Pentagon Spokesman's Briefing
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REGULAR BRIEFING
BRIEFER: REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG QUIGLEY, USN
PENTAGON BRIEFING ROOM, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
Thursday, April 5, 2001 - 1:45 p.m. EDT
Q: Craig, do you know whether the members of the crew of the airplane
in Hainan Island have been either questioned or interrogated by the
Chinese? And what are the guidelines for those crew members to respond
to questions from the Chinese? What kind of information can they --
Quigley: Well, I can't go any further, I guess, in answer to the first
part. We don't know. You can - the Chinese have stated that they
intend to conduct an investigation of their own into the accident, and
I don't think it would be a big surprise that the crew of the EP-3
would be interviewed. But again, without an ability to talk directly
to the crew and ask them about that, it's --
Q: Well there was - excuse me. On, I think it was Tuesday, there was
a direct conversation with the crew. Was that not addressed, whether
they had been questioned?
Quigley: It's my understanding that was not addressed during that
time, yeah, that 40 minutes.
Yeah?
Q: What can you tell us about how the two planes were flying? Was the
Chinese fighter jet flying actually underneath the EP-3? And did the
EP-3 veer to one side?
Quigley: A lot of these questions are going to have the same answer to
them, and that's something that we really need to talk to the aircrew
about in considerable detail. We are just not in as good a position as
the aircrew themselves, of course, to understand exactly what happened
to cause the accident. So that's a conversation that's got to happen
first.
Q: Have there been any more EP-3 flights since this accident happened?
Quigley: I'm not going to get into any of our reconnaissance or
surveillance flight activity before or since.
Q: Craig?
Quigley: Ivan?
Q: As sort of a follow-on to that, Senator Lugar implied that the
Chinese pilot that hit or at least collided with our plane was a hot
dog, so to speak - my words, not his - that he had harassed this
plane before, on previous missions. Can you expand on that a little
bit? How many times did it happen? Were the missions comparable? What
did he do before?
Quigley: Well, there have been instances in the last few months of
times where we have felt that the Chinese fighter aircraft that came
out to intercept our surveillance and reconnaissance flights got too
close, and we let the Chinese know that in communications with them.
But as far as the specific identity of those pilots, I don't know.
Alex?
Q: In '98 the U.S. and China, under then-Secretary of Defense Cohen,
signed a military consultative agreement that he said at the time was
designed to help avoid misunderstandings on the air and the sea. Are
there provisions of that agreement, perhaps, that provide for a joint
investigation of this type of an incident, or other aspects of that
agreement that come into play?
Quigley: It was signed in January of '98, as a matter of fact, so
three years ago and a little. And it is designed to construct a
framework whereby you can work out issues between China and the United
States of both maritime and aviation rules. There are - we can
provide copies of the agreement to you after the brief, if you wish.
It's fairly short. It's like four pages long. [The agreement is on the
Web at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2001/d20010405agreement.pdf
].
But it is designed specifically to both create a framework that
existed as of January '98, and to provide a construct for the future
resolution of issues as they arise over time. So that's its purpose,
and it is indeed in force.
Bill?
Q: Have the Chinese lived up to the provisions of that agreement, or
have they violated it involving this incident?
Quigley: I don't know.
Yeah?
Q: Does it include a provision for --
Q: Admiral, there are reports indicating that Lieutenant Shane Osborn
was the pilot of the EP-3. Can you confirm or deny those?
Quigley: I don't know the specific positions. Now we've released the
names of the 24 crewmembers, but I don't know the positions of any one
of them in that group. I'm sorry.
Tom?
Q: Can you say whether all the crew members, including the enlisted
guys, who would have been at the back of the plane, had received SERE
[survival, evasion, resistance, escape] training and what that
training would have instructed them to do with respect to withstanding
interrogation?
Quigley: No, I don't know if they have or not.
Bill?
Q: Do you know the conditions of their incarceration that - I've
heard that the senior-most officer has been separated out, which may
be an indication that they might try to hold him responsible for --
somehow for this mishap.
Quigley: No, I don't think we know that.
Q: Do we have a sense of how much equipment the crew was able to
destroy before landing?
Quigley: No. I mean, again, as I mentioned Tuesday, you have
procedures that the crews of aircraft, ships and submarines are
trained to do emergency destruction of their prioritized, classified
sorts of equipments. How much of that they got through, again, we need
to talk to them directly to ascertain that. [The transcript of
Tuesday's brief is on the Web at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2001/t04032001_t403dasd.html ]
Pam?
Q: What can you tell us about the interview - the 40 minutes? You
give me 40 minutes with those guys, I'd get the whole story. What did
you find out?
Quigley: Well, the readout given to me was, first and foremost, to
ascertain their health and make sure that, in fact, none of the 24
were injured, that they were in good health; and they appeared to have
not been mistreated in any way. They had some routine comfort items:
deodorant, toothpaste, things of that sort, that they made requests
of. And I believe those have now been delivered to them for their
convenience and comfort. And beyond that I did not get a specific
readout that I'm free to share. I'm sorry.
Q: You have additional information but it's classified?
Quigley: Yes.
Q: And you won't tell us then. You can't tell us because it's
classified?
Quigley: Correct.
Q: Would you just - first question: What are these crewmembers
permitted to tell their Chinese hosts?
Q: Name, rank and --
Quigley: Say that again?
Q: What are the crewmembers permitted - under military guidelines,
what are they permitted to tell the Chinese when they come to question
them?
Quigley: I don't think we have procedures - specific procedures in
place for a circumstance such as this.
Q: What about just name, rank and serial number? Does that no longer
apply?
Quigley: Well, that's along the lines of a prisoner of war - the
strictures, and that's simply not the circumstance we have here.
Q: So they can be more forthcoming if they conduct an investigation of
the collision?
Quigley: Well, again, I don't think we have a set process, Pat, that
covers the very unusual circumstances we have here. And we'd have to
speak to them to see what they have discussed with the Chinese.
Q: Can we interrogate you and get that classified information out of
you?
Q: Craig, you said it's no big surprise that the Chinese would want to
interview the air crew, but is it appropriate for them to be
interviewed? And what are the parameters?
Quigley: Well, I don't think I'll stand here in Washington, D.C. and
make that judgment.
Q: But you seem to think it's no - you don't have any objection or
problem with --
Quigley: We have no indication that they have been mistreated in any
way, nor "interrogated," to use Bob's word. But I would think that it
should come as no surprise to people that they've been interviewed.
Now, the contents of that, the tone of that, we just don't know.
Q: Well, what kind of a disadvantage does it put the U.S. in terms of
their - "negotiations" is what the White House is now calling it --
in their negotiations with the Chinese? The Chinese have unfettered
access to our crew and we don't. How do we in fact explain the U.S.
position on this accident if we don't have access to the crew? What
kind of disadvantage does that put the U.S. in?
Quigley: I think it strengthens, Mik, our desire to want to be able to
talk to our crewmembers, and that is something we'd like to do as
often as possible and in an unfettered way, but even more than that,
we think it's just time for them to come home.
Jim?
Q: And forgive me because I came in late, if you've already answered
this. What do you know about these reports that say the EP-3 had just
begun to change course, that it may have dipped its left wing in an
effort to turn left and therefore then is when the Chinese fighter
flew into them?
Quigley: Yeah. I've seen the reports, but in the absence of being able
to talk to our aircrew directly, we just can't confirm those.
Q: Craig, are you saying that the United States government has no
objection to that crew being questioned by Chinese authorities without
any U.S. presence?
Quigley: No, I didn't say that.
Q: Do you have an objection to that?
Quigley: I think I'd put that back in diplomatic channels.
Q: And if I could follow up, was this pilot, the Chinese pilot who's
missing - Wang Wei - is he --
Quigley: Yeah, we discussed that one, too, and I don't have any
unclassified information for you on that.
Q: Well, is he known - was he known to U.S. aircrews that patrolled
that region?
Quigley: I don't have any unclassified information for you on that,
either.
Q: Well, are there any pictures of him that were taken --
Quigley: You could perhaps ask the Chinese government.
Q: I mean, that were taken by U.S. aircrews? Are there any pictures of
him or other Chinese pilots taken by U.S. aircrews that were on these
surveillance missions?
Quigley: I don't know.
Q: If there are, can we ask that some be released?
Quigley: We'll take a look.
Dale?
Q: You mentioned Tuesday that, I think, in the Cold War era that the
Soviets regularly made flights similar to the flight of the EP-3 along
the U.S. coast. Does anybody else do that now, either along the U.S.
coast or overseas bases, those that we have left? For example, do the
Chinese fly near the base at Okinawa?
Quigley: No, but the Chinese - I mean, other countries in the world
do reconnaissance and surveillance flights as a matter of routine,
just as we do. And one of the countries that does that is China. Now,
they don't range as far afield. They don't have the exact same system
of bases and the same models of airplane and whatnot. Their flights
tend to stay closer to their coast.
Q: How about naval ships? Do the Chinese have any surveillance like
this off the U.S. coast done from ships?
Quigley: Not that I recall, no.
Tom?
Q: With all this diplomacy going on has there been any
military-to-military contacts, here at the Pentagon, for example?
Quigley: No, it's pretty much stuck to the diplomatic channels,
through the State Department.
Q: Follow that up. What's the status of the military-to-military
exchange program? Has that been suspended?
Quigley: It has not. No. As we've said before, the program past the
end of May is under review. But it has not been suspended, the program
before the end of May.
Q: Why not? And what kinds of things are scheduled --
Quigley: Because this was an accident. I don't think anybody took to
the skies on the 1st of April in order to have a collision. And this
is an accident, and we need to treat it as such.
Q: What kind of exchange --
Quigley: That is apples and oranges with whether or not this nation
has a mil-to-mil relationship with China.
Q: What kind of exchanges are scheduled, and are there any scheduled
for the near future, either U.S. to China, or China to the U.S.?
Quigley: There are no near-term exchanges scheduled.
Q: Any ship visits or port visits from either side?
Quigley: No. They're a form of mil-to-mil. But there are none of those
scheduled for the near term.
Q: All right.
Quigley: Most recent would have been, I think, a couple weekends ago
you had the Seventh Fleet flagship visit Shanghai, and I want to say a
week or two before that Admiral Blair visited China as well. Those
were the last ones, and I don't think we have any - I'm sure we don't
have any for the near term.
Vince?
Q: During Admiral Blair's visits, did he discuss the concern over this
brinksmanship that was occurring during these flights?
Quigley: I don't know.
Pam?
Q: During the meeting between the attaches and the crew, Chinese were
present. How did their presence influence the amount of information
that could be exchanged between the two? You said you want unfettered
access. Apparently this was fettered.
Quigley: More often, I would certainly say, is my real intention.
Frequent and --
Q: How - how did - I'm sorry.
Quigley: Frequent and to be followed very quickly by their release.
Q: Without Chinese present, Chinese present? Does it matter?
Quigley: Again, the negotiations for that are in diplomatic channels,
and I won't get in the way of that.
Q: I wanted to give you a chance to clarify your answer on the turn
and whether the plane might have come up from below to strike the
EP-3. We've heard about this turn, which - and a lot of us assume it
came from the debriefing, which you've read. Is - when you said no,
that you know nothing about this turn, did you mean to say you knew
nothing about the turn - that you could not talk about the turn
because it was classified, or that it did not occur?
Quigley: To the best of my knowledge, it was not discussed in the 40
minutes that we've had with our aircrew so far.
Q: Craig, there are reports from background sources that say that
much, if not most, of the classified equipment was destroyed. And the
Hercule Poirot question is, how do we know?
Quigley: You would expect a well-trained crew to carry out their
training and the emergency destruct procedures as best as they could,
given the limited time frame available to them.
Q: But other than that, as a follow up, I mean, were there any pieces
of paper, handshake to handshake, slipped off, any little comments,
eye contact, where the members of the crew managed to tell the
diplomatic crew that they had accomplished this?
Quigley: I've seen nothing in unclassified channels on that.
Yeah?
Q: The aircrew's still in the plane or in the facilities?
Quigley: I'm sorry?
Q: The air crew, the captives, are still inside the plane or in any
facility at the --
Quigley: It's our understanding that they are not on the plane and
they are being held in some sort of a facility separate from the
plane. But we don't know exactly what that is.
Yes?
Q: While in flight, did the plane notify authorities or notify
communications or base that these planes had come upon them, A, and B,
did they not also discuss the positions that those planes were taking
while the plane was flying?
Quigley: Not that I have seen a record of, no.
Q: And number two, are there any alternative landing fields within the
same sort of range or maybe even a little farther that this plane
could have gone to, instead of this Chinese island?
Quigley: Not that I know of. I mean, again, after the collision - the
plane was seriously damaged in the collision. I mean, you've seen the
images of the aircraft sitting on the runway in Hainan Island. And it
-- I think it was considerable piece of airmanship for the pilot to
bring that plane safely down and to get all 24 of the people on the
ground safely.
Q: Craig, you said earlier that - in a previous briefing that the
plane issued a distress signal --
Quigley: Yes.
Q: - on the international open frequency.
Quigley: Mm-hm.
Q: Would you also consider, as long as I'm making requests for
releasing things, can you release a tape or a transcript of that
distress call?
Quigley: It would probably be on the EP-3.
Q: It's not recorded back at the --
Quigley: No, that's not - that circuit, 121.5 megahertz, is not a
circuit that is like a - it's not a satellite broadcast or something
like that. It is a fairly localized broadcast, you know, by design so
that you can --
Q: But it's designed for someone to hear it, obviously, so somebody
who hears it would presumably have some way of making a record of it
or recording it or keeping track of it or knowing what it is. I'm just
asking - if anything like that's available, I'm just asking if it
could be released.
Quigley: We'll take a look.
Q: I ran into four Chinese generals in the building today, the
incoming and outgoing military attaches, apparently. I just wondered
whether they talked to any officials here.
Quigley: I didn't know they were in the building. I don't know who
they met with.
Q: So they did not meet with the secretary or --
Quigley: No.
Q: Does the Navy have any specific procedures for an aircraft
commander to make a decision to ditch at sea outside the 12-mile limit
under these kind of circumstances, where they have damage and can't
reach a the nearest friendly base?
Quigley: Well, as I discussed Tuesday, the aircraft commander, all
aircraft commanders understand the options that they have available to
them to safely bring their aircraft down. Ditching is an option. To
the best of my knowledge, this airplane has never been ditched at sea
before. You also have a very likelihood, or certainly a possibility,
of people to get injured or killed when you ditch an airplane at sea.
So that pilot made a judgment call that his safest course of action to
ensure the safety of the 24 people on that plane was to land the plane
on Hainan Island. And he made that call.
Q: Just to follow up, did this pilot have any instructions or
pre-brief orders that would tell him whether he should give more
priority to the safety of the crew as opposed to, say, compromising
sensitive information?
Quigley: I don't know.
Q: What steps has the military taken to secure its communications in
case that there was a compromise, you know, for the Chinese to find
out how the military is --
Quigley: I will say that we have taken what we consider to be prudent
measures to minimize whatever compromise there may have been. But I
can't provide you more details.
Chris?
Q: Craig, since, as you said, there have been aggressive intercepts by
the Chinese in the past few months, have EP-3 crews patrolling that
region been given certain instructions or procedures to be aware of
these flights or to take evasive action in case one did come close and
clip it, as what happened?
Quigley: As far as specific recommendations on maneuvering, I would
think that very unlikely. They're already experienced pilots and they
understand how to handle their aircraft in the air. But they've also
been very much made aware of the fact that over the past several
months there have been intercepts by Chinese fighters. So this was not
a first-time event, if you will.
Q: But they weren't told specifically to take any certain actions,
again, if they saw them coming too close, or to radio back if they saw
them coming too close?
Quigley: Not that I'm aware of, no.
Yes?
Q: I apologize for going over this - (inaudible) - but between the
distress call and the communication that was made when the aircraft
was on the ground, were there any communications with any U.S.
officials in that intervening time?
Quigley: Not that I know of, no. I think their focus was getting the
airplane down safely.
Pam?
Q: Secretary Rumsfeld's statement yesterday was interesting in the
conciliatory tone it struck. What I found interesting was that there
was no statement of outrage that these crewmembers had been held for
five days, essentially incommunicado. Is that the feeling of the
building, that what's going on is not outrageous? Or is this an
attempt to ratchet down the rhetoric and give the Chinese a way out?
[Secretary Rumsfeld's statement is on the Web at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2001/b04042001_bt143-01.html ]
Quigley: I don't think anybody's to the advantage to be too shrill in
their comments at this point. This is a time for diplomacy to find the
way ahead, and I don't recall the last time shrill comments
contributed to diplomacy.
Dale?
Q: You mentioned, or it's been mentioned several times, that the crew
trained in the destruct procedures. One assumes, if they're trained,
that there is some time limit by which these procedures are supposed
to be accomplished. Understanding that we can't know what kind of
stress they were under, given the airplane falling 8,000 feet, et
cetera, can you tell us, under normal conditions, how long it should
take a crew to complete the destruct process?
Quigley: No, I can't. I can't. The Navy might have that --
Q: But there is a parameter for that --
Quigley: You have got to figure that if you're performing emergency
destruct procedures, there is nothing normal about your circumstance.
So I would say that each and every time is different. Is my plane on
fire? Am I in a steep dive? Is it - what are my circumstances? I
think you will always have a prioritization of your emergency
destruction procedures where you try to get the most sensitive first
and the least sensitive last, but in each and every case you're going
to find the circumstances different, Dale. How much they were able to
accomplish here, we're just going to have to wait and see.
Q: Wouldn't part of the training be, though, to simulate emergency
conditions? For example, they would train to do this during a steep
dive, or when the plane was in distress, to the extent that you could
simulate that in a training exercise?
Quigley: I don't know. That's a fair question. But I don't know their
training process.
Bill?
Q: Craig, could you give us a sense of whether or not these 24 service
personnel are going to be released anytime soon, and has the Pentagon
made any preparations for sending in a repair crew? Do you have a
repair crew --
Quigley: Well, I can't give you any sense of timing. I mean, we're
hopeful that they're released as soon as possible. But it's going to
be dependent on the process made on the diplomatic front. And Admiral
Blair continues to make preparations for their safe return.
Q: And what kind of preparations are those? Do you have some kind of a
team in Kadena that's ready to go in and fix this plane? Or - what
exactly --
Quigley: I'm not going to get into the preparations that Admiral Blair
is preparing.
Yes.
Q: Would there be any kind of sensors on board the aircraft which
would allow it to know that another aircraft were flying at a very
close proximity directly under it, and the pilot can't see whether --
?
Quigley: I don't know. I don't know. I - you would - it would depend
on the approach, and if you would have a visual on the plane, and it
would come in on your port side, maybe, and then it would swing
underneath, you'd kind of know that it's underneath you. But if it
would come up underneath in a blind spot, I don't know if it has
sensors. You might have something like an ESM [electronic support
measures], a passive receiver, that if the fighter would have some
sort of an airborne radar on, Vince, you might be able to detect that.
But I'm not sure the exact answer to your question.
Tony?
Q: Craig, you mentioned that the U.S. is taking prudent measures to
minimize any compromise that might have taken place. Is there an
emerging view within the intelligence people in the building in terms
of if, in fact, the Chinese had a lot of access to the technology,
would it be a tolerable loss of intelligence, or something fairly
cataclysmic, or fairly serious?
Quigley: No, I think, you know, we really want to talk to the aircrew
as a starting point for that. We've - you know, in response to Toby's
question, we've done what we think is, at least the near-term, prudent
course of action to minimize whatever sort of damage there might be.
We really would like to talk to the crew to ascertain, you know, how
successful were they in carrying out the emergency destruct, Bill.
Q: You have an inventory of what's on the plane. I guess the sense I
want to get from you is, is this cutting edge, state of the art
intercept technology, or is it something that's been around long
enough that if we lost parts of it or they gleaned some insights it
might not be a major blow.
Quigley: Oh, we think the aircraft is very capable. But I can't
characterize for you the extent of damage or severity or not severe.
We really want to talk to the aircrew first and get a sense of that.
Yes, Sandra?
Q: Family members said yesterday that they had been told to possibly
expect phone calls from the crewmembers, that the Chinese might allow
them to do that. Any idea if that's happened? Or what has the military
been doing to provide support to the families?
Quigley: The first part of your question - I don't believe phone
calls have taken place yet. We think that would be a great thing, and
it certainly would be good for both the service members and their
families to just be able to speak.
But I know that for the families - now you have three different
services involved here. You have 22 Navy, one Marine, and one Air
Force - people amongst the 24 members of the crew. So each of the
services is handling the family notifications and continuing dialogue
with the families in slightly different ways. But I'd say, across the
board, they're trying their very best to keep in touch, try to answer
as many questions as they possibly can, and make sure that the
families know that there's somebody they can talk to and that there --
somebody's looking out for them and has a rock-solid commitment to
share as much information on their loved one as they possibly can, as
soon as they know it.
Bill?
Q: Craig, can you tell us who made the decision to land at Hainan
Island? Was that made by the senior officer on the EP-3, or did he
consult with his superiors, presumably at JICPAC [Joint Intelligence
Center Pacific] in Hawaii?
Quigley: I doubt that he had time to do that. I think it was strictly
a safety, a flight issue, and as soon as he was issuing that Mayday,
he was headed for the deck and to safely put that plane down.
Q: Did he consult with his superior before he did that, before he --
Quigley: Not that I know of. Not that I know of.
Q: Can you check on that? Can you take that question?
Quigley: I doubt I'll be able to provide you a near-term answer.
Q: Is the Pentagon --
Quigley: Tom?
Q: Was the pilot the mission commander?
Quigley: I don't know that either. We have a list of the names, but I
don't have positions for any of the 24.
Jamie?
Q: Was the pilot - is the identity or the - who the pilot was or who
was flying the plane in any way connected to protecting the pilot from
criticism that he should have ditched his plane?
Quigley: No.
Q: Are you aware that there are some retired EP-3 pilots and crew
members who --
Quigley: I have read that. I discount it completely. They cannot
possibly understand what that pilot was going through at that moment.
Only one person can - him.
Chris?
Q: Craig, have there been analogous situations in which Chinese or
Russian planes have had to declare Maydays and land in sensitive U.S.
places?
Quigley: There - we did some research on that after Tuesday's brief,
and I do think we have some information on that. Let me take that and
see what we can provide. I don't have it with me here, but I believe
so. [A Russian Aeroflot aircraft on Feb. 27, 1974, performing weather
reconnaissance, made an emergency landing at St. Lawrence Island,
Alaska. A China Eastern Airline flight lost altitude and made an
emergency landing at Shemya Air Force Base, Alaska, on April 6, 1993.]
Paul?
Q: Was there communication between the plane and its base after the
F-8s showed up, but before the distress call? In other words, was the
base aware that these F-8s had intercepted and were --
Quigley: I don't know. I don't know.
Q: Craig, I'd like to go back to the military exchange program. You
described the relationship between this incident and that program as
"apples and oranges." We know what the apple is: the detention of
Americans. What's the purpose of this military exchange program?
Quigley: The same that it is with every other nation. It is to
encourage dialogue on a regular basis and an exchange of people and
views between the militaries of two nations, so that there is a
greater understanding of how each does business and what's important
to their respective cultures. And it's to demystify and to have a
closer relationship between the militaries of those nations, whatever
those two might be.
Q: Obviously, this incident would be a setback to those objectives,
wouldn't it?
Quigley: Again, I think this is an accident that nobody intended to
happen, and accidents take place --
Q: The point is that they're taking being detained. That's not an
accident.
Quigley: No, that's true. But the accident that started this all out
was an act that no one was anticipating or certainly hoping for in any
way, shape or form. But I don't think that the purpose of a mil-to-mil
program, in this case between China and the United States - it's a
program that we're taking a look at in the months ahead, but the basic
value of the program to - and it's something that happens over a long
period of time - is still worth pursuing because of the
communications and actual human interchange that you have between ever
more senior military members as they meet each other for the first
time when they might be lieutenant commanders or majors, and they stay
in their respective militaries for a career; and it's not just a
bureaucracy or a nameless, faceless organization, you really know that
person, or maybe those six people; and there is value in that over the
long haul.
Yeah?
Q: Craig, since April the 1st, can you give us a snapshot of any
activity from the DOD side on foreign military sales actions, either
to Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Japan, or any other Pacific Rim
partners?
Quigley: I don't know on the Pacific Rim nations. I mean, we would
have announced a foreign military sales contract if - at the close of
business every day if there were any. So I would just ask you to go
back and see if there were any in the contracts that we released. As
far as Taiwan, I know that this country has not yet completed the
review of the Taiwan arms sale. This is the right month, but it's not
done yet.
Q: But you don't know of any specific directives either from DoD or
from the administration to DoD to put a hold on any of - I know State
is ultimately where this stuff has to start, but on your end of it,
have you been directed to put a hold on any of the process or
procedures that you have had under way for sales overseas?
Quigley: No, we have not.
Bob?
Q: Has there been a decision to cut China out of the Army's beret
business yet?
Quigley: No, we have not made that final call.
Yes, sir?
Q: Yes, I have two questions. You mentioned the '98 agreement with
China. Is it similar to the '72 agreement with Russia? And was that
agreement successful in defusing incidents between --
Quigley: I would have to sit down compare the two, and I'm not
familiar with the contents of the '72 agreement with the then- Soviet
Union. I would think that their over-arching goal might be very
similar, but specifically what was agreed to, I am sure you will find
differences and comparisons between the two, but I am not - I do not
have an understanding of what was in the '72 agreement.
Q: And the other question is, from looking at the pictures from the
plane, can you assess which part of the structure, outside structure
of the plane might have been dismantled by the Chinese?
Quigley: No.
Q: Thank you.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
