01 November 2001
Transcript: Pentagon Spokesman's Briefing, October 31, 2001
(Daily operational update on the war in Afghanistan) (3620)
Acting Pentagon Spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem briefed.
Following is the Pentagon transcript:
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense
NEWS TRANSCRIPT
Presenter: Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, Joint Staff
October 31, 2001
Enduring Freedom Operational Update
Stufflebeem: Well, good afternoon.
Yesterday we continued operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The focus of the operational efforts included targets involving
terrorists in Taliban command and control locations, including bunkers
and tunnels, as well as airfield facilities and Taliban military
forces that support the opposition forces. Did I say that right?
And our efforts involve strikes in 20 planned target areas, as well as
against targets in several engagement zones. We used about 70 strike
aircraft, of which about 55 are carrier-based tactical jets, between
four to six were land-based tactical jets, and between five and seven
long-range bombers. We dropped leaflets in the North and West and
continued our Commando Solo broadcast missions.
I should mention that the number of planes that I've been providing to
you is really just a portion of the actual number of planes that have
been flying in support of the operation. We have other aircraft that
fly intelligence missions, as well as tankers and support aircraft.
Last night we achieved a major milestone with our humanitarian daily
rations airdrops. Two C-17s delivered more than 34,000 HDRs, which
brought the total number of HDRs to more than 1 million. To recap our
humanitarian effort to date, we've flown 61 aircraft sorties -- that's
accounted for over 400,000 air miles. By somebody's math, that's 16
circumnavigations of the globe.
I have one set of images for you today. The image depicts our
continuing efforts to wipe out the al Qaeda network. This is in a
location called the Tarnak Farms, located near Kandahar. It's one of
the major al Qaeda training camps funded by Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda
used to use this facility to train terrorist and small-unit combat
operations. As you can see from the second image, much of the facility
has been damaged or destroyed. This has been over the course of the
last couple of weeks.
Today we also have -
Q: (Off mike.)
Stufflebeem: I'm sorry?
Q: Where is that located?
Stufflebeem: Near Kandahar.
(We) also have three videos for you today. All three are from F-14 and
F-18 aircraft in operations conducted over the last two days.
The first one is from near Mazar-e Sharif. It shows a strike on a
group of dispersed armored vehicles of the Taliban military outside of
Mazar-e Sharif. These vehicles are dispersed along a ridge line --
were dispersed along a ridge line facing the opposition, the Northern
Alliance. And as you can see, the vehicles were destroyed.
The next ones are both near Kandahar. They're strikes in engagement
zones on armored vehicles of the Taliban military forces south of
Kandahar. Both videos show direct hits on the armored vehicles
attempting to find cover in a series of revetments. And as you can
see, these vehicles will be destroyed.
And with that, I'll take your questions.
Q: Admiral, of all the strikes south of Mazar-e Sharif -- the
airstrikes on the Taliban positions, have they all involved
precision-guided weapons? Or have the B-52s started to drop strings of
500-pound unguided bombs -- colloquially "carpet bombing" -- now that
you have better information on where these divisions are.
Stufflebeem: I'm not sure if it's -- if it's necessary to get into
specific mission by mission, but it is -- it is fair to say that we're
using both precision and non-precision weapons while attacking Taliban
forces -- you know, while they're deployed.
Q: Could use deterrent carpet bombing and the strings of the unguided
bombs against those positions around Mazar-e Sharif?
Stufflebeem: I'm familiar with the term "carpet bombing." I think it's
an inaccurate term. It's an old -- an old expression. Heavy bombers
have the capacity to carry large loads of weapons, and oftentimes if a
target presents itself either in an engagement zone, or when directed,
it's possible to release an entire load of bombs at once, in which
case -- the real formal term for that is called a "long stick," which
has also been called carpet bombing.
Q: Are you doing that south of Mazar-e Sharif?
Stufflebeem: We -- that is part of our campaign. It is part of our
capability, and we'll -- we do use it and have used it, and we'll use
it when we need to.
Q: Admiral, first of all, a procedural question: Why do you continue
to brief four to six land based, and five to seven bombers? I mean,
what's the difference between four, five or six, or five, six and
seven? Why can't you be explicit?
And the other thing is, with the special forces on the ground the
secretary talked about yesterday in modest numbers, can you identify
those? Are they Green Berets for the most part? And are the FACs Air
Force FACs?
Stufflebeem: To your first question: The point of making them an
inaccurate number is really for that purpose. It's just hard for us to
understand the specifics of knowing exactly what number of aircraft
participated. And I'll give you an example of why we don't think
that's necessarily important. When an air wing is fragged onto the
mission to fly from an aircraft carrier, for instance, they would
intend to launch a number of sorties. As the aircraft get airborne,
they may have system malfunctions and decide that that aircraft should
not go "over the beach," as we term it, and go to a target. So with an
intent of what number of aircraft you may want to use to hit targets,
as opposed to what number of aircraft actually participated, it's a
variable.
So it gives you the range of about the level of effort, and that's
kind of what we're trying to portray here is what the level of effort
is rather than just the specifics.
To your second question, I do not want to characterize what service or
specialty of those liaison forces on the ground. There may be a time
that it's appropriate, but for the time being now, they are U.S.
forces.
Q: One follow-up? The secretary talked about air-dropping ammo, and he
implied that weapons would soon be air-dropped, if not already are
supplied. Are you dropping new weapons, and are you training the
Northern Alliance in the use of these weapons that they did not have
before?
Stufflebeem: I don't have any reports that would tell me that we're
dropping weapons or training them in weapons. I believe what we're
providing is what they have asked for, and what I have seen that
they've asked for are supplies, to include ammunition.
Q: Admiral? May I follow up a little bit on Charlie's question?
Witnesses in Afghanistan are saying that this is the heaviest bombing
that they've seen of the troops' positions. Is it fair to say in the
last 48 hours, B-52s have flown in and are using a larger number of
anti-personnel weapons against them? Or can you characterize it at all
in terms of now picking it up since you now have the U.S. liaison
forces directing it?
Stufflebeem: I won't go into specifics. What I will say is all of our
capability, which includes long-range, heavy bombers that have the
capacity to carry large loads, as well as tactical aircraft, are all
being utilized and they're all being considered. And we are applying
the strikes and the power, if you will, against good targets, against
known targets. If the targets are large or wide-spread, then it would
seem logical that we might find large bombers with large loads that
are capable of attacking it just as effectively as a number of smaller
tactical jets. So it's not an implication as much as it is an
application. And if, for instance, there are a number of engagement
zones to man and to look for emerging targets, and therefore aircraft
are apportioned into that, what do you have left that is maximizing
your effectiveness? And so we move them and use them for that reason.
Q: And following up on that, the large targets you were talking about
would presumably be a large group of troops, for instance?
Stufflebeem: Well, so are training camps. That's a large target area.
So are columns of trucks, as they may be trying to resupply. So large
groups of troops are one of those kinds of good targets.
Q: The support aircraft that you mentioned earlier in your statement,
can you give us any idea of how many of those support flights are
going on? What is it -- you know, the bombers and the fighters get all
the glory, so to speak, but what does it take to get 70 strike
aircraft over Afghanistan in any given day?
Stufflebeem: I don't know specific numbers. I know from my
professional background it takes a number of tankers to be able to
refuel all of the aircraft that are going to come from carriers and
from land-based to be able to get in. These are long missions. I've
seen reports that some aircrews are flying missions in durations of 10
to 13 hours. And any aircraft that's going to spend that much time
airborne, either loitering or in distance travel, is going to need
fuel.
So my sense is, is that we have a good number; a good number could be
10 to 12 for an evening event. Again, I'm giving it to you as a
representation, I just don't have specific numbers.
In terms of the other support aircraft -- and I wouldn't necessarily
call them all support aircraft as much as they are supporting the
effort. Every one of them, as you point out, is integral to what we
need them for, including intelligence gathering.
Q: Admiral, could you kindly explain to us how you choose the videos
you show us here every day? Who makes the decision on which video to
disclose to the public, and on what criteria? And what kinds of videos
would you never want to show here? (Laughter.)
Stufflebeem: I honestly don't know. I think Central Command picks the
videos.
(To staff) Do we know?
Staff: They come up here and -- (off mike) -- look at them. But, you
know, we don't see every single camera.
Stufflebeem: We are offered a number of representative video clips
that come back from the Central Command -- obviously not all of them.
I don't think there isn't any that we would want to show you, unless
we just can't find a target that you can identify as a target. If it
just looks like nothing but ground to us, it's really sort of
ineffective and, therefore, it wouldn't serve our purposes to show it.
Q: How many videos are you receiving every day, for instance? How many
videos?
Stufflebeem: I'm sorry, I just -- I don't know. Let us take that
question, and if we can find out, we'll get back to you.
Q: Admiral, what's the rationale for not saying where the B- 52s hit
Tuesday, because we're getting reports from eye-witnesses they hit, I
mean, the bad guys know where you hit. What's the big secret?
Stufflebeem: We're talking in terms of specific weapons or a weapon
system applied against specific targets. It's one thing to have seen
one fly overhead, if you're on the ground, and watch what the result
may be; it's another thing to broadcast an intention of a type of a
target or a type of a tactic, and a specific weapon system or platform
that is optimized against that.
If there is an air defense capability left, we prudently want to avoid
broadcasting what those intentions would be.
Q: That would make sense before the raid, but this is after the bombs
have landed, the raid is all over, people are going and looking at the
damage. I don't quite get your explanation.
Stufflebeem: Well, let me turn it around on you a little bit, then.
What specifically are you asking about in terms of the B- 52?
Q: Is it true that the B-52s bombed extensively north of Kabul, and
they were concentrated on a ridge there to hit Taliban forces near the
road to Kabul? That's what the reports out of Afghanistan say. So
what's the big secret?
Stufflebeem: Well, I'll honestly tell you I don't think there is a big
secret. I also don't specifically know which target the B-52s went
after. I have also seen video images -- I think it was from Al-Jazeera
-- that what would look like to be obviously B-52s may have struck.
The B-52s are being utilized in areas all over the country, including
on Taliban forces in the North.
Q: What we're trying to get here, I think, is a sense of newness or
novelty in terms of the use of the B-52. In the last two or three
days, as part of strategy, have B-52s been concentrated on Taliban
forces in the North more so than they had been in the last month? I
think that's the thrust of the questioning here, the newness value.
Stufflebeem: It's not limited to the B-52. And it's not a newness in
the sense that I perceive your question.
Q: In the last couple days or so, yeah.
Stufflebeem: The Secretary articulated yesterday that we have shifted
the focus of a majority of our strikes to those Taliban forces arrayed
against the Northern Alliance, against opposition forces. And we're
using all the elements of our capability in that. And historically
speaking, that has included B-52s.
I wouldn't want -- it would be incorrect to try to characterize to you
that we've now had a shift in a campaign strategy and therefore it
means that in this case a B-52 is being specifically applied for that
reason. We're using tactical jet aircraft, land-based and
carrier-based, doing the same missions. So we're applying a
concentration of firepower into an area because there are good targets
there, just as we'll use that concentration of firepower on other
targets, like training camps.
Q: Admiral, any sign of the much anticipated Northern Alliance
offensive that we've all been talking about for the last three or four
or five days? Any sign of that?
Stufflebeem: I've not seen any reports that say that in the last 24
hours that there has been a major push.
Q: Admiral, are U.S. forces on the ground assisting Northern Alliance
troops in their insurgency operation in Afghanistan? Their insurgency
operation. Are troops on the ground assistance Northern Alliance
troops in their insurgency operation?
Stufflebeem: We're providing liaison assistance. It is there to help
coordinate for the request that they have asked for. If you're asking
in terms of their military tactics or military objectives, no. They're
there to assist in the air strikes for the benefit of our campaign,
and it happens to be in their location, and to provide them assistance
in getting them the supplies they've requested.
Q: Admiral? At a news conference earlier today at the National Press
Club, Haron Amin, the spokesman for the National Alliance here in
Washington, said that earlier this month, the Alliance had shared
information with the coalition about the whereabouts of Osama bin
Laden and that he specifically had been seen in the province of
Oruzgan, north of Kandahar. I'm wondering, can you confirm this
information? And if you can, what did we do with this information?
Stufflebeem: I cannot confirm that information. I've not heard that.
I've seen many reports over the last numbers of days, I haven't
counted it, of where people attribute Osama bin Laden either was or
may have been, but I've not specifically heard that report.
Q: Was it north -- were those reports north of Kandahar? The reports
that you've seen --
Stufflebeem: They've consistently been --
Q: -- did they put him north of Kandahar?
Stufflebeem: Yeah. Consistently they've been Kabul, Kandahar area.
Q: Admiral? I'd like to ask you a question about the central part of
Afghanistan, the most mountainous part. I'm told that there's a large
number of al Qaeda and Taliban people there, but yet every day when we
see the location of these strikes, they all seem to be outside or
along the -- close to the borders. Is there some reason why the
military is not hitting targets in the central mountains of
Afghanistan?
Stufflebeem: That information that you have is counter to what I
understand. The heavily -- or the severe mountain area of Afghanistan
is so harsh and inhospitable, it doesn't appear to us that it is a
stronghold of either forces, and that most of the forces and certainly
most if not all the fighting is occurring from below. We are going
after where the known targets are. And I don't have any information
that there are concentrations in the high mountains that we would or
could target.
Q: Back to the tunnels and the caves. For about the last 10 days,
you've always included that in what it is the U.S. is striking, yet we
have not seen a single image of one of these being attacked. Is there
a reason why we're not seeing these?
Stufflebeem: They're difficult to see. From a cockpit perspective, a
cave looks like nothing more than a shadow on the ground. If we had a
coordinates for that -- as a pilot speaking, I would have the
coordinates for a particular cave if an individual cave was given to
me as a target. I'll slue my weapons systems cursors over that, and it
may look like just a small black dot.
Q: (Off mike) -- gun camera.
Stufflebeem: Well, a gun camera can be a little bit deceiving. And I
think that you may, as I have, had times looking at the gun camera
imagery, and is that really a tank that I see, or is it some other
kind of a vehicle? I'm not sure. A cave is even more difficult to
discern than that, and therefore it just doesn't make a very good
visual image. If we have some good images -- or, let me put it this
way. All of the best images of caves that I have seen have been still
photography, not video gun cameras.
Q: What about misses, of which there has been a paucity during this
campaign of you giving us anything that approaches a miss? Why?
Stufflebeem: Well, first of all, the misses have been rare. In the
cases of weapons that are not precision-guided, there is not imagery
that supports where those weapons have gone. And thirdly, we're
bringing a representation of the great number of positive hits. It
strikes us that that is considerably reinforcing how our campaign is,
in fact, being executed, not with the negative kind of imagery.
We're got time for two more questions.
Q: We've -- Admiral, we've heard from here that you're not in the
business of body counts. But can you at least give us a general sense
-- we've heard a lot about civilian casualties. We haven't heard a lot
about the Taliban forces. Now, if you have a number of how many forces
you think they had in the beginning, you must have some sense of what
they have now. Can you shed some light on that without getting into
details, how much -- how many of those forces you've struck?
Stufflebeem: I understand your question, but the Taliban is not
broadcasting what their casualties are that I'm aware of. We know they
had between 50,000-60,000 that they considered troops before this
started. I think that because of the lines -- because the lines of
communication that have been cut, their inability to communicate, they
probably don't have a very good idea as well. And if they did have a
good idea, it just may not be readily apparent to us or even to
themselves.
One more question. We'll go back over here.
Q: I just wanted to follow up on the command and control issue you
just mentioned. Is it your sense that their command and control is
basically severed and that now they're down to a bunch of individual
groups, or do they still have some form of centralized control over
the forces, particularly Mazar-e Sharif, from Kabul or Kandahar, or
somewhat like that?
Stufflebeem: I can say that their command and control has been cut,
severely degraded. They're having extreme difficulty communicating one
to another. Mullah Omar is still their leader, their commander. They
are still attempting to be able to communicate with Mullah Omar. They
are also trying to be resupplied and reinforced, and they're having
difficulties in all of that. We believe that that puts a terrific
amount of stress on their military capability as their regional
commanders, who have been used to a lot of top-down control, may not
be getting that now. I don't have firsthand information to
characterize to what degree it's been degraded, but we certainly have
many reports that are indicating that they're under severe stress from
that.
Q: Admiral?
Stufflebeem: I've got to make another conference. Thank you all very
much. Have a good afternoon.
Q: (Off mike) -- can you give us a minimum number of the bombings? (No
response.)
Stufflebeem: See you tomorrow.
(end Pentagon transcript)
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