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24 June 2003

Rumsfeld Says No Evidence Iraqi Leaders Were Killed in U.S. Raid

(Defense Department Report, June 24: Iraq) (550)
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said June 24 there is "no reason to
believe" that senior Iraqi leaders were among those killed in the U.S.
raid on a convoy about six days ago near the Syrian border.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers, who joined
Rumsfeld in briefing reporters at the Pentagon, said the raid was
based on intelligence gained from the recent capture of leaders of the
toppled Iraqi regime.
"We struck two elements of a convoy, one on a highway and one in a
compound," Myers said. "We are continuing to gather information from
the strike, so we don't have any additional details at the moment."
Rumsfeld said there were "good reasons to believe that the vehicles
that were violating the curfew ... in that area were doing it for
reasons other than normal commerce," but he declined to elaborate
further on the incident.
He said the return to Syria of five border guards, three of whom
received U.S. medical attention following the strike, is being
discussed and will "undoubtedly be worked through by the appropriate
people in the United States government and the Syrian government."
Rumsfeld also said it is "just a matter of time" before evidence of
weapons of mass destruction is found in Iraq, stressing that it is
"still early in the process."
"I have ... every reason to believe that the intelligence that we were
operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or
evidence of weapons programs that are conclusive. But that's just a
matter of time," he said.
The secretary expressed sorrow about the recent casualties sustained
by U.S. and British forces in Iraq, saying their "deaths are a sober
reminder that while major combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is over, our
country and coalition forces remain engaged in a difficult and
dangerous war: the global war on terror."
But he stressed that "just as they were unable to stop the coalition
advance in Baghdad, the death squads will not stop our commitment to
create stability and security in postwar Iraq."
Rumsfeld also was asked about a recent statement in which he indicated
that his preference was to see Iraqi state-owned enterprises
privatized. He said that while he thought that freer economic systems
"do better for their people" it is up to the Iraqis to decide. He
added that "in the meantime, the Coalition Provisional Authority is
the authority in the country. And they're going to make the judgments
they think are appropriate in very intensive consultation with Iraqi
people. And each month that goes by, the consultations will be more
intensive and broader and deeper. And as we then move ... to some sort
of a permanent Iraqi government, at that point,
they ... will have free play to do whatever they wish with their
country."
In response to a question about the recent announcement of the
formation of a new Iraqi army, both Rumsfeld and Myers indicated that
the goal is to have an ethnic mix that represents "all the people of
Iraq no matter how small the minority that has to be represented."
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)