12 February 2002
Transcript: Defense Department Press Briefing, February 11, 2002
(Afghanistan/Zhawar Kili investigation/reports of threats to
reporter/location/victims/intelligence information, Hazar Qadam
detainees/reports of beatings, CIA/intelligence-sharing with
DoD/operations, Osama bin Laden/unconfirmed reports of death) (9770)
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem
briefed reporters February 11 at the Pentagon.
Following is the Pentagon transcript:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Victoria Clarke ASD (PA)
Monday, February 11, 2002 - 12 p.m. EST
(Also participating was Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem - Joint Staff)
MS. CLARKE: Good afternoon. I'd just like to start with a couple of
things. It has been five months since September 11th, and every once
and a while it's useful to reflect on that fact, and what this is all
about, this war on terrorism that we're engaged in. And I'd like to
read you, very briefly, the bio of one of the employees here at the
Pentagon who was killed on that attack -- in that attack on Sept. 11.
He was Commander Patrick Dunn. He was 39 years old. He worked as a
planner and a strategist at the Navy Command Center at the Pentagon.
The son of a Newark policeman, he came from a Navy family. His father
served in World War II and the Korean War. Commander Dunn and one of
his brothers were U.S. Naval Academy graduates. His wife, Stephanie,
used to wave the Naval Academy flag from the roof of their home in
Italy when the USS LaSalle headed out to sea with her husband, who was
the ship's executive officer. "Pat's favorite thing was to be at sea,"
she recalled. "If the ship was rocking, he was happy." Commander Dunn
was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. We will not forget him. We
will not forget the thousands that were killed on September 11th, and
we will not forget why we're doing what we're doing.
We are joined in this fight with the world at large. Dozens of
countries have engaged in the war on terrorism, and we continue to
have their support. The work of our men and women in uniform has
yielded much success in a short amount of time -- in just five months.
We have eliminated the Taliban role from the government. We have
turned the country of Afghanistan back to the people. The al Qaeda
continues to be on the run, and we have disintegrated some of their
capabilities.
As we've made clear, one of the objectives is to prevent Afghanistan
from being returned or going back to being a haven, a free-ranging
field, if you will, for terrorists. Helping rebuilding Afghanistan
helps to further that goal. And just a few of the efforts thus far
include the delivery of thousands of tons of food, preventing the
feared starvation of six million people in Afghanistan; the opening of
a Jordan Medical Field Hospital in Mazar-e Sharif, that has, since
Jan. 8, alone, treated 10,000 patients and conducted 134 surgeries;
the printing of the Kabul Weekly, independent newspapers banned by
Taliban since 1996. The Kabul Weekly printed its first issue last
month. It endorsed supporting democracy and human rights and it
denounced terrorism. Spanish hospital opened today.
Here at home, we've increased our security measures and information
gathering to prevent future attacks by terrorists. And as I said, a
lot of progress has been made. We have a lot more work to go in the
war on terrorism, but we will endure.
And one of the reasons we have been successful is because of the
incredible people in uniform who do such a great job day in and day
out. One of them, who's standing next to me, is Admiral Stufflebeem.
And before he stands up here, I'd just like to congratulate him on
being assigned to the Harry S. Truman, where he will take command of
the Carrier Group Two, but for the time being we still have him. Sir.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Thank you. I'll try hard not to smile too much.
(Laughter.)
Q: (Off mike.)
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Very
briefly, as you recall, we had military personnel on the ground in the
vicinity of Zhawar Kili recently investigating the site that was
targeted at the beginning of last week. That team has now left the
area. The intent was to exploit any intelligence that could be
gathered as a result of a strike. As of today, I can report that the
team has recovered some documents, some clothing, two missile fins, an
empty box used for a hand-held radio, some AK-47 ammo pouches and some
300 rounds of 50-caliber ammo, and, yes, some human remains.
To give you an update on the detainee situation, we have a total of
463 detainees in U.S. control, 209 in Afghanistan and 220 in
Guantanamo Bay, and we're expecting the arrival of another 34
detainees in Gitmo in a few hours. And that would put the number on
the ground there at 254.
With that I think, Charlie, we'll take your questions.
MS. CLARKE: Charlie?
Q: Admiral, I'd like to ask both you and Torie, is there any
indication that the people who were killed in that CIA missile strike
last week were not senior al Qaeda and might have, in fact, been
innocent people, as reports indicate? And also, there are reports that
people captured in the raid north of Kandahar three weeks ago, 27
people, some of them were beaten. Are you looking into that? And if
that's true, doesn't that just add fuel to charges that you might not
be treating detainees properly?
MS. CLARKE: That's three questions.
Q: Well?
MS. CLARKE: Take Zhawar Kili first?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yeah. We do not know who were the individuals at the
strike site in the vicinity of Zhawar Kili. The reason that we had an
exploitation team in there was to gather the evidence and to,
hopefully, positively identify who it was or who it was not.
I won't get into the intelligence-gathering specifics of that one, but
the indicators were there that there was something that we needed to
make go away.
It'll take some time -- that team has only just left the area early
this morning. So it'll take some time for them to get that material
out, where it can be actually exploited further. So I don't have an
answer for you now as to who the identity was of the individuals who
were killed there.
There are no initial indications that these were innocent locals, and
I base that on the facts that this team, in addition to just looking
at the site where the strike occurred, also did some exploration in
the surrounding area, to include some caves, a nearby village, and
talking to locals. So I think that that sort of puts us in a comfort
zone right now -- is that these were not innocents.
Your second question, now, getting back to the raid previously, Hazar
Qadam, and specifically those 27 detainees, as was reported here, I
believe last week, there is a formal investigation. There is an
officer who has been formally appointed to do that, and he's in the
midst of conducting that investigation, to report it up through the
chain of command, to General Franks and, I believe, ultimately back
here to the secretary.
It is our policy and -- as is in all mishaps or incidents that are
investigated by the military, not to comment on that while it's
ongoing. And certainly while I appreciate the desire and urgency to
get to the ground truth, as -- we all would like to be there -- to --
providing the details as they're being discovered now would just be
premature and may draw wrong conclusions.
In terms of the beatings that had been reported, there is no
information that we have heard that would support that that is in fact
the case.
Now I would tell you, on a personal level, having been through
military training with special operating forces -- and in my case, it
was training where, as a senior officer, I was in a prisoner of war
training environment, and the special operating forces came to get me
out -- it's not a pleasant experience for anybody to have to endure
that. The team gets on the ground and secures the area. If they're
being fired at, they return the fire to suppress it, and then once the
firing has stopped, they secure the area, to try to get as many people
as they can. And in that initial encounter, you don't know who's good,
you don't know who's bad, and you don't take the chances; you just
secure the area. So everybody's treated the same, and it's relatively
harsh, I would say once identities are established, it's quite a
different mode.
But as a training prisoner of war, I was pretty well roughed up, and I
think it was because you can't tell or believe exactly who is who, and
you have got to secure the area and make sure your team is secure and
have positive control of the situation. So I -- that's the only thing
that I can offer to you as reality.
MS. CLARKE: I would just add two things to that. One is, the general
state of confusion. To say that the situation, to say that conditions
in Afghanistan are confusing is an understatement, you know. And it's
impossible to say these people are on this side and these people are
on those side. People are on multiple sides, and they switch sides. So
there is a great deal of confusion about information in general. And
we do always try to get to ground truth.
In this particular instance, to repeat what the admiral says, we have
no evidence that those sort of beatings took place. But the secretary
and General Franks have asked the local -- the land combatant
commander to look into it further, to look into that, because we want
to make absolutely sure things are being done properly. And that's
just a general part of our process. We look into things. If anything
has been done improperly, then we will address it, and we'll take
steps to make sure things are done better going forward.
Q: Torie --
MS. CLARKE: And then the last -- no, I want to address the third part
of his Question, which is about Guantanamo and the treatment of the
detainees there. It has now been several weeks I guess since the first
detainees arrived. There has been an almost constant presence of the
media there. There have been several visits by congressional
delegations. There have been visits by officials from other countries.
The ICRC has been down there. And everyone who's been there and
everyone who's seen with their own eyes knows what we know, which is
these detainees are being treated very, very well.
Q: Torie --
Q: (Inaudible) -- regarding the on-the-ground investigation by
American personnel at Zhawar Kili in the aftermath of that missile
strike. The Washington Post reported today that a reporter at the
scene was threatened to be killed by an American officer. Are officers
actually authorized to threaten the use of deadly force against
reporters under that circumstance?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, I don't know the specifics of what happened
there on -- at the site. I would ask us all to think of a couple of
things though. One is, as American soldiers, and certainly as the
professionals trained in the arms that they are, they're there, first
of all, to secure this area to be able to collect evidence. Well,
evidence is not the right word. To collect intelligence, and in this
case, also some forensics.
To secure that area would be to try to discourage anybody from getting
in there to either disturb it or to collect things of their own. And
that's traditionally done, whether it's here in the United States for
an accident mishap or any place else.
To believe that a U.S. American serviceman would knowingly threaten,
especially with deadly force, another American is hard for me to
accept. I also have to put myself on the ground of that military
commander of that particular exploitation, and if someone presents
himself and -- there's no way for us to know, but he may not know that
that was a Washington Post reporter, he just may know that somebody
wants access into the site and he's denying it. It would make a lot
more logical sense to me that he is pointing out that there are
hazards in this area. This is not a friendly area, this is an area
where we have armed people there for the protection of ourselves in
case we're shot at. I think that there -- if there was any reference
to physical harm in there, it's just the reality of the situation and
not that the U.S. forces would bring that upon someone.
Q: May I do a follow-up on that issue, please? Admiral, we're getting,
obviously, information that is disjointed and sometimes conflicting.
Out of the Senate, after CIA Director Tenet testified, we had heard
that there was a convoy of SUVs that had stopped for some reason, men
in white robes got out; one was well protected, et cetera, et cetera.
Then we hear that this place was about 11,000 feet up on the side of a
mountain. Can you clarify it? First of all, it seems illogical that a
convoy of SUVs would be up a mountainside in Afghanistan 11,000 feet
high. Tell us what you can about the location, the locale. Were these
people in the truck, were they on foot? Whatever you can tell us.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I can't give you very many specific details of the
actual strike site because I just don't have them. What I do know is
that they were individuals who were not in vehicles who were targeted.
This was a meeting -- this meeting happened to be on a hillside --
whether actually it was a mountainside, I'm not so sure. And 11,000
feet is not uncommon for an altitude of the area; it's a very
high-altitude area. You recall that a couple of helos that we've had
have gone done recently in poor weather have all been at this 9,000,
11,000 foot range, and that's pretty much where we're at here. So I'm
not surprised there were not vehicles up there, and in fact, there
were. The vehicles were not actually part of the strike. This strike
occurred away from those.
Q: It was a meeting, you say? What was the meeting about?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, I don't know what the meeting was about, but
--
Q: There was a meeting going on, I mean, outside --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Somebody had obviously driven there. They had gotten
together and were outside the vehicles away from the vehicles and they
were targeted.
Q: What time of day was that, do you all have, that a strike occurred?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I'm sorry, I don't know. I believe, if I recall, it
was a morning daylight strike, but I --
Q: (Off mike.)
MS. CLARKE: All right. Jim?
Q: Admiral, could you at least broadly talk about what the indicators
are that you were referring to earlier when you said that there were
indicators of something important going on here? At least without,
perhaps, getting into specifics, what do you mean by that and what are
some of the broad categories, what are the broad indicators?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, I appreciate the question. It wants to get to
the exactness of the truth, and that also gets into developing
intelligence specifics, so I won't do that. But let me say that the
anecdotal reports of what I hear of what has been recovered from that
site to date include things like weapons and ammunition, include
things like communications systems or at least things that would give
you the impression that there may have been communication devices,
documents in English, having to do, with applications for credit
cards, possibly, or maybe for airline schedules. So the intelligence
that was garnered to be able to facilitate the strike, the initial
indications afterwards would seem to say that these are not peasant
people up there farming.
Q: But is it fair to say that these people had been observed or been
watched by American surveillance aircraft for some time, or had the
CIA been looking at these folks for more than the few minutes before
the attack?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: It's my understanding this was not a surprise,
chance encounter visually.
Q: Do you know how many people were there?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I do not know.
Q: Victoria, may I follow, please?
MS. CLARKE: (Inaudible) -- a hand, somebody --
Q: Yes, thanks. Where's the evidence being taken to be looked at?
There was some talk earlier that you had DNA samples from bin Laden's
family that could be compared against that?
MS. CLARKE: The evidence gets brought back to the continental United
States. Don't know where.
Q: (Off mike) -- FBI lab or to a military lab?
MS. CLARKE: I don't know. (To Adm. Stufflebeem) Do you?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I actually don't know either.
Q: Would the United States be able to identify bin Laden's remains
from DNA?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I can't verify for you now the repository or -- I
can't even verify that we have bin Laden DNA to compare it to at this
point. But I can -- I can substantiate that we are trying to gather
DNA for identification purposes.
Q: A couple of other --
Q: From his family? Is that what you're saying?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, right now I'm just going to limit it to just
the strike site. We're going to get forensic evidence out of this
particular strike site. Where -- you know, we photograph, we
videotape, and where possible we bring back physical samples, and this
all gets catalogued.
To say that we have a bin Laden DNA now and can us it to compare with,
I can't say, because I don't know that. But you've got to have
evidence to be able to catalogue it, and then as you build more
evidence and get more evidence, you can start to compare things one to
another and rule things out, as well as confirm them.
Q: When can we expect the Pentagon to release either the photographs
or the videotape of this site and some of the evidence that was
gathered?
MS. CLARKE: I don't know.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I don't know either. That --
Q: May we make that as a request?
MS. CLARKE: You can certainly make that as a request.
Q: Do you have strike imagery?
Q: Admiral --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yeah.
Q: I'm curious. You said you don't know who was killed in this attack,
whether it was civilians, Taliban, or --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I'm sorry.
MS. CLARKE: We don't know exactly who it was.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: We don't know the identities of the individuals
involved.
Q: But you're convinced they're Taliban?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: We're convinced that --
MS. CLARKE: We're convinced it was an appropriate target, based on the
observation, based on the information that it was an appropriate
target. We do not know yet exactly who it was.
Q: And I'm curious. In this uncertainty, why would you attack this
with a missile, as opposed to going in with a Special Forces team,
perhaps surrounding the area, and trying to find out who was who,
rather sending the missile? Wouldn't that be a more proper way to do
this, perhaps?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, if you -- in fact you have a quick reaction
force that is on standby, in close proximity, and where vehicles have
stopped and congregated, and people have gotten out and are having a
meeting, if you have a team that's ready to pounce, maybe so.
If because of the location of where it is and because of the type of a
system that you're using to monitor these areas, you don't have that,
and you have the information that would lead you to believe that this
-- the time to be able take advantage of this would be now, rather
than lose it -- I think this was probably the best weapon that was
available at the time in the location.
Q: Were you afraid these people were going to get away? I mean, you
had them under surveillance. Why wouldn't you just instead go in and
make sure you know who's who? It could be scrap deals, it could be
Taliban, it could be civilians.
MS. CLARKE: I'd say, again, based on the information they had and the
observations, they believed it was an appropriate target. And again,
we're somewhat at a disadvantage here, since it was not DoD per se.
But they thought it was an appropriate target, and they used what they
had at the time.
Q: Admiral, when you mentioned the English documents, and you said --
I believe you said airline schedules and possible credit card
applications -- were you using that as a possible example, or were
papers -- were those papers found there -- English papers, airline
schedules, and credit card applications? Were those --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Those are representative examples of what was
recovered from the site.
MS. CLARKE: Mm-hm. (Inaudible) -- back there.
Q: Going back to the attack in Afghanistan, on the one hand, reports
are saying that Osama bin Laden may have been killed. On the other
hand, secretary had said here on this podium several times that he may
be vanished or killed or disappeared. And finally, the Pakistani
president has said several times, there are now (sufficient ?) reports
that Osama bin Laden -- I mean Pakistani president said that he may
have been killed and he -- because of kidney disease or he had kidney
dialysis or something, machines were imported from Pakistan to
Afghanistan. So what is the reality really? Who can we believe? I
mean, whether he -- some reports are saying now today that he's in
Pakistan.
MS. CLARKE: Go ahead.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: What you have to believe is we do not know where
Osama bin Laden is.
Q: Well CIA also doesn't have really real information.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I would say that's accurate.
MS. CLARKE: There's lots -- there's lots of information. There are
lots of reports. Some are more valid than others. But --
Q: I mean, who should we believe? We can't --
MS. CLARKE: (Inaudible.)
Q: Torie.
Q: Do we have a sense of how many individuals were killed in this
direct attack on Monday?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, I don't know. I mean, I've not seen any of the
video from the weapons systems, so I can't tell you that I know. The
sense that I have talking to people from the command is that it was a
small group.
Q: But were all of them killed, or did some of them get away?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I haven't heard of any reports that indicated that
anybody survived this particular strike.
Q: Any evidence that anybody got to this site before our team got
there?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yes.
Q: Who?
(Cross talk.)
Q: (Inaudible.) Can you elaborate on that? Can you elaborate on that?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Not much. Because this is an extremely remote area,
it's also relatively tough climate wise, it is fair to say that this
U.S. exploitation team was not the first either human or animal to
have gotten to the scene.
Q: And that's because there were graves, that someone had buried some
of the remains? Is that what the evidence was the someone else had
been there, or --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: No, I think that -- in some cases, it can be
particularly gruesome to come upon human remains that may have been
exposed to the elements for some period of time. And in addition to
that, it's obvious, when there are pieces of -- pieces of things that
are inexplicably in a location they ordinarily might not be in when
you would see, you know, an impact crate for instance. Why would this
be way over there when in fact everything else was over here? So it
gives you the evidence that somebody or something was there before.
Q: But you're basically saying it could have been an animal. It
doesn't have to have been a human being, it might have been just the
animals.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Correct.
MS. CLARKE: Brian?
Q: Yes, if I could go back to your characterization of this being an
appropriate target. We understand that there are great limitations on
what you can say in this regard. But at times, questions have been
raised that we really could use a little more guidance as to why you
thought it was an appropriate target. What can you give us that would
help us understand why the CIA thought it was okay to pull the
trigger?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, let me try. First of all, you have got to
appreciate that this was intelligence that was brought to a point of
action that was not DOD's. And while it's been reported more than
once, many times, that there is a very close working relationship
between other agencies and the Department of Defense, that's not to
say that there is total information sharing on all -- at a real-time
basis all the time. So I don't know what all information the agency
may have had to cause them to say now it's time to act. But they are
confident that they had the right indicators and the right information
that they felt comfortable to go ahead and prosecute the attack. And
what we have seen so far -- and I'm talking about, you know, somebody
who has literally come out of this environment only hours ago, and
only has stuff under their arms to just say, well, we have things like
this -- the indication is this is not -- you know, this is not some
innocent person up there trying to eke a living out.
Q: May I follow? As long as the Department of Defense is saying that
we don't know everything because the CIA is doing this, and given the
fact that the CIA doesn't hold daily briefings, is it possible to get
someone from the CIA to come here, given the fact that we are talking
about the CIA now having an offensive capability they've never had
before? The rules have changed in that regard. Is it possible the
rules could change so that we could question them directly about this?
MS. CLARKE: We're happy to ask. I think I know what the answer will
be, but we're happy to ask. But I would -- without talking about this
specific incident, generically speaking, they observe, they use
surveillance; they look for a combination of things, and it can be the
kind of people, it can be the kind of equipment and weapons they might
have, it can be the kind of vehicles, it can be the nature of the
activity. But it's often a variety of things that they put together
and say, "Okay, this leads us to believe it is this kind of target."
Speaking in a very generic fashion.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Let me just add something too that might help you a
little bit. If you're tracking vehicles coming from different
locations that come to a meeting place, and you have some information
about the source of those vehicles or who might have been in the
vicinity where those vehicles departed from, that also is a way you
can build a mosaic, and then when they collected together and having a
meeting.
Q: Is that what you think happened in this case?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I will tell you that I don't know what to believe.
I've become smart enough now in this job to question everything and to
ask for, you know, who can verify what it is that I'm seeing and
reading.
Q: (Off mike) -- you've been given, sir?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Oh, no. I've learned this through the school of hard
knocks.
MS. CLARKE: Let's go right here and then back --
Q: A couple of clean-up questions. One of them is, were there fresh
graves? Were any of the people buried?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: None that we -- I'm not -- don't have any
information to indicate that.
Q: Did you find -- I don't know a delicate way to ask this -- bodies,
did you find pieces of bodies? Yes?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yes.
Q: Bodies?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Pieces.
Q: Pieces of bodies. Okay. And then, sort of a decision- making
question. When you say that there is sharing of information between
the Defense Department and the CIA in situations like this, the
ultimate call to pull the trigger in this is not something that
CENTCOM or the Defense Department -- do you have a veto, do you have
-- do you monitor and say, okay, we concur? Can you tell us about how
you decide in action situations like this, where they have the lead
and the Defense Department does not?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I only know, I think -- I only know one small part
of how the command and control coordination is done. The agency and
the Central Command work very closely together on just about
everything that's going on in Afghanistan. However, having said that
-- and let me caveat that -- that the agency also will have objectives
of what they have people doing. We may be supporting that or we may
not be, and because of the time-sensitivity to it, we may not even be
totally aware of all those actions that are going on. So I believe
that the agency has objectives and they have requirements and
operations that they answer to their bosses to, and not that it would
require permission of DOD to continue.
I think there are other operations that have occurred where they have
come and asked for assistance of DOD and, therefore, DOD in fact did
have -- I think a "veto" is an incorrect way to describe that, but I
think that without that assistance, you couldn't go ahead and get that
operation completed.
Q: Admiral, can you explain why if this Predator was tracking this,
and there was apparently some advanced intelligence, for several
hours, why tactical aircraft would have not been called in? It seems
to me that those tactical aircraft can get from one end to another of
Afghanistan in several hours.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well I cannot give you the specific answers to this
situation because I just don't know what was on call, what was
busy doing something else, or what was in the immediate vicinity that
could be called on.
I also don't know the specifics of the command and control of this
particular operation; i.e., the controller of this unmanned air
vehicle, which happened to be an armed unmanned air vehicle, may not
have had the command or the control coordination that he would just
pick up the phone and be able to call in or provide the coordinates to
tactical air if, in fact, it were near in the environment.
You would also recall that in some times in the past when we had
unarmed air vehicles, that in some cases the information that had been
generated didn't necessarily get to the shooter, and when the shooter
got there, that particular target was no longer there. And so I think
what you're seeing now is an adaptation of the technology that since
you have an armed vehicle there which can see this target, have met
the criteria for whomever is controlling that operation to say, "I can
strike that target and I have a weapon to bring to bear on it now
rather than lose this opportunity."
Q: I wanted to follow up a little bit on Jack's question. My question
basically is, does the CIA have greater latitude in striking a target
than the military? In other words, I'm thinking back to the time when
Rumsfeld -- the episode of Rumsfeld reportedly hearing that Osama bin
Laden was in the sights, but a JAG stopped it, and so therefore --
(inaudible). Does the CIA have greater latitude in striking? And is
that one reason why they're going after so many things recently?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, you're asking us to divulge, if you will, some
of the CIA operating procedures, and so --
Q: Not really. I'm asking if they have greater latitude to pull the
trigger than the military.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I don't know if they have more latitude to conduct
offensive military lethal operations than the U.S. military does. I do
know that it is not precisely the same, and so it may not be
necessarily wider, but it may be that they have more autonomy in a
particular area where maybe General Franks has decided for uniformed
people not to be quite as decentralized.
Q: In other words, is there someone watching out to say -- to have a
second opinion of, "No, we don't think you should kill these people
based on that sort of information"?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, in the operations where we're working together
and sharing and comparing, we're certainly going to be asking
each other -- "We think this is a good target, we're not so sure, we
think maybe we should do something else," and we'll work to resolve
that. In a case of where the agency is doing its thing, obviously
they're probably not picking up these phones and calling around and
saying, "Hey, can you send in some ground forces there and collect
these up," because I think, you know, if we could or had been able to
do that, we might have.
Q: And that was the case in this instance, that it was an autonomous
example of the CIA doing its thing, as you said?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: This was a case where Central Command was not
actively participating or coordinated with this particular strike at
that time.
Q: Did you provide any assistance at all, or was this completely a CIA
operation?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: The most honest answer is, I don't know what the
coordination was prior to this vehicle being airborne in this sector
at that time.
During that time, I understood that this was an agency mission at that
point, and there was coordination with DOD afterwards, and some
evidence is the fact that we put an exploitation team in on that
particular site, rather than them doing it themselves.
Q: The CIA went up with the military after the fact to check this
site, or --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: No, U.S. military went up there.
Q: Just U.S. military?
Q: (Off mike) -- intelligence, or was it just CIA intelligence?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I don't know, Charlie. I really don't know if in
fact we had contributed early on into this. But again, we're sharing a
lot of information, and so what pieces of it were useful for this, I
don't have the specifics.
Q: Are you saying that --
MS. CLARKE: No, let's go to Barbara and then we'll come back to you.
Q: Admiral Stufflebeem, I don't think I've ever heard a military
officer stand up here and say, "I don't know what to believe anymore."
I'm very curious as to what you meant by that comment.
And in addition, just how tough is the targets -- I mean, it just
seems increasingly every target is increasingly problematic. So as you
go down the road in Afghanistan, and the target set changes because
there's less fighting in the country, just how tough is the target set
really getting? I mean, how do you stop having problematic targets,
like all of the -- in recent --
MS. CLARKE: Let me --
Q: But your first -- I'd really like to know what you meant. "I don't
know what to believe."
MS. CLARKE: Let me say what I think he meant, and then you can correct
me -
(Cross talk.) No. No, I mean it.
Q: (Off mike.)
MS. CLARKE: I -- that's fine, but I mean it. It goes to what we were
saying earlier about the confusion. To say that this is a complex
situation in which information which may be good one day is bad the
next day is an understatement. And people that were doing something
three months ago were doing something else two months ago, and then it
changed last week. And I think the secretary was talking with us a
little bit last week -- there can be three versions of a story, and
those three versions can be correct. And we have all learned the hard
way -- and you all know to say, you know, first reports are wrong,
second reports are soften wrong. So given the very unconventional
nature of the circumstance in which we find ourselves, we try to deal
with what we consider to be hard and fast information, and I think
that's what he was reflecting. So you can correct me.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, no -- (cross talk) -- let me ask -- answer Ms.
Starr's question.
Q: And how do you get past having problematic targets now?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Okay . Well --
Q: Go to the first one.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: All right.
Q: (Laughs.)
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Since I have become an operations briefer as part of
my regular responsibilities that I have on the Joint Staff, I have
learned, I think, through your eyes, to question what appears to be
facts, and I find myself using that as a technique. And when I'm
challenging my briefers, who are asking or telling me things, or when
I'm just asking questions -- and I'll give you plenty of "for
instances" -- there was a report that came in early on in the strikes
about, well, here was an F-18 dropping this particular precision-
guided weapon on that target. Well, as an F-14 pilot, knowing what a
weapons system looks at, I said that's an F-14 display.
And so I wondered, Does who's providing this information up know
exactly every weapons system that's coming up? I learned that wasn't
the case.
I have learned to believe that in the most recent example is, here is
a ground force securing a site to be able to try to develop
intelligence: Zhawar Kili. The report is, a Washington Post reporter,
I think, if I heard it right, a Washington Post reporter showed up and
asked for access to the site and was told some things. If I were --
who am -- where I am right now, I would say, how does that guy know
he's a Washington Post reporter. I mean, any set of credentials that
are carried in Afghanistan today have got to be just hard to believe,
because when you pick some of these people up, they've got multiple
identity cards; they've got multiple passports; they've got multiple
names and certainly multiple stories.
And so you really find, in the essence of that answer, getting now to
your second one, is how problematic this part of the world is. We knew
from the beginning that Afghanistan was a difficult place to be. We
didn't know that much about it. It was a very remote and harsh
environment. And once we got in there, the more we learned about it
is, the more difficult it is to operate, certainly as Americans, in a
difficult country like this, because you -- you hear a piece of
information from this individual, who will tell you things like "You
ought to go hit those guys because they're al Qaeda." But then the
individual says, "I'm not al Qaeda, I'm anti-Taliban." And now you've
got to start asking yourselves, "Well, where in here --" you know
heard today from this report about -- I think maybe from the Post
report, individuals who would say, "You should have come and listened
to the locals to get more information about this." But we you go talk
to the locals, what you're getting is that you did the right thing or
you did the wrong thing, and you can get both stories in the same
thing.
Q: How do you sort that out? How do you sort it out? How do you know
you're not being played off of one warlord?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Because you don't ever rely on that one piece of
information anymore. If that one guy is going to tell you one thing,
"Thank you very much. I appreciate having that information." I'm going
to go to others. I'm going to try to keep building this thing until I
get a mosaic, if I can put it together, and look for other indicators.
Q: But if I could follow up on that, Admiral.
Q: Have there been any changes in your own targeting procedures to try
and reduce the number of problems? And just my last point there is how
do you feel about the -- as a briefer -- the quality of information
that you've been getting to brief with?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I think that the problems that you're seeing are
getting pretty far down now into some details so that every individual
strike or every individual operations can get some pretty fine
examination where we couldn't get it before. I mean, there are
reporters on the ground. There are more forces on the ground. But
there also are shifting allegiances still to this day. There are
people in the country with their own personal agendas, those who are
being paid; those who have yet to be paid; those who want to get paid.
There's a lot of that stuff. And therefore, it is more problematic in
that regard.
But I also feel that we're -- because we're putting our own eyes on
these targets, we're collecting our own evidence and adding that to
what it is that we hear from individuals, we're getting a much better
and clearer picture of what it is that we need to do next.
Now, your last part was?
Q: The quality of information you feel -- if you have this issue,
what's the quality of information you feel you've been getting from
the military, as a briefer standing up there?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: I think the quality is good. But what I have done as
an individual, as an operations briefer, is instead of just accepting
the reports that I have it on first read or first brief, I thank the
individuals very much who come to see me. Maybe in front of them we'll
go ask the question of somebody else on the phone, or maybe I'll wait
till later to do that. And so I've been able to glean some facts and
correct some things so that I've been able to bring to you what I
think is the best information available.
MS. CLARKE: I wanted to add something to that. There's a slight
suggestion in the way you asked that question "all these problems."
The fact of the matter is, that for the five months -- or since -- the
four months since the military operation started, the great majority
of the strikes have been very successful, they have been the target --
where we hit the targets we intended to hit. We have gone to great
lengths, and for the great majority of the time have avoided civilian
casualties.
What you have going on right now is there are circumstances in which
there may be some questions, there may be some issues. So,
appropriately, we are looking into them. But if you step back for a
minute from the interests of the last two or three days and take a
look at the whole picture, the whole picture has been quite good. And
in those instances where there are questions, we will look into it.
Q: Torie, if turns out that, when all the facts are in, there has been
a mistake made here, how committed are you to getting those facts out?
I mean, will you come clean?
MS. CLARKE: Very. The secretary has said that from up here. I mean,
let me again talk about why we look into these things: because we want
to do things right, because we want to make sure we're hitting the
right targets, because we want to avoid civilian casualties. So if
there are reports, if there is information that leads us to believe
something may not have worked right, then we will look into it, we
will investigate it, we will address it. And if there are steps we can
take -- if something has gone wrong, if there are steps we can take to
prevent it going forward, then of course that's what we'll do. And we
are committed to releasing the information, the results that we can.
Q: And as the head of Public Affairs for the Pentagon, do you have a
problem with an American news reporter for one of the major U.S.
newspapers being threatened with deadly force to prevent him from
covering the operations of U.S. troops in the field?
MS. CLARKE: I don't know -- I don't believe -- agree with the premise
of your question. We don't know the circumstances of what happened on
the spot. As you all know, because many of you have been out there
with the men and women in uniform, we go to great lengths and we go to
great effort to put you with the men and women in uniform so you can
see for yourselves what is going on with these military operations.
Just a few weeks ago, some of the people in this room spent time with
our Special Forces teams so they could see for themselves. So when we
can, we are facilitating as much access, as much news and information
as possible.
I just don't agree with the premise of your question here. We don't
have enough information about what may or may not have happened. But
it is a very dangerous place. There are still a lot of dangerous
things going on. And for someone, just because someone walks up and
say, "Here's my ID that says I'm a reporter." Massoud was killed by
people who said they were reporters.
Q: So it was -- so in your -- I take from what you're saying that it
was an identification problem.
MS. CLARKE: We don't know --
Q: If you could have properly identified that reporter as a Washington
Post reporter, then things might have been different? Somehow I don't
think that's the case.
MS. CLARKE: We -- well, we don't know what the circumstances were at
the time. But to the extent that we can facilitate access for the
media, and it doesn't in any way endanger or harm an operation, it
doesn't get in the way of what they're trying to do -- in this case,
an investigation in a very dangerous place -- it doesn't in any way
put in harm's way the men and women in uniform or the reporters
themselves, then we will try to facilitate it.
Q: Torie.
(Cross talk.)
MS. CLARKE: And the experience backs it up.
Q: Torie, can I -- can I just -- I just want to put a very fine point
on this, if you can help us to the extent you can. You said that there
were several hours of intelligence, or several hours of following
those particular vehicles and those particular people. At any point in
the intelligence-gathering --
MS. CLARKE: I didn't say several hours. I don't know if it was several
hours.
Q: It was said last week on the --
Q: Myers said.
MS. CLARKE: Okay.
Q: It has been said. At any point in those several hours, was there
evidence -- specific evidence that this person, these people were al
Qaeda people, or was it merely a situation where they met several
indicators -- security, deference, some of the things that we've
talked about, and that is enough to rise to the level of pulling the
trigger? I'm still a little confused about that.
MS. CLARKE: I don't know, so I can't help you.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yeah, I do not know the specifics to say, these --
these fit a profile that we're tracking for al Qaeda, or these fit the
profile for tracking of pro-Taliban. I don't know. I suppose somebody
does. Unfortunately, I don't. And I have been tracking this, at least
at my level, for what I do in my real job, so to speak, and what I do
here now in this part of the job, is, if I see pro-Taliban, if I see
al Qaeda, I'm not distinguishing between the two. We're after both.
So, I -- the fine point, I just -- I don't know which of those -- if
you want --
(Cross talk.)
Q: Under the DoD's -- under the DoD's rules, since there does seem to
be some different between DoD and CIA on this, could you -- could the
Pentagon essentially pull the trigger on a strike like this merely if
someone met several indicators, or does there -- like we've talked
about -- or does there need to be a specific other piece -- he came
out of an al Qaeda meeting; it looks like a certain member that we
believe we have identified -- or does merely meeting some indicators
allow you, under your rules, to fire?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yes. There are -- I call them trip wires, if you
will, but "indicators" would be fine. There are indicators that we
look for, and with those indicators or those trip wires having been
met, we do conduct strikes. Some of those are very time-sensitive
strikes, and in some of the sensitivities, they may go up as high
possibly as even General Franks to say authorize this. And in other
indicators, he may delegate that to lower-echelon commanders. It is
even -- I'm sure that at least in the right of -- inherent right of
self-defense, the on-scene commander can make a determination if those
indicators are met.
Q: But sir, can you make one thing clear, sir? That if the strike was
for Osama bin Laden, and the CIA wanted to hit him, can you clarify
that Osama bin Laden was still alive until CIA attack in Afghanistan?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: It's impossible to answer the question. I understand
the desire to want to know what we know about Osama bin Laden; but we
don't know. The best thing to say about Osama bin Laden is that there
is not yet enough indicators that tell us that he has died to believe
that he is dead, and therefore, we make an assumption that he is
alive, and we don't know where he is, but we are looking for him and
would intend to find him.
Q: Then we don't believe General Musharraf's statement that he is
dead.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: We do not believe the statements that he is dead.
MS. CLARKE: Let's do --
Q: Admiral?
MS. CLARKE: -- Tom? And then Brian and -- (inaudible).
Q: Admiral, to follow up on what Barbara was saying, are we at a
tougher time in targeting in Afghanistan now, do you think, where
we're in sort of this gray area, the Taliban regime is gone, and now
we're trying to sort out who's al Qaeda, who's Taliban, who's a
civilian? And if so, do we have to check and double-check the
information we're getting? Is it more difficult to try to find out
who's an enemy?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: In one sense, yes. It is more difficult to develop
targets now than it was, certainly, in the beginning where the targets
were just so openly visible. The Taliban has vanished. Al Qaeda have
vanished. We are constantly, and I do mean constantly, chasing reports
from all over the country as to a pocket of al Qaeda here, a sighting
of Taliban there. And we are working exceptionally hard -- I think
it's fair to use the big "e" word in that case -- to go after multiple
ways, to say "I'm not going to go off on just this one report." That
one report may be enough to go ahead and send out, you know, an
evaluation team to go find out. And most of these reports, in fact,
are coming up empty.
So -- you know, this is what I was as getting back to earlier about
stop -- talking about chasing the shadows. It's a shadow war. These
are shadowy people who don't want to be found. And so you're going
after all these reports as to where this individual or where these
groups may be and what they may be doing, and so when you get upon it,
there's nothing there.
Q: Torie, can I follow up, please?
MS. CLARKE: Follow-up, and last question.
Q: Clearly, we don't know what happened with the missile attack yet.
You're still trying to sort out who those people were. But with the
attack north of Kandahar, you released the 27 people held in
detention. So clearly, those people weren't the ones you thought they
were. I guess the question is, what is being done since then to make
sure you have the right information? Are you coming out with new
procedures or --
MS. CLARKE: On that -- on the 27, I'd clarify slightly. Clearly, they
were not people that we thought we wanted to have, and we have turned
them over to the Afghan interim government. But we've decided those
are not people that we needed to have. The investigation is still
underway to determine what happened, who was who, et cetera. And we
will put out as much information --
Q: Who were they?
MS. CLARKE: Don't know who they were. But clearly, they were not
people that we felt we wanted to have.
Q: Meaning higher Taliban?
MS. CLARKE: In terms of we, the United States, the kinds of people we
want to have control over are high-value people, if you will,
high-value assets.
So, last back here --
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, let me just answer one last point on that one.
MS. CLARKE: Okay.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: We're not collecting every former Taliban,
especially mid-level or lower-level people. We're interested in the
leadership. And so we are being offered many people to help screen, as
have been screened, if they're under detention already. There are
still those who would be collected, if you will, or put into
detention, and they will be screened.
In the case of these 27, we got them ourselves, we screened them and
determined that we did not wish to keep them. And we turned them over
to the Karzai interim government. What they've done with them is sort
of their business.
I don't have the identities of those 27. I do know there's an interest
to find out who they are and were they Taliban or former Taliban. I'm
back now into my mode of sort of sitting where you sit when I start
thinking about who some of these people would be. If I were picked up
in a raid and I had had my weapon taken away from me or put it down
and surrendered or was physically subdued, and I end up going to
Kandahar and go through some interrogation, probably the last thing
I'm going to do is tell you, "Yeah, I confess. I'm Taliban." They
probably are giving us stories that we can't verify.
Q: Torie?
MS. CLARKE: Brian, and then that's definitely the last one, please.
Q: It's a question for you. It's about several things that you've said
here today indicating that CIA has a different operation system when
it comes to making a decision about when to pull the trigger than the
Pentagon does. You've also indicated that at this particular time it
was a CIA operation. Are we to deduce from that that the Department of
Defense is distancing itself from this attack in any way?
MS. CLARKE: Absolutely not. I was actually looking for an opportunity
to say the coordination, the cooperation has been pretty
extraordinary. And I think people in uniform would probably say that
just in the last three or four months, it has improved to an
extraordinary degree, that kind of coordination, cooperation. We're
just trying to be straight with you about what we know about this
particular strike.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that at the time of
that strike, we were not active participants in that operation. So I'm
trying to differentiate, rather than separate.
We are working more closely together now than we have at any time in
anybody's recent memory. But we both are conducting offensive
operations, and as a result, they may not always be meshed or
completely integrated all the time.
MS. CLARKE: Mm-hmm.
Q: Admiral, at the risk of changing the topic, when do you leave the
Pentagon? And when do you start on the training? And what are you
going to be doing, and any -- (inaudible) --
MS. CLARKE: We won't let him go.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Well, I -- just because I'm smart enough to know not
to talk in too many absolutes, I think I'm leaving at 10th of April at
1830, but I'm not tracking it too closely. (Laughter.)
And I have a training track to endure or to go back and refresh and
learn things on my way to the Truman Battle Group, which I will join
in the summertime, as the commander.
Q: And do you have anything you'd like to say to the American people,
since this is your last briefing?
MS. CLARKE: We'll have him back between now and then.
Q: Oh, really?
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: The trouble with giving a farewell speech is that it
won't be the farewell. (Cross talk, laughter.)
MS. CLARKE: Thank you.
ADM. STUFFLEBEEM: Thank you.
Q: This is your last briefing?
MS. CLARKE: Not necessarily. Not necessarily.
(end DoD transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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