USCENTCOM Press Briefing
TIME: 3:03 P.M. EST DATE: MONDAY, MARCH 4,
2002
Briefing Participants: General Tommy Franks,
Commander, Centcom
Marriott-Waterside Hotel, Tampa, Florida
GEN. FRANKS: Good afternoon. Well, thanks to all of you for coming today.
What I want to do this afternoon is provide an update, a situation report, if you will, on our ongoing operations in Paktia Province in Afghanistan.
First let me say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the friends of the service members who have lost their lives in our ongoing operations in Vietnam (sic). Certainly that sacrifice is appreciated by this nation.
Operation Anaconda -- and that is what this operation is
called -- has been in planning for several weeks. We've
been in the process of gathering intelligence and also of training Afghan forces to
participate in this operation. The operation
started late last week with the insertion of observation posts across Paktia Province, to
include the insertion of Special Operating Forces from several other nations. I'll talk more about that in a minute.
The -- around the objective area, which I'll show you on
the map here shortly -- the terrain, as I think was mentioned earlier today up in the
Pentagon, is very rough terrain at altitudes of 8,000 feet, up to more than 12,000 feet in
elevation. The area that we're concerned with
in Operation Anaconda is some 60 to 70 square miles. The
temperature there in the evenings is somewhere between 15 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit -- a
very, very tough operating environment for our soldiers to be in.
Friday night saw -- last Friday night saw the insertion of
U.S. conventional forces into this area of operations.
The 10th Mountain Divisions and the 101st Airborne Division had units
inserted into the objective area, along with Afghan forces, which have assumed blocking
positions, as I'll indicate to you in a minute.
Operation Anaconda is commanded by Major General Buster
Hagenbeck, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, headquartered at Fort Drum, New York. His force, as we speak, is about 2,000 soldiers.
About one-half of that force, perhaps a bit less, is Afghan, and about the other half of
the force is U.S. conventional and Special Forces and Special Operating Forces, and
coalition Special Operating Forces.
The mission of that task force is to
destroy all al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in and around this objective area. The fighting, as you all know, has been fierce. Enemy forces in this area are dug in. They're in
caves. They're also in natural fighting
positions. They're using small arms: machine
guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars. And
I've also seen reports of man-portable surface-to-air missile systems. Although we have not had any aircraft struck by
those systems, to my knowledge.
Several of our helicopters have received ground fire in
this operation. Two have been forced to land
in the objective area. Both of those were
controlled landings. And both of those
airframes remain intact at this time.
I know it was announced early in the Pentagon that we have
suffered nine American service members killed in action.
Right now I know that number to be eight or nine. The fog of war will persist until we are able to
have discussions with people who have been involved in this fight and, in fact, have been
-- have been brought out of the objective area. And
so the total number killed in action, as it stands right now, is eight or nine, with about
40 of our people on the U.S. side having been wounded.
And as Secretary Rumsfeld, I think, said earlier, roughly half of those who
have been wounded were minor wounds, and they have been returned to duty, whereas the
others have been evacuated for further medical treatment.
And I am not aware at this point that the injuries suffered by the wounded
are life- threatening.
I will say at this point that I am -- I'm very proud of
the troops and the leadership that is in the middle of conducting this operation. They are, indeed, taking the fight to the enemy. They are making good progress as we speak. Much remains to be done, but it certainly will be
done, both in Operation Anaconda and then other parts of Afghanistan, as Operation
Enduring Freedom moves forward.
As I've said before, we'll continue to take intelligence
from a whole variety of sources. Intelligence
will almost never be perfect. We will perform the appropriate analysis of the information
we receive, and then we will mount operations to confirm or deny the validity of the
information we have.
We
certainly will continue to destroy pockets of enemy forces as they exist in Afghanistan.
Give me the first chart, please.
First off, for those of you who are not familiar with this
area -- Kabul, Gardez and Khost -- the blue
box indicates the area of Operation Anaconda.
Next chart.
What I want to do with this, just very briefly, is to give
you a general scheme of what we see with the forces. I
will not talk to you about precise disposition of these forces because as you know, this
operation is still ongoing. We have Special
Operating Forces from the nations indicated over here on the right hand side of the chart. We have Afghan forces involved, as indicated by the
Afghan flags here. We have this objective area, which we call the Shahi-Kot area, as I
said, perhaps 60 square miles in here. And
I've indicated with a U.S. flag that this is the area where we're operating, and we refer
to this as Objective Remington.
I'm going to leave this map up on the wall and begin with
your questions, please. First to the Pentagon.
Q General
Myers, Charles -- whoops. General Franks,
Charlie Aldinger with Reuters. Could you tell
us -- General Myers said that this are had been under observation and this operation has
been planned for weeks. Could you tell us why
you waited so long for this force to be dug in so well, well armed, well equipped, before
you struck?
GEN. FRANKS: Sure,
Charlie. I'd be pleased to.
It's not a matter -- it's not a matter of waiting while
the enemy force digs in, it's a matter of determining the locations of the enemy force so
that we satisfy ourselves that the intelligence information we have will indeed provide
pockets of enemy forces. And that's what we
have found as we have studied and worked the intelligence.
We simply have built up the deck, if you will, of where these enemy
formations are located. And once again, as we
have discussed before, there is art and there is science, and the business of taking this
intelligence information, confirming, denying and putting it together in a mosaic that
makes sense for a military operation is what's been happening, as General Myers said, over
the last several weeks, Charlie.
Q General,
Eric Schmidt with the New York Times. Can you
give us a breakout of the coalition forces, that is the U.S. forces as opposed to the
coalition forces, and does this represent an increase over the last 24, 48 hours in the
number of U.S. ground forces in that area?
GEN. FRANKS: Sure, Eric. As
I mentioned in my opening remarks, about half this force, perhaps a bit less than half, is
made up of Afghan forces, as you see generally indicated by the Afghan flags on this map. The American forces -- and I don't want to -- let
me give you an order of magnitude number. You
will see eight to nine hundred American forces in here, and you will see in the range of
200 special operating forces from coalition members. We
may have added perhaps a hundred or 150 American troops over the last 24 hours, but it has
not been in response to a specific fight; it has been -- if forces -- if American forces
have been added, then it has been as a part of the scheme of maneuver for the operation,
Eric.
Let me take two from Tampa here. Please.
Q General
Franks, Diane Pertmost (sp) with WFLA-TV.
GEN. FRANKS: Hi,
Diane (sp).
Q Sir,
I'm wondering: This portion of the war seems
to be focused, obviously, on what's happening on the ground, as opposed --
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q --
to the beginning of the war, when we were focused on air attacks. Can you explain that change in tactic?
GEN. FRANKS: Not
really a change in tactic. What happens is,
any time we conduct a military operation, what we will do is we will first off take into
account the enemy and how an enemy may be disposed, and then we will look at the forces
available to us with which we plan. We'll
consider factors of time as well as terrain, and in some cases I think we'll find that it
is more advantageous to us to work with the local Afghan forces through our liaison
elements with them, our Special Forces troops, and in other cases, it will be equally
likely that we will work with Afghan forces and we will have our Special Forces people
with them, but we'll find, for a variety of reasons, that we may be better served by the
introduction of U.S. infantry forces, which is what you see in this case.
And so it is not really a sequential sort of proposition,
where we begin one way and then change to another. It
could be either way, as the war has come up to this point and as it moves forward. And certainly I think all of us recognize that
we've not taken anything off the table in this, to include conventional forces, and one
would anticipate that the commanders on the ground and the people within my chain of
command will continue to try to match the right force against the right threat, given the
period of time in which we want to operate.
One of the things that we know that we'll take into
consideration every time is points, places and times of our choosing.
That
-- we refer to that as the "initiative." And
this operation has been undertaken at our initiative, and that's just the way we want it
to be.
Q General?
GEN. FRANKS: Yes?
Q (Name
off mike) -- Associated Press.
GEN. FRANKS: Hi,
(Becky ?).
Q Was
there an expectation going into this that this fighting would be more dangerous and might
sustain more fatalities and casualties than in others?
GEN. FRANKS: Of
course any time one has a higher concentration of forces on the ground, one can anticipate
higher casualties. You'll recall, going back
-- gosh, maybe two months, where both I and the secretary of Defense have said on numerous
occasions we are entering a phase where we will physically go to places on the ground
inside Afghanistan to clear out pockets of resistance as we're able to find them. And yes, it is more dangerous, and that is the
phase of the operation that we're in right now.
Back to the Pentagon, please.
Q General,
Steve Inskeep (sp) from National Public Radio. I've got questions about two issues that
Afghans involved in this operation -- two facts that they've offered. One is the Afghans say that there was an effort to
negotiate a surrender with these al Qaeda fighters in advance of the attack. Is that true, or did you seek to surprise them?
The second thing that the Afghans say is that at the
beginning of the battle, they were actually attacked at a concentration point before they
were ready to strike. Can you describe how
this battle began, from your perspective?
GEN. FRANKS: Yeah. The second part of the question, I really can't
offer much into because I just heard that for the first time. I have absolutely no reason to believe that our
forces were struck in an assembly area. Now,
that is not to say that additional forces may not have been moving on the Afghan side into
an assembly area when forces already present there were beginning to move out, perhaps,
and encountered hostile fire. And so very
difficult for me to address that.
As to the first part of the -- or as to your first
question, this was done, in my view, with tactical surprise.
There was no effort made whatsoever to negotiate surrender of anyone. This, as I said, is an operation where we had been
keeping operation security very much on our minds, and it was conducted with tactical
surprise.
Q General,
it's Pam Hess with United Press International. Already comparisons are being drawn between
this battle and the battle at Tora Bora in December. Can
you explain if you learned any lessons from Tora Bora that you're applying here, and what
similarities and differences might exist between the two?
One thing I'm thinking in particular is the fact that so many al Qaeda were
able to escape that area.
It
looks as though you have it intentionally surrounded to stop that from happening.
GEN. FRANKS: Pam,
believe it or not, I suspected that someone would ask the question. (Chuckles.) And
let me say that, of course, we considered not only Tora Bora operations. We also considered operations in the vicinity of
Kabul. We considered operations in the
vicinity of Kandahar. We considered operations
we conducted up in the vicinity of Mazar-e Sharif. And
I think others have said, each one of these operations has a bit of a different sort of a
characteristic. If you think about the mission, the enemy, the troops available, just
those three points, and you think about what happened at Tora Bora, and you think about
the mission, the enemy and the troops available at that time, then one is able to gain
some insight.
So, it is not in my view a matter of having learned the
negative lesson from Tora Bora, and I read that to be the implication of your question. I think we learned both the positive and the
critical lessons from each one of these operations. And
so of course Tora Bora was considered as we decided what we were going to do for Anaconda.
Back to Tampa please.
Q (Off
mike.)
GEN. FRANKS: Hi,
Kelly.
Q Will
we retaliate for this attack or -- (inaudible) -- forces of operation -- (inaudible.)
GEN. FRANKS: I'm
sorry, I missed the question.
Q Will
we retaliate for the attack or strengthen the forces of operation -- (inaudible.)
GEN. FRANKS: Will
we retaliate?
Q Yes.
GEN. FRANKS: Retaliation
is not part of the lexicon from my point of view. When
we started the operation on the 7th of October, we said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to destroy the al Qaeda forces inside
Afghanistan, and we're going to destroy the Taliban that harbors those forces. If you think back about each one of the steps along
this path, whether it's early success in Mazar-e Sharif or Kabul or Herat or Tora Bora or
Al Iqael (ph), or whether it's in this operation, every one of these has been -- every one
of these operations has been aimed at doing precisely what we said we were going to do,
and that will be what we continue to do in the future.
Sir.
Q General,
thank you. Mark Wilson from WTVT here in
Tampa.
GEN. FRANKS: Mark,
how are you?
Q From
the actions that you've seen -- I know you didn't want to get into exactly how they're
behaving, but is there anything that you can tell us about the way that they are behaving
referenced --
GEN. FRANKS: Sure.
Q --
does it seem that they are fighting for themselves, or perhaps they're defending someone
inside, albeit whether bin Laden or Omar is close by?
GEN. FRANKS: Difficult
to say whether they're fighting for themselves or whether they're fighting to protect
someone. The general characteristics of the
fight we see are small groups of people, and I'm not sure how to characterize
"small."
We
might find five -- we might find five enemy soldiers in one place, and then perhaps some
distance away from there, we may find three. And then some distance, we may find 15 or 20.
I don't have a sense of whether they're trying to protect
someone or whether they are just very simply very hard-core al Qaeda, Taliban residual,
perhaps Chechnyan, perhaps Uzbek fighters. But
they -- but there are a good many of them in this area.
People have asked me, as a matter of fact, "How many are there?" I'm not going to give -- going to give a precise
sense of that. Inside that blue circle up
there, we may -- we may see perhaps only a few hundred in that circle. But in the areas that surround that circle, it's
possible for there to be a good many more.
And so this is just the area of this operation. The way we have configured our forces for this --
and this is probably about as low a level tactically as I'll go -- the way we configure
forces is to cover avenues that would permit people inside that blue circle from
egressing. And so that's how we see the force
inside the objective area Remington, and that's what we -- that's how we see them disposed
right now.
Back to the Pentagon, please.
Q Yes,
sir, General Franks. Jeff Goldman (sp) with
CBS News.
Earlier at the briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld mentioned the
expanding role of U.S. forces in the war on terrorism in Yemen, Philippines and possible
Georgia next. Are you concerned at all that
the White House is broadening this war on terrorism too far, too fast and without clearly
defining the mission -- the number of troops involved and the length of time that these
troops might be deployed?
GEN. FRANKS: The
short answer is no; I have no concern about that at all.
I think when we started post the 11th of September, where we saw so many
people lose their lives, that we were going to conduct a global war on terrorism. I mean, that's what the commander in chief said to
those of us in the military. I believe that we
have around the world been prepared to do that since we started this operation, and I see
absolutely no reason why we should not enter the next phase of this operation and continue
to do that work to destroy terrorists worldwide which have -- organizations which have
global reach. And that's what I think --
that's what I think we'll see now.
Pentagon, please.
Q General
Franks, it's John McWethy with ABC News.
Can you describe, in as much detail as possible, what
happened with the two helicopters and how there was the loss of life, whether it is eight
or nine, in that series of instances, was one coming to the rescue of the first, et
cetera?
GEN. FRANKS: I'll give it a shot, but the caution that'll go
along with this will be the same caution I think Dick Myers and the secretary issued
earlier, and that is that as we know more about this, we're going to know more about this.
But my appreciation at this point in time is, you know,
this sort of an operation will have constant repositioning of forces, and in this
objective area we reposition our forces, we take forces out, we add forces by helicopter.
My understanding of this operation is that we were
conducting an insertion of a reconnaissance element -- and I won't point out exactly where
-- but we were inserting a reconnaissance element. That
element came under fire. When the element came
under fire, it was very close to the ground. The
helicopter was in fact struck but was still flyable. As
the pilot lifted the helicopter off, I believe one crew member may have fallen from the
helicopter. I do not believe that that was
recognized immediately. The helicopter
repositioned under its own power, and the helicopter landed and immediately recognized
that one crew member had been left behind.
Immediately following that there was a force which was
also to insert in that same area, and so that force inserted. When one of the two helicopters of that force first
came in and began to land in not exactly that same area, but close to that area, it also
came under fire. It also landed under full
control of the pilot. The forces on that
helicopter got off the helicopter and immediately came in contact with the enemy force,
and that is the place that the casualties came from. That
is my appreciation of it right now.
Back here to Tampa, please.
Q General,
Tampa Tribune. I wanted to ask you, with the
countries involved, their expertise in winter operations, high- elevation operations, and
the use of the Chinooks for extra lift power --
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q --
have the mountain regions presented you with specific problem towards --
GEN. FRANKS: The
-- sure. When we're dealing at an altitude of
8,000 to 12,000 feet, we find that our helicopters certainly will operate in that
altitude. But they certainly don't operate at
that altitude the same way that they operate at sea level, and so it's a factor.
And
-- but what that factor does is it instructs us on the numbers of people we put on each
helicopter, which then in turn instructs us on how many helicopters we use for a given
operation.
What I will say is that when you're dealing in
temperatures of 15 to 20 degrees, a little bit of sleet from time to time, at the
altitudes that we're talking about, and in this very, very rough terrain, this is just --
this is just very hard work for these soldiers who are up there doing it. And so the soldiers are performing great, the
equipment is performing great. We just have a
lot of work left to do before we get this mission done.
Sir?
Q Robert
Green (sp), Reuters. Do you have any estimate
on the Taliban and al Qaeda casualties? And
have you captured any of them?
GEN. FRANKS: I've
told you the -- I've told you the U.S. casualties in this, and I think the secretary
mentioned that there have also been some Afghan casualties in this operation as well. It's very hard when we begin to quantify the
numbers of enemy casualties in here. I will
say that, based on the information which I have received, I would say at this point there
have been between 100 and 200 al Qaeda and enemy soldiers killed in this fight up to this
point. That number may turn out to be dramatically higher, the number may turn out to be a
little bit lower, but the evidence that I've seen has indicated that the forces on the
ground have, in fact, done a hell of a job with the enemy formations they've encountered.
Q (Off
mike.)
GEN. FRANKS: We
have taken several detainees. I wouldn't
characterize them as prisoners. Right now the
detainees are being debriefed, and we'll determine whether they're local friendlies, in
which which event they'll be released, or whether they're part of the enemy force in the
area.
Back to the Pentagon, please.
Q General,
Tom Bowman (sp) with the Baltimore Sun. One of
the concerns you hear up here among Army officers is that there's no artillery being used
in this operation. Others mention that Bradley
fighting vehicles or M1 tanks would be helpful here as well.
Can you talk a little bit about that? Did
you request artillery and it just didn't get there in time, or did you see it just wasn't
necessary in this fight?
GEN. FRANKS: There
are a lot of forms of artillery. Some of it --
I never was a very good artilleryman, but I do appreciate the necessity of having massed
fire. Massed fire can come from an artillery
weapon, ground-to-ground fire. I will say that
we have some such weapons in this fight now, specifically mortars that we have up there. Another form of, quotes, "artillery" is
air-to-ground fires. We right now are employing strike aircraft, to include A-10s, F-15s,
B-1s, B-52s, AC-130 gunships, as well as some French aircraft involved in providing close
air support.
And
so, as a combat arms officer, I will tell you, you always want to have indirect fire
support available, and that fire support has been and will continue to be available to
these forces on the ground.
Q General
Franks, Barbara Starr with CNN. Could you go
back and explain in a little more detail your thinking about why send in ground forces so
quickly within hours of beginning airstrikes? Why
not have sustained airstrikes over a longer period of time, soften up the enemy targets,
and then send in ground forces?
And could you also just explain in a little more detail
the generic position that the U.S. forces are filling at the moment, is -- the Afghans are
around the perimeter and the U.S. forces are in the center of this battle? That's what I took from your map, but I'm not sure
I understood it.
GEN. FRANKS: That
would be exactly the correct thing to take from the map.
We have Afghan forces in blocking positions at this point, and we have the
American forces engaged as you see them. The
coalition forces, indicated by the flags, I have not put the precise locations in there
for reasons that I know are obvious to you.
With respect to why would we conduct this operation in
this way rather than conducting a B-52 arc light, for example, because there are -- this,
60, 70 square miles inside Afghanistan, where we're dealing with very small groups of
enemy fighters, as I indicated earlier in the presentation, one, I think, wants to be very
careful about just arbitrarily bombing. The
precision with which we are able to identify where each group of five or each group of
three or each group of 10 or 15 may be is not such that one would want to do that. And so
at the end of the day, it is as -- it is, as I think many people have said, the sure way
to do work against the enemy is to put people on the ground, and that's what we've done in
this case, and that's the reason we did it that way.
Back to Tampa, please.
Q Hi. Amy -- (inaudible) -- with Fox News Channel.
GEN. FRANKS: How
are you?
Q Good. I don't know if anybody can live up in those
mountains, but are there any villages, towns -- you know, communities? Refugees -- have
they been able to get out? Are you keeping an
eye on them, too, and how are the people affected?
GEN. FRANKS: As
best we can. We do that in a couple of ways.
Yes, there are villages at these altitudes. And
the very first way we do that is to coordinate with the Afghan government.
And
we have been in coordination with the Afghan government to try to determine generally
where the civilian populations are up inside this objective area.
Will we be perfect? I
doubt it. One of the things that happens when
one enters into a war fight on the ground like this is that as soldiers begin to prosecute
the attack through this area, where they move and receive no mortar fire and they're not
brought under fire, then they simply bypass and continue to move. When they receive volumes of fire from buildings,
then they will certainly those buildings. And
so has that gone on in this case? It certainly
has.
And so as our forces continue to move through the area,
we'll see how it goes. But we are, as we have
been all along in this campaign, very careful and very attentive to watch out for
civilians on the battlefield.
Q General?
GEN. FRANKS: Yes?
Q Just
for clarification, was it 100 to 200 Taliban and al Qaeda killed in this --
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q Well,
who is left, then? Or how many are left?
GEN. FRANKS: It's
very difficult to say. I think one of the
estimates that we saw early on inside this objective area we marked in hundreds. And I hesitate to say how many hundreds. People have talked to me about it, and I have
looked at a great deal of information, and I've seen assessments of 200 to 400 in this
area. So I will not say exactly how many there
were in there to begin with. I will say that
there were hundreds inside this area. And
certainly in Afghanistan and the surrounding areas, we are likely to find even more al
Qaeda and Taliban, and that's why this is a very, very dangerous area for us to be
operating in.
Back to the Pentagon, please.
Q General
Franks, Selma Labrecht (sp) with Associated Press Broadcast.
I had a two-part question. Number
one, how long do you anticipate this operation is going to take? And since it looks like it's going to be a long
operation, the reporters that are embedded now -- can you let them file? And number two, why was this operation begun with
2,000 forces? Why not a larger ground
presence?
GEN. FRANKS: I'm
sorry. Say the third question again, please.
Q Why
2,000 ground troops involved in this operation? Why
not a larger ground troop presence?
GEN. FRANKS: Any
time you look at the terrain, what you do is you mask the -- or you match the force
structure to the terrain and the enemy that you're going in against. My belief was and continues to be that the force
structure for this objective is matched against the enemy and the terrain that we see
there.
Now with respect to your first question about how long
will it take and will reporters be able to file, I'm not sure. My view is that reporters may have an opportunity
to file from the forward edge of the battle area, inside the objective area.
To
my knowledge, that has not been implemented, but I think it may be implemented at some
point in the next day or two.
Now, as to how long the operation is going to take, I
really -- I'm really not sure, and I get tired of using the time-worn expression, but it
will take as long as it takes, because we surely will clear this, just as we started to
when we started Operation Anaconda.
Q General,
Brett Baer (sp) with Fox News Channel. We've
heard from the beginning that there are pockets of al Qaeda in a number of different
locations. This is obviously a fairly large
pocket. Are there other things that you're
seeing throughout the country that there's -- showing that al Qaeda is reconstituting
itself? And if so, do you have enough boots on
the ground to deal with that?
GEN. FRANKS: The
latter part of the question first. I would --
I won't take anything off the table, so I won't tell you yes, you'll never see another
American soldier added to this equation inside Afghanistan.
I have not made such a recommendation to the secretary. I don't know whether
I will make such a recommendation in the future or not.
I will say, for the operation that's being conducted there right now, the
number of troops is just right for the task.
Now, let me ask you to say again your first question. I missed it.
Q Yeah. The first part is as far as reconstituting, al
Qaeda reconstituting all throughout Afghanistan; are you seeing signs that that is
happening in significant numbers, perhaps as big as the numbers here south of Gardez?
GEN. FRANKS: In
my view, it's not so much as reconstituting. There are general areas inside Afghanistan
which have historically been harbors for people like al Qaeda. This area around Gardez is one of those areas, and
there are other such areas inside Afghanistan. I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure that one
can accurately say that these forces are reconstituting.
I think it is just as likely to be that the forces we find in here have been
in this area before, may well have been serving alongside Taliban in the early days of
this fight, and once Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan, it may well be that
these forces simply returned to areas with which they are familiar.
I am not going to stand here and tell you that that is
exactly what happened, but I do not have a sense of large reconstitution efforts inside
Afghanistan. There will be some of that, to be
sure, and where we find it, we will go eradicate it and kill the enemy.
Back to Tampa, please.
Q
Gordon Bird (sp), of Clear Channel Tampa. It was mentioned in the Pentagon briefing that the
Chinook helicopters are operating near their operational limits because of the high
altitude. And has that fact forced troops to
operate them in a manner that puts them in greater danger, perhaps operating at a lower
altitude relative to the average terrain, average height of the terrain?
GEN. FRANKS: That's
a -- that's a tough question. I think it's
accurately characterized as tougher to operate helicopters at higher altitudes. My sense is that the altitude is one factor, but
the rough nature of this particular terrain is another factor that makes flying
helicopters in there very, very difficult. And
so is there risk to operate in this area? There
certainly is, just as we have said. The
equipment that we are putting into this area, though, is operating very, very well, all of
it, as the troops are operating well, as I mentioned earlier.
Yes, sir?
Q Can
you tell us what kind of success you had this weekend with the cave bombing, and if you
believe, from what your estimation is, the Taliban and al Qaeda fatalities, casualties,
have been most largely a result of the bombing or of the ground fighting or of both?
GEN. FRANKS: My
sense is that a combination of ground direct fire and airpower have provided the greatest
success inside the objective area up to this point. Right
now I simply don't know how the single thermobaric weapon that we put in up on the cave
complex did. I will not stand here and confirm
for you that it did a good job or that it did not do a good job. I simply haven't seen anything on it yet.
Q General,
Craig Gordon from Newsday. I'd like to take
you back to your description of the helicopter casualties.
In the second helicopter, if I heard you correctly, you said it landed under
-- it came under enemy fire and landed under full control, the forces got off and then
experienced enemy fire. I think we had been
led to believe earlier the sense was it was --
(NOTE: The
general was asked a question in Tampa, which he then answers, while the audio was coming
from the Pentagon.)
GEN. FRANKS: (In
progress; in response to question posed in Tampa) -- Senator
(Gramm/Graham ?) at all. My sense is that the
operation
in Afghanistan -- it may be eye of the beholder, in terms of winding down. And so I wouldn't take issue with what the senator
said at all. I think that what one sees up to
this point is a reasonably steady state in terms of the endstrength of forces operating
inside Afghanistan. And I think it's very easy
to see, coming off of the destruction of the Taliban and the installation of the interim
government in Afghanistan, I think it would be possible for someone to say, well, you
know, now that all that's done. And so I take
it as part of -- I take the senator's comment as part of that context.
So
I wouldn't -- I wouldn't take issue with him at all, and I doubt that he would take issue
with the operation that we have ongoing today.
Back to the Pentagon.
I'm sorry.
Q General,
Craig Gordon from Newsday. I'd like to take
you back to your description of the second -- the casualties in the second helicopter. You had said that it came under enemy fire, landed
under full control, the forces got off, and then also came under enemy fire. I think the
sense around here earlier was that it had been shot down and crash landed. I'd just like to get an understanding of, did the
casualties occur -- was it a crash landing? Did
the casualties occur in the crash? How many
were from the enemy fire? And lastly, clean up
the eight or nine? Is that in the -- in this
helicopter, seven or eight? Can you help us
understand that?
GEN. FRANKS: Sure. In terms of the -- in terms of the numbers, we know
that we lost -- that we lost the Special Forces trooper in the very early hours of this,
and that was the first kill in action. The
helicopter incident, the one that you just made reference to, that number is seven or
eight, and the reason that I am -- the reason that I'm not going to nail that yet is
because it's only been over the past few hours that that force has been exfiltrated, all
of it having been brought out of the area. And
I'm just -- I'm just not going to get in front of -- I'm not going to get you programmed
with some number that turns out to be wrong until I have a chance to talk to the people
who are in a position to know, and I simply haven't had a chance to do that yet.
With respect to the way the activity went down, the second
helicopter, the one that I described a minute ago that I said landed under its own power,
in fact it did that. That helicopter is still
sitting on the side of that mountain in one piece. I
have seen it. I've had visual of that helicopter. My
understanding is that when that helicopter went in, it may
have gone in hard, and so I wouldn't debate the notion of crashed or crash
landed. Right now, I don't know whether to
associate the injuries from this activity with the helicopter going in or with the people
getting off of the helicopter and engaging in a fight.
My impression right now is that when they got off the helicopter, they in
fact came under -- came in contact with the enemy immediately, and I think we should leave
it that way until we have a chance to get they precise facts from the people who were
there on the ground.
Q General,
Mark Mazetti (ph) with U.S. News and World Report. Wondering if you'd go into a little bit
of detail about what you've seen the enemy doing. Have
they all decided to stay and fight, or have some tried to flee? And if so, have those that have tried to flee been
captured by U.S. or Afghan forces?
GEN. FRANKS: Some have in fact attempted to flee from one part
of this objective area, and they have been killed.
Q Have
any of those attempting to flee been captured?
GEN. FRANKS: As
I mentioned earlier, we have taken several detainees from this battlefield, and I'm not
ready yet to characterize whether they're al Qaeda or whether they're simply civilians who
were taken into custody during the operation. I'm
not sure right now. I will be sure in the next
12 hours.
Back to Tampa, please.
Q General,
there are some indications that the 6th Battalion or the 101st is going to be going to
Kuwait in the next several weeks. Is that in support of operations in Afghanistan, or is
that something else?
GEN. FRANKS: To
tell you the truth, I have not seen that. I
would suspect if that were the case with the 101st going in -- going into Kuwait, since
that's part of my area of responsibility as well, that I would know that. But now I say that sort of tongue in cheek, because
the United States Army does force rotations into the area.
We train in Kuwait, along with the Kuwaitis.
And so I would say, at this point, if there's an element of the 101st going
in there, it would be to flip-flop or to change with some unit that is in there training.
Yes, ma'am?
Q General,
I'm just wondering if you can share with us or characterize in any way the nature of the
fighting here. What you've described kind of
creates an image in my own mind, and I'm just wondering if you can describe it a little --
GEN. FRANKS: Tell
me about your image.
Q I
just have this notion that this is very close contact --
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q --
very dangerous, and when you factor in the terrain and the temperature --
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q --
things are very scary.
GEN. FRANKS: Okay. And I will -- I'll do this imperfectly, but I will
try to answer your question.
You really can't see it very well, but this side over here
is very high ground. These dark places up here
indicate ridge lines, high mountains. This is
where we see the elevation at 12,000 feet, perhaps a bit higher. We also see the same, but to a lesser altitude,
over here on the western side of this operation.
And the way this fight develops is that these groups of
the small groups -- as I said, perhaps five, perhaps 10, perhaps as -- in some places,
perhaps as many as 20 -- have rocket-propelled grenades.
They have mortar systems, these indirect fire systems that fire very high
altitude and then bring -- the munitions are not very large, but they have the effect of a
hand grenade, but larger than that -- very small bits of shrapnel.
And so my appreciation of this particular battlefield is
that these pockets of resistance -- some armed with RPGs, rocket-propelled grenades, some
armed with mortars, and some armed with machine guns and simply rifles, are in the crags,
the nooks, and the crannies of this high ground, and our forces are right in there, mixing
it up with them.
And so where we have seen the injuries -- in some cases,
the injuries have been from flying rocks.
In
other cases, the injuries have been small shards or small fragments from mortar rounds. And so it is that sort of close-in kind of combat
that our forces are engaged in now.
Back to the Pentagon, please.
Q General,
I'm Michael Gordon from the New York Times.
When this operation unfolded yesterday, it was described
to us that the Afghan forces had the principal fighting role, that the Americans were in
support and carrying out the blocking functions.
Now the way you're describing it today, the Americans are
doing the main fighting, and the Afghans are in the blocking positions. Have the roles
flipped over the last two days? Has there been
a change in the way this operation is unfolding? And
a related question: When you look at your
adversary, are you dealing with an enemy who's in disconnected and uncoordinated pockets
around Afghanistan, or are you dealing with a coherent military organization that's still
in communication with each other and has some sort of offensive strategy?
GEN. FRANKS: It's
very difficult to characterize whether they -- whether these forces -- the enemy forces
have -- have a strategy. Are they able to
communicate with one another? To be sure -- by
a whole variety of means -- in some cases, runners; in other cases, perhaps telephones. How coherent is the effort at communications
between the various groups? Not at all
certain. What we do is, we watch that -- we watch that carefully, and that's the reason
that I've said that there may well be additional pockets inside Afghanistan that we'll
surely go into.
I do -- I don't think it would be correct to say at this
point that large forces are being brought together for some major effort -- enemy forces. But at the same time I say that, I'd be very quick
to point out that it's possible for a very small group of enemy forces to undertake
operations that are anti-interim government Afghanistan or that are anti-our coalition
effort in there. And so it should not surprise
any of us that these small groups of very hard-core fighters would attack our people and
attempt to destabilize the interim government inside Afghanistan.
So I would not be at all surprised by that. And again, let me ask you to go back and repeat
your first question.
Q Yesterday
it was described to us that the Afghans had the main role.
The Americans were in a supporting role, a blocking role. Now it seems to be
the reverse. What's changed, and/or how has
this operation unfolded? When did the
Americans assume the principal combat role?
GEN. FRANKS: It
-- actually, it's eye of the beholder. And we
have -- we have Afghan forces, in fact, who have moved into this fight. It sort of depends on how one characterizes
"blocking position." We see Afghan
forces in blocking positions; we have also seen one Afghan force -- and I won't describe
which one -- in a movement-contact operation. The
effort has not flip-flopped one way or another; it's only a matter of -- in my description
-- at which point Afghan forces become blocking forces.
As I think you know, the earliest
casualties that we took when we had our Army warrant officer killed in action was with one
of the Afghan forces, and they were moving to contact for the purpose of getting
themselves into positions to be able to be part of this operation. And so were one to talk to that particular force,
then it's possible that he would say, "Well, now, wait a minute, the Americans are
blocking and we're moving." The character
of the operation has not changed. We see
Americans involved in offensive operations, we see Afghans involved in blocking
operations. We have also -- and it's correct
to point it out -- seen an Afghan unit in a movement to contact operation against enemy
forces.
Is that reasonably clear enough? Because if it isn't, then I'll pause and try to
give you a better answer.
Q Sir,
Tony Cappacio with Bloomberg News. I had a
couple questions on the helicopter issue. Can
you give us a sense of how many helicopters had actually brought in troops, infiltrated,
exfiltrated, before the two attacks, so we have a sense of context? And also, you said the
first group had only been exfiltrated in the last several hours. Was there a rescue conducted under gunfire for
several hours? There was an impression here
that those men were trapped until rescued.
GEN. FRANKS: With
regard to the number of helicopters, I really can't give you a number. Let me just say a great many helicopters have been
moving into and out of this area, repositioning and resupplying forces in the area. And so the two that I've -- that you and I are
talking about are only two of a large number of helicopters that have been moving in and
around this area and providing support.
The way the fight has gone on the ground with this, when
the helicopter went back in and brought the quick reaction force, if you will, for the
purpose of going back into this reconnaissance area to pick up the one trooper that had
fallen out of the helicopter, when that was done, that force, in fact, came under intense
hostile fire, as I described it earlier. That
force secured the ground, secured the helicopter, and we put in place a search and rescue
operation which in fact was conducted, conducted successfully. I watched the operation as it went in. But I have not talked to the people who were
involved in the operation, and so I do not have a sense of whether the extraction
operation was under enemy fire or not. My
thought right now is that it was not, based on what I saw, and that operation was
successfully completed only a few hours ago.
Q
General --
GEN. FRANKS: Last
question, Tampa.
Q Oh.
Q We're
five months into this now, and I know you said we're getting into a very dangerous phase
of this operation.
GEN. FRANKS: Right.
Q Can
you give us any sense -- I know you've said you don't want to get into time frames, but
any sense so that people -- how long you think Operation Anaconda will last?
GEN. FRANKS: Operation
Anaconda is going -- as I said, is going very, very well.
The reason that I won't give you an estimated duration of it is not that I
know and simply won't give it to you; we're simply not sure, because, as our forces
continue to operate inside Objective Remington, we're not precisely sure where they may
come up against additional hostile forces. And
when they come up against enemy forces, they will not rush to judgment. We'll use all the tools at our disposal in order to
kill the enemy that they encounter. And so I
think it just wouldn't be right for me to say, "Well, gosh, you know, one more day or
three more days," because we're just not sure.
Q General,
one last follow-up. In your opening remarks --
I'm not trying to keep you here -- but you --
GEN. FRANKS: That's
okay.
Q --
you said the ongoing conflict in Vietnam, not Afghanistan.
GEN. FRANKS: Oh.
Q And
I'm wondering if there was something about this day or the sense that this had sparked a
memory or if there was some --
GEN. FRANKS: Yeah,
absolutely not. I guess it just comes with
being an old guy. Afghanistan, not Vietnam. I appreciate the correction. Vietnam was a long, long time ago, and not at all
like what we're seeing now.
So -- okay. Thanks
very much.
####
END
