News from the Washington File
Myers Says Al Qaeda, Taliban Leaders Remain Primary Mission
(General Myers television interview on ABC's "This Week") (1840)
The United States does not know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden,
said General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but
the prime mission of the U.S. military in Afghanistan remains
unchanged: targeting the remaining al Qaeda and Taliban leadership in
the country.
Speaking on the television program ABC "This Week" February 24,
General Myers refused to speculate about possible military operations
in other countries. U.S. armed forces are "ready for anything our
commander in chief asks us to do," Myers said. Although certain types
of so-called "smart bombs" might be in short supply at the moment,
General Myers pointed out that the U.S. military has many different
types of weapons systems in its inventory.
On the misidentification of civilians as al Qaeda terrorists in the
Afghan village of Hazar Qadam, General Myers said, "It took weeks to
develop the intelligence for this target, which is why we decided to
put our forces at risk to go into these two compounds. And we have to
remember that what we're hoping to find are people that know about
future terrorist actions."
General Myers added, "The important thing to realize is that we regret
any loss of life in this conflict, particularly innocent civilians.
And we take great pains to make sure innocent civilians aren't part of
this conflict. I mean, that's what it's all about. I mean, the victims
of September 11 were innocent civilians. Those are the freedoms that
we're fighting for basically. And it applies in this case too."
Following is the transcript of General Myers interview:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of Defense
General Richard B. Myers
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
News Transcript
February 24, 2002
Gen. Myers Interview with ABC This Week
(Interview with Sam Donaldson, This Week, ABC-TV) (Joined in progress)
QUESTION: General, do you know where Osama bin Laden is?
MYERS: The answer is no, we do not know where he is.
Q: Well, you know the New York Times story this morning says
administration officials believe he is on that Pakistani-Afghan
border. Is that reasonable?
MYERS: I think it's very reasonable. But again, you know, given that
we don't know where he is, any speculation about where he might be
would be somewhat foolish because we simply don't know. He has been
very quiet since early January.
Q: Is getting him still one of your prime missions?
MYERS: I wouldn't call it a prime mission. Obviously, we want to get
the al Qaeda leadership; we want to get the Taliban leadership. Bin
Laden is part of that leadership, so we'd like to get him and we will
get him. But it's -- I wouldn't call it a prime mission, though.
Q: Why not, General? I think the majority of the American people still
see it as something that's essential; talk about closure for September
11.
MYERS: I think closure for September 11 is going to take a lot more
and a lot longer than just getting bin Laden. We'll get bin Laden for
sure. And we've gotten several of his lieutenants so far.
But it's not -- it's not the end. We shouldn't think this war on
terrorism is over when we get bin Laden, because there's too many al
Qaeda operatives in compartments that still have great capability. And
while he was the leader, it won't end when we get bin Laden.
Q: The president may decide to go into other countries. He's already
said we'll rout out terrorists wherever we find them. And there is a
lot of belief that Iraq and Saddam Hussein could be, down the line,
one of those targets, and not just to change the regime, but if
necessary to use the U.S. military. Are you ready?
MYERS: Sam, the United States military is ready for anything our
commander in chief asks us to do. And that's precisely the point --
this is a decision the president would make. And he has, of course,
not made that decision at this point.
The one thing we do know, is we do know that Iraq regime has been very
oppressive and repressive on its people; that they continue research
and development in weapons of mass destruction; that terrorist
organizations want to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
And so, from that point, it's a dangerous regime.
Q: When you say you're ready -- let me show you something. The
Washington Post has on its front page this morning. I'm sure you must
have seen it. "Pentagon planners say it will take six months to
produce enough joint direct attack munitions" -- smart bombs -- "to
contemplate an attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq." Is that right?
MYERS: Well, I'm not going to comment on our readiness. I'll stick by
my earlier statement, that we're ready to do whatever our commander in
chief asks us to do.
In reference to the joint-direct attack munitions [JDAMs], our global
positioning system satellite-aided weapon, if you would, it is one of
the preferred weapons. We used a lot of these in Afghanistan. It is a
relatively new weapon, so in terms of supply, we didn't have a lot of
these on hand when we started the effort in Afghanistan.
Some of the money that was appropriated by Congress for the war on
terrorism back in September, some of that money has gone to facilitate
more production of these weapons. And that's ongoing right now.
Q: Well, is six months a reasonable time period to think that we have
to take that time to get weapons in place?
MYERS: The fact we either have or don't have JDAMs is not going to
dictate any time, and that will be up to the president. And we have
other weapons, as well. This is the preferred weapon, but we have
other weapons as well, so...
Q: So if he said to you, "General Myers, we need an attack plan for
the next few days or weeks," you could produce one and execute it?
MYERS: Let me just say this: We're ready to do whatever the commander
in chief asks us to do, and we will be ready. We may not have all the
preferred munitions, in terms of JDAMs, that you would want, but we
have other munitions we can substitute.
Q: I'm going to come now to the village of Hazar Qadam in Afghanistan.
The secretary of defense said on Thursday that there were apparently
no al Qaeda or Taliban fighters in that village among the 16 people
killed by U.S. forces in January and, yet, said there was no error.
Now, how can that be?
MYERS: I think the secretary explained that very well. We did a lot of
intelligence collection on that area and decided that it was a worthy
target. But there was enough doubt that we didn't want to put air
strikes in on it, so we put people in on the ground.
There were two separate compounds. Where they didn't fire back, only
two were killed, some captured. In the other compound, for whatever
reason, they decided to start firing right away. They began the
firing. As our rules of engagement allow, we returned fire. And then
realized at the end that they weren't the Taliban or the al Qaeda that
we were after.
Q: General, I think many people would agree that U.S. forces have the
right to defend themselves when fired on. But I think the secretary
also conceded that if these people were sleeping and an unknown force,
happened to be Americans, came down on them, they might fire in
self-defense themselves.
MYERS: Well, I think the important thing for the American people to
realize is that we regret any loss of life in this conflict,
particularly innocent civilians. And we take great pains to make sure
innocent civilians aren't part of this conflict. I mean, that's what
it's all about. I mean, the victims of September 11 were innocent
civilians. So that's what -- those are the freedoms that we're
fighting for basically. And it applies in this case too.
Q: General, I think people accept that, or many people will. But I'd
just like to read one more sentence or two from what I understand is
an unclassified portion of the summary of the investigation as printed
in USA Today.
It says, "Despite the fact the mission was determined after the fact
to have been against friendly Afghani forces, there were no systemic
errors in the targeting process, mission planning or mission
execution." Do you stand by that?
MYERS: Sure, I'll stand by that because these are -- this war on
terrorism, as we've said and the president has said and everybody has
said, this is a very different war. It's a very difficult war. It's
particularly difficult in Afghanistan. The difference between a normal
Afghani citizen and Taliban is just razor thin. In fact, they can
change -- they can change their allegiances very, very quickly. The
same is true for some al Qaeda as well.
So, I mean, this is just very, very difficult, and so we do our very
best. And that's why it took weeks to develop the intelligence for
this target, why we decided to put our forces at risk to go into these
two compounds. And we have to remember that what we're hoping to find
are people that know about future terrorist actions. And that's still
a possibility, and it's something that ought to be our prime concern
is the security of, not only the American people, but our friends and
allies around the world.
Q: Well, if in fact we killed the wrong people and you say there are
no errors, that means you're not investigating what happened to
determine -- so that it wouldn't happen again?
MYERS: Oh, no. We always, as the secretary, I think, said, Secretary
Rumsfeld said lessons learned are very, very important to us. So that
all goes into the process.
I happen to have just returned from the area. I was at the
Intelligence Fusion Center at Bagram where a lot of this intelligence
is worked out. I mean, it's living mechanism, and they learn as they
go forward.
Q: Did you say to them, "Gentlemen and ladies, let's not do this
again. Let's work on that intelligence. We understand it can't be
perfect, but let's sort of tighten it up"?
MYERS: I think that goes unsaid. I mean, these are professionals.
These are professionals not only from the military but from other
agencies of our government and some of our allies. And they're well
aware of that, absolutely.
Q: General Myers, thanks very much for joining us.
MYERS: Sam, great to be here. Thank you.
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