29 October 2002
Defense Department Briefing Transcript
(War on Terror/view of al Qaeda,
Afghanistan/security/reconstruction/arms confiscation/poppy
crop/detainees, Iraq/threat/smuggling, CENTCOM/regional exercise
"Internal Look," Djibouti/U.S. forces) (5930)
Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander, U.S. Central Command, briefed
reporters at the Pentagon October 29.
Following is a transcript:
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense News Transcript
Presenter: General Tommy Franks, commander, U.S. Central Command
October 29, 2002
Franks: Good afternoon. How are you doing?
Q: Sorry you lost your title, General.
Franks: Sad thing, isn't it? (Soft laughter.)
Q: (Laughs.) We were just laughing about that.
Franks: Well, as you know, we remain active in the global war on
terrorism. Certainly the United States Central Command is engaged in
that, has been, will continue to be. Seventy countries involved in
supporting our efforts, as we speak today; 27 of those countries
actively represented inside Afghanistan; 43 of those countries with
liaison elements at our headquarters down in Tampa.
The mission remains as it has been, and that is to hunt down and
destroy terrorist cells inside Afghanistan, to work with the
transitional government in that country in order to prevent the
reintroduction of would-be terrorist activity into Afghanistan,
continue to train the Afghan National Army, continue to work with
Afghans to help them build a defense organization.
As I speak today, we are working with several hundred nongovernmental
organizations inside that country. More than 5,500 offices and
projects are ongoing in the country of Afghanistan as we speak. Almost
600,000 metric tons of food and humanitarian assistance have been
delivered to the Afghan people. Literally thousands of pieces of mines
and unexploded ordnance have been picked up and destroyed in
Afghanistan. More than 140,000 civilians have been treated by
coalition hospitals in that country. And as Secretary Rumsfeld has
said on a number of occasions, more than 2 million people have
returned to their homes in Afghanistan.
But a lot remains to be done. It's not over. Very, very dangerous
environment. Uneven environment. We see senses of security and
stability in some parts of Afghanistan, and we see ethnic and tribal
issues in other parts of Afghanistan, so we just have to keep working.
The coalition that's been assembled is committed to doing just exactly
that. And I think it serves us all from time to time to remind
ourselves that the troopers and the sailors and the airmen from all
these nations who are involved in that activity deserve our respect.
And so I give them that respect, and I know you do, too. They're
serving our nation and they're serving their own nations very well.
I'll stop with that, and I'd be pleased to take your questions.
Q: General, realizing the president has made no decision on Iraq --
(inaudible) -- there has been much speculation on when you, as the
commander, would be ready to go to war with Iraq if ordered.
Could you tell us, at least, given the vast improvements that you have
in transportation now since the Gulf War, that if ordered, if ordered
to get a very large number of troops to the region, the Gulf region,
within -- let's say 100,000 troops; could you do it within weeks
instead of -- instead of months, like it took you before? How quickly
could you get a very large number of troops to the Gulf?
Franks: Thanks a lot -- thanks a lot for the question. Let me say what
you started your question with, and that is the president of the
United States has not made a decision to use military force in Iraq.
Our capabilities -- in fact, in a lot of areas, are much improved over
what we saw 11 months ago.
With respect to what we have the ability to do in my region, I think
Secretary Rumsfeld and a number of others have said on a number of
occasions that we're prepared to do what the president of the United
States tells us to do. In fact, that's what our planning activity is
all about. And with respect to the numbers of troops -- may be large,
may be small; may be fast, may be slow -- all of these represent
combinations and permutations that deserve study, and that's what our
business, as the planning headquarters, is all about. And I don't
think it would serve me or the country well at all for me to talk
about the specifics of what we believe our delivery time lines would
be, and so I won't do that with you today.
Yes, sir?
Q: General, other than the thrill of being with us, what brings you
here today?
And a second question, if I may. The former head of the Mossad is
saying publicly that we're now in World War III, that World War III
has started. And considering 9/11, and considering the fact that the
United States and its allies are in a worldwide war against terror, is
he correct in that statement?
Franks: Second question first. I don't know. I think we recognize that
we live in -- that we live in dangerous times. I think if you take a
look at defense planning guidance -- which obviously is outside my
lane -- you'll find that we talk about capabilities basing; we talk
about preparing ourselves to meet the uncertainties of the future. We
recognize that there are uncertainties. Planning headquarters, like
mine and European Command, Pacific Command and so forth, work to think
about these possibilities, work to think about what the regional
footprints of American force ought to be, what capabilities we may
want to generate.
And then I'll close back in on the -- sort of the initial comment, and
that is to say we have to get better and we have to think a lot,
through capabilities, about how to react to the unexpected. Are we in
the beginning of some other phase of human history or a world war or
something? I can't give you a better answer than that.
With regard to why I'm in Washington, actually, every week or two I'll
come to Washington in order to talk to the secretary; talk to him
about my region, which certainly includes Iraq; talk to him about what
we have going on with everything from the International Security
Assistance Force in Afghanistan to what we're doing in Operation
Enduring Freedom. And so that was the purpose of this trip up here. I
just got back from the region last week, and he asked that I come up
and share the insights that I'd gained during that trip.
Sir? Please.
Q: Foreign Minister Abdullah said recently that he viewed the next
several months as absolutely critical to the future of Afghanistan;
that if they didn't get a fairly large infusion of money, there was a
danger that the government might not be able to survive, that it might
not be able to provide what it needs to.
I realize you're not in charge of the money, but in your perspective
there, how do you see the new few months and what do you see
happening?
Franks: I think we've talked a lot about resources. And you know,
there was a point maybe two or so months ago where we talked about the
need to improve security in Afghanistan, and we talked about the need
for some rebuilding and infrastructure work to take place in
Afghanistan. And so then we had this debate about what is most
important. Is it that we have to establish security so that we can
handle reconstruction, or does reconstruction have to begin so that we
can, in fact, enlarge the security that we see in Afghanistan right
now?
We have had all along concern that the funding that was promised or
pledged back during the Tokyo conference, the 4-plus billion dollars,
should begin to -- you know, should begin to show up, so that the
people in Afghanistan can not only hear the words of the transitional
government but also can begin to see the tangible benefit of road
construction, wells, schools, hospitals, medical facilities,
veterinary clinics and so forth.
I'm a bit heartened recently because we have started to see some of
this money show up, and we have started to see some of these projects
take place. I mentioned the more than 5,000 projects and
nongovernmental sorts of offices that we see operating all over
Afghanistan. It's a very, very good thing.
Let me be quick to say that you also find, however, a very uneven
situation in Afghanistan. There are places in Afghanistan that I think
are very, very secure, and of course those become magnets to a lot of
nongovernmental activity. I mean, if we're more secure, then that's a
place where we feel like we can take NGOs and do a lot of work. The
places where security is less sure, then there is a bit more
reluctance -- and it's probably obvious to everyone -- to go into
those areas to do the work which some of us would say is necessary to
rebuild the infrastructure and so forth, in order to permit the
security to improve.
Reasonably circuitous answer to a very good question. That's what
we're all about in there right now.
Q: To follow up on that, could you talk about what you're doing with
confiscated arms and ammunition in Afghanistan? Are any caches going
to local militia leaders and warlords? And if so, does that undermine
efforts to build a viable and strong Afghan National Army?
Franks: Right. The policy that we have and the policy that we have had
-- it's not new -- is to bring these captured munitions and weapons to
the Afghan National Army for the purpose that you describe. And that
is so that we can provide the central government with a capability to
provide for security of Afghanistan, as one would expect. It is also
true, however, that on a number of occasions what you might call local
militia -- I don't use the term "warlord". But there are Afghan forces
which work with our forces inside Afghanistan, as they have since the
very early days of this -- I mean, they work hand in glove, literally
side by side. And on several occasions, weapons which have been taken
from weapons caches have been used, some of the weapons and ammunition
which has been taken from weapon caches have been used by those Afghan
troops who are providing force protection to our own troops.
And so, you bet, what we want to do is we want to use these munitions
and weapons for the Afghan national army. But candidly, there have
been several occasions where people on the ground said, Well, okay,
the man who is providing force protection for me is using a not-good
weapon. And it made sense to him to hand over one of these weapons out
of a cache to that troop. And so what's been reported is accurate, but
the policy remains what it has been, and that's to use these munitions
and weapons for the Afghan national army.
Please.
Q: Still with Afghanistan, you said earlier in your remarks that all
the different nations participating deserve the respect and support of
the United States. Could you specifically address the performance of
the Australians in Afghanistan? There's been some complaint of their
behavior, and that the Afghans, who don't always distinguish between
the various English-speaking troops, are attributing the Australian
troops' behavior to Americans.
Franks: The Afghans, in fact, respect what the Australians have done
as well as they respect what the Americans and a whole bunch of other
nations have done. The Australians have been with us from the
beginning up until right now. And they remain committed to working
alongside us. And so I -- the short answer is that I very much respect
the Australian contribution, and I think they're doing a great job.
Sir.
Q: General, two questions. First, three recent episodes -- the sniper
in Kuwait, the attack on the French tanker, and the Bali massacre --
that have led to a lot of talk about the reconstitution of al Qaeda,
what is it that you are seeing in the region, in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, that suggests pro or con on that question, and what is being
done to confront it?
Question two: we heard yesterday that more detainees are likely to be
sent to Guantanamo in the near future. What is the status of detainee
operations in Afghanistan, who are you finding, and are any of those
shedding light on the subject of reconstitution of al Qaeda?
Franks: Detainee operations inside Afghanistan, we do -- we do
maintain a detention facility inside Afghanistan, as we have in the
past. I think at one point we had perhaps two -- one in Kandahar, one
up in the vicinity of Kabul at Bagram air base. Now we use one that is
up in the vicinity of Bagram. I didn't look this morning, but I
suspect that the number of detainees there is between 20 and 30, as of
today.
We just shipped about -- between 20 and 25 to Guantanamo Bay over the
last few days. That number is reasonably stable. If my memory serves,
that number of 20 to 30 that we have -- detainees that we have in
Bagram probably represents between six and 10 nations in terms of the
nationality of those detainees. One finds a mixed bag in that.
I think it's not a stretch to say if you go out on a military
operation and you see -- and you see people who are acting in a
strange way, or you see people who are using threatening gestures with
weapons, or if you receive some intelligence reporting that indicates
that a compound, for example, should be searched, when our troops go
and search that compound, in some cases they will find things like
travel documents, they will find things like communications devices.
When our people find something like that, then that indicates one of
two things. It indicates either a direct affiliation with non-Afghan
nationalities in that country, or it indicates someone's trying to
make money out of that, and preparing travel documents and so forth.
In every case, those people are detained so that we can determine
which of those two categories they fall in. And yes, we do continue to
get meaningful information on al Qaeda, as well as the structure of
the old Taliban inside Afghanistan.
So yes, they continue to have use for us.
Q: And the first question about these three episodes leading to the
talk about reconstitution.
Franks: Yeah. My overall take -- yeah, my overall take is that if you
-- you have to start by backing away from Afghanistan. Look at the
60-plus countries where we have said for a long time that we see al
Qaeda and terrorist organizations with global reach trying to conduct
operations. We continue to see -- and I think George Tenet made
reference to it the other day -- operations on that sort of global
scale by terrorists with global reach.
If you then localize from that down into my area of responsibility,
there certainly are fewer al Qaeda in Afghanistan today than there
were there a year ago. Some of those al Qaeda have gone to other
places around the world. Some of them doubtless are inside Pakistan.
President Musharraf continues to work the Pakistanis very hard to get
after the cells that he sees inside Pakistan. And I think you're
familiar with recent raids in the vicinity of Peshawar, over around
Karachi, where the Pakistanis have done a good job taking those down.
Now, if you take both ends of that spectrum, from the very large
global view down to what we're seeing in Afghanistan, what it says to
me is that these terrorist organizations retain capacity; they are
capable. We should continue to be vigilant, to include in our own
country. We should pay attention. We should continue law enforcement
and military operations to continue to run them down and rout them
out. We find a lot of places where we've had some success in doing
that. But once again, a lot of work remains to be done.
Best I can do.
Sir?
Q: You have a very impressive list of accomplishments in Afghanistan.
One of the things --
Franks: I see it coming. (Laughter.)
Q: -- that is happening in Afghanistan that you have not talked about,
that is one of the underpinnings of the economy -- Afghanistan has
returned to the number-one position as a producer and exporter of
heroin. It underpins many of the warlords or militia heads that you
and the government of Afghanistan is trying to work with. How is the
U.S. dealing with this? Is it a complex set of dealings, because to
squash it, we'll also be squashing some of the people who you need the
most?
Franks: It is complex. The drug issue on its face is quite simple, and
that is that a drug-exporting economy is helpful and healthy neither
for the occupants of the country -- in this case the Afghans -- nor
for those around the world who receive the product -- in this case
heroin and poppy-based sort of product.
Deeper than that, we have generations worth of Afghans who have made
their living either by growing, as a farmer, growing this product, or
by processing it, or by transporting it and selling it. And so if one
is to deal with that, then there are going to be, I think, not -- not
a simple set of solutions to that particular problem.
At the end of the day, the solution is going to come from the Afghan
government. At the end of the day, the solution is going to come by
the people in Afghanistan choosing to take a different course of
action. The specifics of each of the approaches to interdiction of
growth, to interdiction of transportation, interdiction of sales and
so forth are issues that I'm not competent to stand here because of
the magnitude of agencies and nations, as part of the coalition, who
are involved in assisting the Afghan national government to come to
grips with the problem. So, complex problem, long ways to go to solve
it.
Q: Sounds like, from a military perspective anyway, you are stepping
aside and letting the local forces go as they will and doing nothing.
Franks: From the military perspective, the job that we have in
Afghanistan is the destruction of terrorist organizations with global
reach.
Is there capability to do a great many things? Of course there's
capability to do a great many things. But there are some things that
the military forces of the United States of America are especially
good at, and there are other things that the militaries of other
coalition countries can provide equal capacity. And so we'll continue
to balance the work done by coalition members, the international
community, with the work where we focus our attention, which is on the
destruction of terrorism in order to take care of our own country and
assist our friends internationally in taking care of themselves in the
face of terrorism.
Sir?
Q: General Franks, President Bush and Secretary Powell and others have
said in the last few days that if there is no U.N. -- satisfactory
U.N. resolution in the next few days, perhaps by the end of next week,
that the United States should be prepared for some fundamental
decisions about taking action with a coalition of the willing. From a
-- from your point of view, from a practical operational perspective,
how different, how much more difficult would it be to carry out
military action without a U.N. resolution?
Franks: I think it's difficult to give you a straight-up, honest
answer. The preference is to work with the international community in
order to solve the problem of the regime in Iraq, a problem that
potentially represents the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and
terrorism. The best case for us is to be able -- as the president
carried the case back in September to the United Nations, to be able
to build our force list, our coalition, based on work by the Security
Council within their charter. And so our country is working very, very
hard every day to do that.
I think the one thing that is not fully appreciated is the depth of
commitment of nations around this world to -- their depth of
commitment to the notion that the regime in Baghdad is not helpful,
either within the region or around the world; that the threat is
present, that the threat is growing.
In terms of how many nations would join the coalition, I don't know.
And I have to leave it at that. I will say that my sense, visiting the
region -- and I mentioned that I had just come back -- my sense is
that we have a great many friends, partners and allies who see the
situation the same way we do. And I'll leave it at that.
Q: With or without a U.N. resolution.
Q: Talking about that nexus, we haven't really heard from you on your
views about that nexus. In other words, what ties do you see in Iraq
with terrorist groups between the weapons of mass destruction and the
link specifically to al Qaeda? Do you believe there is a link between
the two? Do you see irrefutable evidence that there are ties between
the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaeda?
Franks: Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism. Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction. The linkages between the government of Iraq and other
transnational terrorist organizations like al Qaeda is not the issue
with me. The issue is the potential of a state with weapons of mass
destruction, passing those weapons of mass destruction to proven
terrorist capability. And I believe that that risk exists, yes ma'am.
Q: But more specifically, do you actually see a nexus between the
Saddam Hussein regime and the al Qaeda? Do you believe they have been
in communication, do you believe there have been al Qaeda members
inside Iraq with government approval operating in the country with al
Qaeda active in Iraq?
Franks: Barbara, I have seen an awful lot of speculation about whether
there have been direct links between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda,
and I just simply won't enter into the speculation. It is not helpful
-- it's not helpful for me to join in that debate by saying that I
have either seen one or five or 55 pieces of intelligence that would
indicate to me that there is a linkage. And so, that's why I tried to
tell you that it actually doesn't make any difference whether it's al
Qaeda, or whether it is other terrorist capability. The fact is that
the nexus of state sponsorship with terrorists and weapons of mass
destruction is a present and growing danger to the international
community. And so, that's why I prefer to keep my focus.
Sir?
Q: Can you give a speculation?
Q: There was a report in this morning's New York Times that the
coalition naval forces believe they are catching about 90 percent of
the oil being smuggled from Iraq to the Persian Gulf. When did that
reversal take place? It's a marked change from this time last year.
And are you taking similar measures to overland smuggling, which has
been a major problem in the past?
Franks: What you see when you look at oil being smuggled out of Iraq
is, as you suggested, you obviously get it going a couple of ways. You
get it going overland, and you get it going by sea. Actually, the
maritime interdiction operations have for quite a while been
reasonably effective. They were less effective when Iranian
territorial waters were somewhat open to Iraqi smugglers to be able to
come out of the Khor Abdullah or the Shatt-al-Arab, and then move
through Iranian waters and so forth. The Iranians have taken a hard
stand there now.
And so what that means is, whatever is coming out of Iraq now is
coming out into open water, and that makes it possible for coalition
naval assets -- note the word coalition naval assets -- to be able to
stop, you know, to challenge and to take a look, to see what's there.
And so in fact, of the oil that would like to be smuggled out of Iraq
using the Northern Arabian Gulf, pretty successful -- we're pretty
successful with that.
I think you're continuing to see a variety of oil leave by way of
pipeline and by way of trucks over ground routes coming out of Iraq,
and so -- not as successful there.
Sir?
Q: General, could you talk in some detail about the planning for
Internal Look, as to what the dates are or what -- the elements of the
groups that are going with you and the possibility of you staying
longer than just for the exercise?
Franks: The exercise can be, I guess, defined in a couple of ways. The
amount of time that I will be associated with the exercise will be a
week, 10 days, and it will be in the early December time frame. And it
will be in a number of countries over in the region. If you back away
from that specific exercise period and look to the deployment part
that goes on before it and the cleaning-up part that goes on after it,
it may well last a month to six weeks. And so if you scope it sort of
in the late fall, early winter time frame, with that early period in
December as the actual timing of the exercise, then you'd be pretty
close.
Now, what's it all about? Unified commands, combatant commands in our
country have not, by and large, had deployable command and control
capabilities like their smaller formations have had for a long, long
time. We call them TOCs -- tactical operations centers. Well, over the
last year Central Command has built a deployable command and control
capability. And what that actually means is containers of
communications gear, very large communications pipes that we're able
to put in the back of an airplane, fly it a long ways, land it on the
ground and then set up a command and control complex.
This Internal Look exercise gives us the opportunity to deploy that
command post. It takes about 600 to a thousand people to operate it.
And the purpose of it is command, control, communications, to be sure
that we have the right bandwidth lined up, to be sure that we can talk
to our components -- by that I mean air component, land component,
maritime component, and special operations component. And so that's
the piece that will be exercised in early December over in our region.
It's no more than that, it's no less. Does it give us increased
capability? You bet. It gives us increased capability. How long will
it be there? Well, we'll make that decision when the time comes.
Q: You mentioned it involves several countries. In what way, and what
are the countries you're talking about?
Franks: Yeah. It involves several countries because the footprint of
U.S. forces over in my region right now is found in several countries.
We have subordinate commands in a number of places in the region.
Q: You're talking about communicating with those forces, is what
you're talking about.
Franks: Sure. Sure. The linkages. And the linkages with our home
command in Tampa. We'll have all that lashed up together.
Yes, ma'am.
Q: Sir, in your opening statement you mentioned all this humanitarian
improvement that's going on in Afghanistan.
Franks: Right.
Q: Can you explain some specific instances of things that you've seen
that have changed between visits that you've made over there that you
consider are particularly heartening?
Franks: Well, I actually haven't counted. But I probably have been in
Afghanistan somewhere between 10 and 15 times over the past 12 months.
My first visits to Afghanistan had no children on the street. Now one
sees children on the street carrying books. And when you follow the
children, you find the children go into schools that didn't exist a
year ago. And when you follow the female children, the little girls,
then you find they're going to school. And they hadn't done that
before. When you're able to walk into a hospital in Kabul that eight
months ago was completely falling down and had absolutely no
capability to provide medical assistance to anyone and you find that
that hospital is now not only treating civilians, it's actually
treating women who, during the period of the Taliban, were unable to
receive medical treatment because females were not permitted to be
seen by male doctors, and there were no female doctors. When one
drives through the streets in Kabul or in Mazur-e Sharif or in
Kandahar or in Herat now, one sees children flying kites. One hears
music.
Now, that's all very, very positive. It does not mean -- it does not
mean -- that we don't still see fractious behavior by some of these
ethnic and tribal groups, with which all of you are very familiar,
because we do. Everything is not all calm and peaceful, and there's a
lot of work to be done in Afghanistan, and it's going to keep going on
for a long time.
Sir?
Q: General, back to Internal Look. General Myers said some time ago
that there's a possibility, in fact, likelihood -- the way he put it
-- that some of the command staff that go over for Internal Look will
actually stay. Is that your supposition, that some of those people
will stay there?
Franks: I think -- I think General Dick Myers' comment was in the
category of "could." If you look at our footprint in the region -- and
you're all aware of this -- we have had, over the last 12 months, 10
or 15 or 20 different footprints. And when we have this deployable
command post established forward, then we have a couple of options.
One is we can pack it all up and we can bring it back to Tampa -- and
we might. Another one is that we could leave it there and leave some
people with it, to include some staff officers. That's a possibility.
Another is we could leave it there, bring the staff officers home and
leave a caretaker detachment with it. And actually, we haven't decided
yet which of those courses we'll take.
And you and I both could speculate about well, if we see this, then I
bet you're going to keep these people there, and if you see something
else, then I'll bet you'll bring them home. And so we'll just wait and
see how it turns out.
Ma'am?
Q: General, there's been some discussion of sending additional forces
to the Horn of Africa. Have you seen -- is there some indication of
more al Qaeda fleeing to the region? What would be the rationale for
sending more forces?
Franks: In fact, we do have more forces in that region, down around
Djibouti. If you look at the global war on terrorism, then what you
see, that we said a long time ago, we said a long time ago, first off
we're going to rout the terrorists out of Afghanistan and get rid of
the Taliban. We also said that there are going to be some friendly
nations and we're going to want to work with them in order to help
them help themselves get over the terrorist problem. And we also said
it may be necessary from time to time to coerce others to get rid of
the terrorist problem.
Well, as we have better refined and defined our relationships and what
we're looking at, it seems to make sense to us to put this capability
-- Marine capability -- in the vicinity of Djibouti to work with
countries in the Horn of Africa. But you can see a lot of things in
that. You can see, well, it's tied to the global war on terrorism --
and for sure it is. But you also know that we have security
relationships or engagement opportunities -- however you choose to
think about them -- in a great many countries in the Horn of Africa:
Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Yemen. And so having that force
there gives us the ability to increase our exercise work with all
those nations. And so the answer is, it's all of the above.
Last question.
Q: How big a force?
Q: General, before she gives you the hook, there has been some
speculation that if we do go to war with Iraq and we're going to stay
for a while, there will be a military commander. And your name has
been mentioned. Would you take the job if the president asked you to?
Franks: (Chuckles.) I think anyone who serves this country in this
uniform always has to be, one, very respectful to the Constitution of
the country and, two, very respectful to the commander in chief of the
country. And so the -- no one has suggested to me that that
eventuality might come to pass. I saw the speculation. I simply
grinned about it, and we moved on.
The president has not made a decision about what to do in Iraq. And so
since he hasn't made a decision, I sure don't know about it, and I
wouldn't want to speculate about what might happen next.
Franks: And sir, back to you, the question is 7(00) to 800.
Q: Seven to eight hundred Marines.
Q: General, just one more brief one --
Q: In Djibouti or based in Eritrea?
Franks: No, they're based in Djibouti. They're not based in Eritrea.
Some are ashore and some are afloat. We have an afloat command and
control capability that we move around, and so one may well see that
afloat capability.
The duration has not been -- (inaudible) --
Q: General, General, could we ask you just very briefly about the
friendly fire incident on March 2nd southeast of Gardez? Has there
been any determination on the AC-130 gunship --
Q: Can you go back to the microphone, sir, for -- (off mike)?
Franks: Sure. Yes. Yes, Barbara, I will. (Laughter.)
Okay, no joke, no kidding. Last question.
I was told by -- in an article Eric wrote that that investigation had
been completed. I have not yet seen that investigation. When I saw
Eric's article, I asked my people, "Where is it? When am I going to
see it?" And the reason I haven't seen it is because there are
classified pieces in that because of the tactics, techniques and
procedures we use with AC-130 gunships.
Before that is brought to conclusion, the desire was to have all the
classified information, you know, taken out, redacted, so that we
could put together an appropriate, open, public release.
So that is where it stands right now. It has not yet been given by my
lawyers to me, but it has been given by the investigators to my
lawyers. And so that's where it stands right now.
Q: And you would give the final stamp on it?
Franks: I will give the final stamp on it.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Thanks for coming. Come back and see us.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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