but are your problem --
Rumsfeld: Sure.
Q: -- because we're part of the same -- you are part of the same
government
-- those pieces are beginning to fall into place?
Rumsfeld: The pieces are being worked on, but I think it would
premature to say they're falling into place. There are a lot of people
who are working on them. The reality is that we believe very strongly
that the threat to the world has not disappeared, and that the sooner
the al Qaeda and Taliban forces are dealt with, the sooner the threat
will begin to moderate. And therefore, we're not holding back at all.
Q: Can either of you --
Q: Is there -- Rumsfeld: And to the extent the other pieces have not
quite fallen into place, we'll keep working on those.
Q: Can either one of you offer an explanation for the television
pictures we've seen that appear to show landing gear or some other
part from a U.S. helicopter? Have you got any idea what that is we're
seeing?
Rumsfeld: No.
Myers: No, not at all.
Q: General, could you talk about --
Q: The leader of Pakistan, Mr. Musharraf, has asked that the bombing
stop when Ramadan begins in a couple of weeks. What's your reaction to
that? Is there anything you can say from this podium to assure him or
other allies, Muslim allies in the region, who have similar concerns?
Rumsfeld: I would say two things. First, that we have great respect
for the views and concerns of the many countries that are cooperating
in this effort. And as I have said on a number of occasions, the
sensitivities and the perspectives vary from country to country.
We also have to recognize two other things. One is that there continue
to be terrorist threats in this world, and the sooner we deal with
this problem, the less likely it is that you're going to have
additional terrorist attacks. And third, history is replete with
instances where Muslim nations have fought with -- among themselves or
with other countries during various important holy days for their
religion and it has not inhibited them historically.
Q: General, last week there was a lot of focus toward the end of the
week on the situation around Mazar-e Sharif. You've talked -- you and
the secretary have talked about U.S. air strikes in the North. And yet
the Northern Alliance doesn't seem to have been able to take advantage
of the air strikes around Mazar-e Sharif to move closer to the town.
Could you talk about the situation there and why, if there have been
the American air strikes there, the Northern Alliance hasn't been able
to make progress?
Myers: Well, I think our view is that -- and I'll piggyback off what
the secretary said about that overall situation in the North with the
Northern Alliance, that this is a confederation of various groupings.
We think they're outnumbered, for one reason. So that impacts how fast
they can move. And I would say that's probably the biggest factor. But
I would also just piggyback again on what the secretary said. I think
that that's starting to come to a head and we may see some progress in
that area here in the not-too-distant future.
Q: Along those same lines, the Northern Alliance is saying they're
seeing the Taliban reinforced their front-line forces. Have you seen
any evidence of reinforcements?
Myers: Let me just say this about that. Part of what we did with some
of the air strikes earlier was to try to set the conditions for what
was going to come next. When we took out most of their transport
aircraft, and certainly not all of their helicopters, but we took out
a large portion, they are unable to reinforce -- the Taliban, that is
-- they are unable to reinforce as they had planned on it. So that
hurts them. We think they are trying to reinforce. They're also trying
to bring back wounded. They have to --
Q: Reinforce where?
Did you say --
Myers: Well, in the North, and they're trying to do that with
vehicles, and they're trying to get wounded out of the North. So
studying these conditions, as we have done, I think, are having some
affect. How much effect we're going to have to wait and --
Q: So reinforcements both in Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul, can you say, or
--
Myers: I can't say both. I know -- what I'm referring to is -- the
parts we're picking up is in the North.
Rumsfeld: We'll make this the last question.
Q: Sir, if I could return to what we were discussing earlier --
Rumsfeld: You bet.
Q: -- without in any way impugning your promise that you're not going
to not tell the truth to us, do you worry, however, that by
withholding so much information and by withholding so much access,
that may undermine the credibility, ultimately, of the United States
government's story of what's going on?
Rumsfeld: First of all, we're not withholding so much information. I
am admittedly withholding some information that I think would put
American lives at risk, or would jeopardize the effort we're engaged
in. But in terms of saying it's a lot, it isn't. The press in this --
this is a very open society, and the press knows, you know, almost as
much as exists and almost as soon as it exists. And the idea that
there is some great iceberg down there that's not known, below water,
it's just not surprising that people would imagine that, since they
know, by our own testimony, that there are things they do not know,
and therefore they imagine the worst or the biggest or the most. But
it's just not true. The press does know the overwhelming portion.
And you will find that we will be uniformly honest from this podium --
not just Rumsfeld, but Myers and everyone else that we send down here,
to the best of our knowledge.
And to the extent we make a mistake, we'll come down the next day and
clean it up.
But clearly, we do not want to undermine the effort, and it strikes me
that how the press handles this new conflict will also contribute to
the success of it.
Q: Do you have time for one policy question?
Rumsfeld: I don't. (Laughter.) I really don't.
(Laughter, cross talk.)
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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