DoD News Briefing
Tuesday, June 2, 1998 - 1:45 p.m. (EDT)
Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD (PA)
Mr. Bacon: Good afternoon.
............... Q: Can you give us some sense of what the talks with the Bahrain representative will be about?
A: They've occurred, or I guess they're going on now. Shaikh Essa is here.
First of all, we have a very close relationship with Bahrain. The U.S. Navy has operated out of Bahrain for 50 years. This is the 50th anniversary. Admiral Crowe once said that pound for pound, Bahrain is as good an ally as we have. They've been extremely supportive of our deployments in the Gulf, recently and in the past as well, and we anticipate they'll be very supportive in the future. So we'll talk about the range of our relationship, we'll talk about what's going on now with Iraq, and that has to do with some of the talks that Mr. Butler will have with the U.N. Security Council tomorrow.
We will talk about what we see our deployment needs in the future to be, both the drawdown that's going on now, the reduction in the size of our force to a still robust but smaller force, and what we might have to do to build up the force in the future if the circumstances change, because part of this plan is a rapid reinforcement capability.
Those are among the things we'll talk about. Obviously of great interest to Shaikh Essa is Iran, and I suspect there will be some conversation about Iran as well as Iraq.
Q: Has the AEF left...
A: It's begun to leave. I think a B-1 has left already and some support personnel and planes have left from Bahrain. I believe the whole AEF will be out relatively soon, but it's begun to rotate out.
Q: Number of aircraft?
A: I think we're down from 290 aircraft in the theater to 275 in late... 290 in late May, May 28th, to 275 today. Some B-52s have left, a B-1 has left, and some support aircraft have left. Eight B-52s, one B-1, one KC-10, a couple of HC-130s, and an E-3.
Q: Those are the ones that have left?
A: These have left, yeah. These have left in the last week.
Q: How many 130s?
A: Three HC-130s.
Q: Was there another type of aircraft after that?
A: Yes. Eight B-52s, one B-1, one KC-10, one E-3, and three HC-130s have left since May 28th, so we've begun to bring the planes out.
Q: And the F-117s, when do you expect...
A: I don't know the exact date of their departure. Basically what I'll do is tell you when the planes leave. I don't think I'll get into the forecasting business of the exact day they're scheduled to leave because these forecasts often bounce around...
Q: There is still one B-1... There were two...
A: I believe there is still one B-1 there, yeah.
Q: Bahrain has supported naval operations for many years, as you said. Is there going to be some permanent facilities for a vast ramp-up of air operations like this air expeditionary force that's just leaving now, for the future?
A: Without getting into precise details, a crucial part of the plan that President Clinton signed off on was a rapid reinforcement capability, and that means that some designated forces in the United States or elsewhere including B-1s, B-52s, and strike aircraft, are basically going to be at the ready to deploy very quickly if they have to within a set number of hours or days. This will all be laid out in carefully crafted plans. So our rapid redeployment capability will be real and tangible in that we've identified the forces, we've trained the forces, and they will be, as I say, at the ready to go within a designated amount of time.
Q: Will they have a place to land?
A: They will have a place to land, and I'm not going to get into where they're going to land, but you can be sure that they'll have places to deploy to.
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