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U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Transcript

DEFENSE SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: At ease. At ease. Relax. Thank you. (Speaks in Italian.) It's nice to be introduced by an Italian.

I really wanted to stop by here in order to thank all of you for a great job. Sigonella was extremely important to the mission that was conducted in Libya. And all of you know the tremendous role that was played by each of you in that mission.

I just -- this is a trip that has taken me to a lot of parts of the world. It started off in Israel, went to Egypt. I've spent the last two days at a ministerial meeting at -- in Brussels, where NATO was coming together to talk about the Libya mission, talk about Afghanistan, and talk about some other areas. But there was a tremendous focus on Libya.

And I think there's no question that there was a consensus around that table that NATO really proved itself in this mission. And I have to tell you that at the time this mission was embarked on, there were a lot of critics about whether it was -- whether it was the right mission at the right time, the right force, whether NATO could do the job. There were an awful lot of questions about the mission overall. I think the critics have really been proven wrong.

NATO came together effectively, came together quickly. The operations were put together effectively. This was a complicated mission; there's no question about it -- the development of targets, the ability to lay those targets out, allow fighters to be able to go in and get them, the use of Global Hawks like the one behind me, the use of Predators, which is something I was very familiar with in my past job, the ability to be able to go out and do the intelligence that you have to have in order to develop those target sets, and then, of course, the tremendous skill of the fighters and everybody associated with those fighter planes out there that really hit the targets. My understanding is that somewhere around 4,000 sorties were conducted out of Sigonella, and that's tremendous.

So my deepest thanks to all of you, all of you, regardless of country, regardless of where you come from. You deserve a tremendous amount of thanks for your service, for your bravery, for your courage, for your dedication, and for the way you did this mission.

It was -- it's something I think all of you can be proud of, that in the end, as a result of your efforts, people who were trying to achieve some degree of self-representation, some degree of hope, some degree of opportunity, some chance to be able to enjoy some of the freedoms that we enjoy, some chance to be able to enjoy some kind of economic opportunity, political opportunity in a country, they're going to have a chance as a result of what you did and hopefully establish a democracy for the future.

There's a lot of work that remains to be done. It's not an easy task. But I think all of you, in your own way, have contributed to a tremendous success story in this region. And I thank you for that.

I want to also in particular since I'm Italian, thank the Italians for allowing us to have the use of this tremendous base. (Speaks in Italian.) They really have provided -- between this base and the operations out of Naples, between some of the other bases that we have here, Italy really performed a tremendous role in supporting this mission. And I just want to personally thank Italy and the Italians for that kind of support.

But, then again, I want to thank all the countries that were involved. This was truly a NATO mission -- (inaudible). I wish all of you had a chance to be in Brussels with me and sit at that table and look around the table at the different countries that were part of it. It wasn't just the NATO countries that were there. It was a lot of other partners that joined us in this effort -- Arab countries, countries from other parts of the world; the Swedes, the Qataris, UAE. I mean, I could just go on and on.

This was truly a coalition effort, and it was remarkable. And I have to tell you, at a time when all countries are facing budget constrictions, the ability to have a strong NATO coalition that can share these capabilities, share these kinds of efforts, is going to be very important to our ability to meet the threats of the future.

So thank you very much for the service you provided. Thank you for this mission. I think that not just the United States, but all of the countries of NATO owe all of you a great thanks for your service. And in some small way, you have contributed to keeping our country and our world safer and more secure for our children. And there can be no greater mission than making the world safer, and you've done that.

Thanks again for all of your service. Let me get a chance to meet each of you, and I'll give you a coin and express my personal thanks for what you did in accomplishing this mission. Thank you, guys. (Applause.)

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4898