Defense Writers Group

Transcription

1 TRANSCRIPT Defense Writers Group A Project of the Center for Media & Security New York and Washington, D.C. Gen. Richard B. Myers, USAF Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff February 19, 2004 THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. USERS ARE ADVISED TO CONSULT THEIR OWN TAPES OR NOTES OF THE SESSION IF ABSOLUTE VERIFICATION OF WORDING IS NEEDED. Q: Start with the 30,000 troop increase for the Army that has been approved to cover what is perceived to be a spike in demand. How will that work, really? How will you know it's not a spike? How will you know it's something else? If so, what then? A: Okay. Most of you have probably heard General Schoomaker talk about this, I assume. Is that right? Some of you have not maybe. He's talked in front of congressional committees, I think he's done some press stuff on it. He's going to do a couple of things. One is, the Army right now is, in accordance with the rules we have from the Congress, above their formal end strength. End strength is a very precise term that says once a year you've got to be pretty much at the end strength that is in the various authorization bills and so forth, but we've been above that because we can be during times of national emergency. In fact the Air Force is above theirs. Q: They are coming down. A: They've come down a little bit but they're going to ask for more as well. The Navy is going to try to decrease from their formal end strength number. They're actually going to try to be smaller. The Marines are pretty much where they need to be. The most important thing is not the number, it's the capability that he gets from the numbers that he has. We have a hard time getting out of our Cold War mentality and we want to talk numbers like that equals capability. It does not equal capability. It's only one input into capability. What he wants to do is go to the brigade as the basic combat unit as opposed to the way 1

2 they've been looking at it which makes the division the basic combat unit. So you have a lot of structure around the division and you've got your combat units and brigades but they can't go prosecute conflicts or respond to a crisis without this other structure to help them out. What he's going to do is, he's going to make the brigade the basic combat unit then you're going to take a lot of these battalions and brigades in some cases that are up at the division level and you're going to move those assets down into various brigades and you can make more brigades that way. So in the end he's going to have, instead of 32 brigades he's going to go up to 43, maybe higher, depending on how this all shakes out. And the account that he needs to do that, to be able to transition to that and at the same time have the Army so busy the next year or so, the next couple of years, the shock absorber is the 30,000 that he's talked about. Where that goes in the future is to be determined. We don't know. But there are several off ramps. One off ramp is to come right back down to some other end strength, maybe close to the one we have right now. Or it may be that you look out forward and you say -- I think if you reconfigure and you have more brigades that can do work, you might not need a large increase in end strength. Again, people, bodies don't equal capability. The way you organize, a lot of other things equal capability and that's what he's done. It's a terrific transformational effort. It's exactly on track. It's exactly what we need to do. So where it goes in the end I don't know. We'll have to wait and see how things sort out. But we figure we have a couple of years to do that and that will give us time to kind of figure out if this is a spike or a plateau that we're on in terms of use of ground forces. In terms of retention, a lot of stuff being written about reserve retention. Let me just tell you, I've got a Guard advisor on my staff, I've got a Reserve advisor on my staff. I charge them to try to lead turn any dip in retention. They report to me frequently. They've got contacts out there in the Reserves and in the Guard and they stay on top of that. There is nothing that I've heard or seen in any of the data that tells me we have any kind of crisis here at all or even a problem. It's just not an issue. I was just down at the farewell ceremony for the 30th Brigade Combat Team, National Guard from North Carolina, but there were probably eight or nine states that fed that organization from California and Texas and all over, Minnesota. I talked to one of the battalion commanders and said how do you think this deployment is going to affect retention? He says oh, when we come back there will be some that get out. He said those people were going to get out anyway. He said it's really actually going to be good for retention. It's just the opposite. 2

3 I think it does an absolute disservice to our reservists, Guard and Reserve, to think they don't want to serve. Some of these articles give you the impression they don't want to serve. They took the same oath that I took and that every other person that serves in the military took. They are proud of their service. They probably understand what this is all about better than the average person and are willing to serve. Does that mean there's no hardship? No, of course there's hardship. There are family situations and I went through every one of them. There are employer situations. All those are issues and there are things we need to do to help with the whole reserve business. I talked about predictability a year and a half ago or two years ago, whenever it was. That's probably the biggest thing you can do is tell them when they're going to go and when they're coming home so they can make their plans. But that's what they signed up to do. What I see, and I don't know how many folks I talked to that day, not all that many, probably 100 or so or whatever, but they're proud to serve and notwithstanding the hardships of getting ready to go overseas, give up their civilian employment for over a year and so forth. That's my input on that. Q: General, I'd like to ask you -- a narrower question for you. President Putin said yesterday that Russia has developed and is about to field a missile of intercontinental range that has a [lethal] maneuverable capability. I'm wondering what you know about that and what you make of it. A: Well, I think for some time -- If you're in that business, intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads, you want them to be survivable and maneuverability is one way to increase their survivability against any potential defenses. So I'd have to take him at his word I guess. You've got to accommodate that in your planning for missile defense and other things. Q: That's what I'm getting at. What is the implication for missile defense and/or for more broadly U.S.-Russian relations? A: It makes it -- I don't think it has any impact on U.S.-Russian relations. They've got to design a missile force that they think is sufficient for deterrence just like we do. The fact that we both agreed to go down to 1700 or 2200 warheads is probably the most significant thing. I don't know that this has any implications for that relationship or where that's going. I think that's all fair stuff. And it's not new in the sense that we've had penetration aids and so forth. As you know in missile defense we try to design systems that can cope with that. That's a fair thing to do too. 3

4 Q: The missile defense project of the U.S. takes this into account already? A: Well, take it into account. The missile defense project understands the various ways you can counter systems and their job is to build systems that can accommodate those kind of countermeasures, so they'll have to develop that. But I don't think it has any larger, my personal view is a larger ramification on our relationship. Q: General, there's been a major operation involving U.S. Forces in Southern Afghanistan. It's designed to keep the Taliban and al Qaida off-balance as the run-up to elections there in June. However, the United Nations has been saying for more than a month that they don't think that the conditions in Afghanistan are right for elections. So I'm wondering if you can talk about the fact that even though there is this operation ongoing, the ground has not been, in the United Nations' view, secure and made secure enough to hold elections there. And then looking at Iraq, also now looking at elections I think it's almost indisputable, but you're going down in troop numbers there. I'm wondering how you cope with the situations in both places in view of your troops numbers, particularly in Iraq where you're going down. A: I think the, it's fair to have disagreements and I haven't seen the latest UN talk on Afghanistan so I'm at a disadvantage there. But the security situation in that country, if you carve out the southeast where most of the incidents occur, and that's also along the Pak border, and that's also where the Taliban, at least the part of the Taliban that are trying to interrupt elections -- This is not new news. They don't want success in that country, clearly. So they want to disrupt the elections. Physically, I don't think security's going to be the issue. I think there will be other issues in Afghanistan in terms of registration and all those sorts of things you have to do for elections. I think security will be okay in most parts of the country. There may be pockets around Gardez and [Kalst]. On the other hand, as you said, we have significant operations that are ongoing today. We're planning for, as the weather gets better and as people are better able to travel in the rougher terrain, we expect an increase in violence. We're preparing for that and have been somewhat successful in this. And we're getting good help from Pakistan on this issue right now as well. So I guess we're going to have to wait and see, like everything, how it turns out. But I think there is a thirst in Afghanistan by the folks that were part of the Constitutional Loya Jurga and the current government to have these elections and get on with life. It's not going to be perfect. There will be car bombs and there will be other attacks. That's going to happen. If you're going to wait for the perfect circumstances it's never going to happen. It doesn't happen in this country, it doesn't happen in Europe and it's not going to happen in Afghanistan. There most likely will be a little bit more violence there for a 4

5 while when you have these folks that are doing it. On the other hand with the huge push NATO has in for security around Kabul, the push they have to perhaps take over the Provincial Reconstruction Teams with the other coalition forces, through the U.S. in there, that we'll have the forces necessary to provide the kind of security we're going to need. Q: General Jones expressed quite serious concerns up on the Hill this month about whether or NATO is going to pony up sufficient resources. Also I'm wondering you can talk about -- Q: Let's let him answer that one. A: Before we go to that one, in Iraq the number of forces are going to be about the same as we've got today. The thing that, we are coming down a little bit, but just a little bit. The thing that has to be factored in is the number of Iraqi security forces that are coming up and there are over 200,000 now. They will continue to grow as we bring up the various security institutions. They are the key, in the end, they are the key to security inside Iraq. I believe looking at the current operations, our success in current operations, going after people that we know are behind either bomb-making or perpetrating these attacks, we are continuing since the capture of Saddam to wrap up more and more people that we know are involved. That's a good thing. Yesterday there was, I believe there was a mortar attack. The radar identified where it came from. We went out and did a cordon search, picked up 55 individuals that were associated with that attack. We are getting pretty good at that business over there and we will continue to get better because, I think you see it. And the Zarkawi letter led to it, and if you want to talk about that we can talk about that. But sectarian violence, perpetrating violence on Iraqis is part of their scheme to try to drive a wedge between the coalition and Iraqis. But the Iraqi people aren't having it right now. They're showing great courage. And in the end it's their business. It's their country, it's their responsibility. They have stepped up to date and I expect they will continue to step up. Q: Seeing that it's budget time, what happened to the notion of more equitably sharing the cost of space and space-related activities among the services? The Air Force has lots of things they'd like to buy. A: I'll just say that I'm not aware -- That has not come up to my level as an issue in any of the process getting the '05 budget ready or making my recommendations to the Secretary. It's just never come up. So I don't know that it's an issue today. I just don't know. If it is, it has not come to my level. 5

6 We haven't talked about that since before the Space Commission basically. Part of it may be that the increase in our top line that we've got has accommodated a lot of the things that needed to be done so it's less of an issue today. It's just not one of those key budget issues that I tend to get involved in and provide military advice to the Secretary. Q: General, I'd like to go back to Jonathan's question about Afghanistan. You talk to soldiers over there and you talk to soldiers in Iraq. The U.S. soldiers in Iraq sort of see themselves as occupiers, there are more than 100,000 of them. You go to Afghanistan, there's a little more than 10,000. They're much more lightly spread around that country. What is good about the light presence in Afghanistan and what is bad about it? In what way does it hinder us? In what way does it make our job there easier? And what lessons are we learning from Afghanistan that we can apply to Iraq? A: You have different theaters with different threats. Part of the issue, without getting into the operational piece, but part of the issue is the Taliban are generally configured in very small groups and are spread out so you need small groups out there looking for them and so forth. The situation is slightly different in Iraq, but the same sort of -- What we're doing in Iraq is not totally different from what we're doing in Afghanistan. It's just a larger area where you have to deal with the threat. Q: More bad guys fundamentally? A: Sure, more bad guys. But if you look at the forces that are deploying this time, one of the best comments that came out of this farewell ceremony down for the Old Hickory Brigade, the Brigade Combat Team in North Carolina was the brigade commander, a one star, stood up there. He's talking to his troops. He said, "The Army gave us a tankless job." [Laughter] They were a heavy brigade and they had tanks, and it took them a while to understand why their tanks weren't needed in Iraq. I thought that was -- It did get a pretty good laugh. But they understand why they ought not to be in tanks. Why that is not -- So if you look at the types of operations in the two places, a larger number of folks involved in the threat in Iraq. The complexity of the threat's a lot different. You've got the former regime elements which are part of it; then you've got the foreign fighters, be they al Qaida, be they Zarkawi folks, be they just, if there is such a thing, your average, run of the mill Jihadists that are coming to the sounds of the guns that believe this is an occupation and we've got to get the infidels out. But the forces as they are designed are now very much like the forces we have in Afghanistan in terms of their agility and mobility. 6

7 The other thing that's happening that is happening probably faster than it's happening in Afghanistan, that is the Iraqi security forces are now taking over a lot of the operations. That's starting to occur a little bit in Afghanistan with police, in Kabul and so forth. We do have the Afghan National Army and they've done pretty well, but there are only 6,000 of them. We're trying to crank out 10,000 a year, so I think we'll reach that production rate this summer. That will help because they've been very very effective and very courageous and with some degree of multi-ethnicity and so forth. Not bad. But in Iraq we've got I think 210,000. Everybody understands that there's different degrees of training, equipping and so forth, but you're going to see here in the next, we're going to focus on Iraqi security forces like we've never really focused on them before and you'll see some of that come out here in the next week or so as we try to ensure we have unity of effort on the equipping, the training and the mentoring that has to go on with the Iraqi security forces. We're going to step up that a little bit and you'll see it. At the appropriate time when the decisions are made you'll see -- I mean it's not going to be a big thing but you'll understand what I was talking about in terms of its focus. I think the forces are actually going to be the same kind of capability -- Q: Are they literally interchangeable? A unit bound for Iraq or bound for Afghanistan goes trough the same sort of redeployment -- A: I think for the most part they are interchangeable, right. They are. We have units -- The 82nd's a great example. They've been both places. If you want to look at a division that's been worked really hard and been both places, they've been both places. Now they're a light force, but as I said, we're looking at these "heavy" brigade combat teams from the Guard. They're not going to go over with heavy equipment. They're going to take their "tankless" job and they're ready to do it. They understand what -- Q: Sir, I'd like to ask you a question I asked the Marine Corps Commandant yesterday. It has to do with -- A: Didn't he give you a good answer? [Laughter] Q: Not as good as the one you're going to give. Q: That's why I'm asking it again, I guess. It has to do with your vision of the future of the war on terrorism. I understand as the Administration defines it, the war on terrorism has a lot of component parts, not just the military. But I just want you to focus on the military component. 7

8 Do you have an idea four or five years out, what's next after Iraq and Afghanistan in this battle? Have you and the Chiefs developed any kind of blueprint or are you so consumed with Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment that you really haven't looked beyond? A: No, we have a national military strategy for the war on terrorism. We wrote it probably five months after 9/11 or four months. It has stood the test of time. It's been recently updated. It's got goals and objectives and I believe it even has metrics in there for how we're doing. That's a good document. It guides our activities. Basically what the military is going to be involved in, and you can't talk about the war on terrorism and the military as if that's the answer. We're not the answer. We're part of the answer. We work, part of that strategy is [inaudible], so you know what we're doing on defense and that's mainly through NORTHCOM but it's also through anti-terrorism force protection measures around the world. That's part of what we have to be involved in. Then there's the disrupt and degrade the international terrorist organizations. And clearly, there is a military piece to that. Then there's creating an environment where it is not easy to find people that want to answer the call on terrorism, which has a lot less military component than the ones I just mentioned. So those are the basic pillars, if you will. I think the military will be involved in lots of things in the future. Equipping and training other countries to deal with this threat in their own country. We've done a little of that in the Philippines, we've done it in Yemen, we've done it in Georgia. We're building a new Iraqi Army. We're doing it in Afghanistan. We will help with that. I think that's probably an enduring mission. We have to worry about proliferation so there will be counter-proliferation things that go on like the President's Proliferation Security Initiative which has pretty wide buy-in, as you know, from the French and Japan and other countries. I think there are 12 or 13 or 14 countries now involved in that. It's been exercised. But there will be a military component to that too in terms of ensuring things that travel by air, land and sea don't get to their intended places if they're the kinds of things you don't want to be proliferated, like chemical or biological or nuclear or delivery means. So that will be an element we'll be involved in for some time. The last piece, creating an environment that is not conducive to recruiting terrorism and is not tolerated is a larger issue. I think that was the thrust of Secretary Rumsfeld's memo in October asking these questions. That's one that the National Security Council is working on as we speak in terms of how do we organize ourselves as a government? And even more broadly, the international community's got to take this on to change conditions where people don't feel like they can be intimidated by extremists to join the 8

9 cause. It is in the end, I think it's exactly what General Abizaid calls it which is, what we're really finding is a grand insurgency where extremism and extremist views and those who hold them want to influence a very wide and large population through the Middle East. And to make moderate thought feel as if it's not in line with true religion and the [inaudible] insurgency's about extremism and one of the things they use to further their goals is terrorism but it's broader than just the terrorism piece. It's the whole extremism piece so you've got to go to the roots of that and make sure people are educated and have economic opportunities and so forth. That's a tall order and it's not one easily dealt with or going to be changed in a decade or so. That's why when people say it's going to be a long long war, if you will, some of it may not involve combat but there will be this, the intellectual part of it will be fought for a long time. Q: You didn't mention major military operations in the list there. A: I didn't, no. Q: Do you think that's unlikely? A: I don't know. That will be up to the political leadership whether or not there's a need for that or not. The way to work this, and all instruments of national power do count, Libya is a great example of the way to work this. A country that was trying to develop nuclear weapons, delivery means, and I think other weapons as well. There are a couple of ways to solve the problem. The way it was solved seems to me to be a pretty good outcome. So it is all instruments of national power. We'll be ready for lots of contingencies as you would expect your United States military to be, but there's nothing on the horizon. Q: General, just building off those comments, Ambassador Bremer said over the weekend that the attack on the police station in Fallujah demonstrates that the Iraqi security forces aren't ready to tackle things on their own, that they'll need American backup for some time. The Army is already planning for the next couple of OIFs beyond the one that's rotating in. NATO is talking about finally ending its mission in Bosnia after what would be nine years on the ground there. Can you give us your best professional estimate as to how long you believe there will be some kind of sizeable American military presence in Iraq? I realize it depends on the pace of the growth of security forces, the security situation on the ground, but just given some of these factors what's your best professional estimate as to what we're looking at? A: The problem with that, Eric, is, I really do believe it's unknowable. If I gave it a good 9

10 professional estimate then that would be a standard that people would point to, and knowing that we can't know it perfectly we'd get hammered. So this is -- Think how complex this is. Trying to turn a country that has not experienced democracy into some sort of democracy and get them to buy into that in a place that is inherently violent. The one thing we have seen with Iraqi forces, by the way, is that they are tenacious. They have conducted unilateral operations, they've been successful, and they've got plenty of people lining up to continue the quest. But I just can't do it. I can't -- Q: I recognize there are a lot of variables, but is there a range in your own mind that you're thinking there will be some kind of sizeable presence there? A: No, there is not a range in my own mind. We are looking out, we're planning actually what we think is worst case for the next rotation and the one after that so we can see how the forces line out and what kind of support for forces and so on. We're looking at all that in great detail. But beyond the next couple of rotations we're going to have to let events dictate the forces we have. I think that's the best way to approach it other than -- It's not good to set artificial, what would be artificial I think numbers out there and say that's where we think we're going. We can't be that certain. I think General Abizaid and I, General Pace and others that look at this, and Rick Sanchez. If we were sitting around a table I think we could draw a pretty good diagram of where we think we're going to go, but it's not something I think -- So we think about that. We have notions or thoughts on that but I don't think it's -- Q: So it's not unknowable. You just don't want to tell us. [Laughter] A: No, no. I think because it is unknowable. You just can't. Q: You said you sit around and you think about it and -- A: We do think about it, sure. Q: It's fair if you don't want to tell us, but -- A: Actually -- Well, actually the things we've sat around and talked about before have been wrong on every count, so that's probably another reason why I don't want to tell it. [Laughter] Q: The General says, "No end in sight..." Q: General, I want to go back to what Eric just mentioned -- 10

11 A: We've already mentioned that. [Laughter] Q: -- the attack on the police compound this past weekend. Some folks are saying that the Iraqi security forces have benefitted from some U.S. [inaudible]. Are helicopters on alert for possible requests -- A: Yes. You see -- Q: How does that work? A: Well, teams that are out there can request support. And helicopter, fixed wing support is available. It's mechanized that way. We're looking at that. As you might imagine General Abizaid and General Sanchez have looked at that incident. There are some operational things that I'm not going to get into but we can do better. Q: Are the Iraqi security forces reluctant to ask for the support? Or what's -- A: I don't know that that's the case. Q: What can be done better than -- A: It starts to get into operational stuff and that means [inaudible] here's what the Americans are thinking. So no. It's tactical level stuff that needs to be worked on the battlefield and not here in Washington. But I'm just telling you that aid is available and that it is never the intention of the U.S. military to leave the Iraqi forces out there on the end of a limb without helping them. That's not at all. I mean we're training these folks, we're mentoring them, we're going to have Americans with the major units for a long time to come and helping to continue that. So this is not a cut and run sort of thing at all. It's exactly the opposite. Now whether we do that well all the time is another issue. That's what I was referring to. Q: Can you say what kind of air forces are attacked [inaudible]? A: I think we have A-10s still in country at Talil. And part of this rotation that we're working right now involves part of an Air Expeditionary Force as well. The same thing in Afghanistan. We have forces available there. And probably, I'd have to check on the bomber forces that are available, but there is sufficient air, either fixed wing or rotary wing, to respond as appropriate. I'm not sure that would have been an appropriate place to use it, I don't know. I'm not the tactical commander. They've got all kinds of support 11

12 to include artillery support they can call in. We took a lot of artillery out but we didn't take it all out. There's lots of ways to respond with weapons beyond the traditional arms that the infantry would have in these cases. Q: I wanted to ask you about the up-armored HUMVEEs, you were on the Hill last week and this issue came up. We've been told repeatedly that industry is producing as many as possible. It's going to be until next year before they get as many as they need in Iraq. I was talking with a lawmaker who said it's really more of a money issue than a production issue. He said there's one plant in Ohio, for example, and this guy's not from Ohio. He said one plant can produce 350 a month. It's now doing roughly 220 a month. And I know Les Brownley also is trying to see if they can produce a lot more. Can you talk about that issue? Can they produce more than they are now? A: I don't know that they can produce more but I think I can say when it comes to force protection it's not a money issue. We have taken Central Command's force protection concerns and tried to work those off very aggressively. And of course they change over time. The requirement for up-armored HUMVEEs developed over time. At one time it was a couple of thousand. Now it's over 4,000. So requirements change. The battlefield commander sees the situation changing so they'll say okay, I need this. We've got over 2,000, we've got 2100 in there. There's about 4100 requirement. We're scouring all the services. Air Force has 100 or so in Korea. We're looking at how fast we can get them over there. These are important matters. But it would not be a money issue. Whatever money we need to divert. Q: So what this lawmaker is saying, 350 a month vice 220, that doesn't ring a bell with you? A: It does not ring a bell with me. My impression was we were at max production rate but I'll go back and check that. I don't know. He may have better information than we have. That's the only way we're going to get well because we only have so many of them and they are the conveyance of choice right now. They do protect our troops better than any lightly skinned vehicle. And we've got to do the same thing for some trucks. We've got to up-armor some trucks that are in these convoys as well. A little bit of steel between your pink body and these explosive devices makes a lot of difference and we know that. I have not heard that, but it would not be a money issue. We've got a lot of money going towards force protection. We could fix that part if a higher production rate is feasible. Actually it's a good heads up. I'll go back and check. I've not heard that. 12

13 Q: -- proliferation [inaudible] question. In light of the two attempts on General Musharraf's life and recent revelations that a Pakistani scientist has proliferated nuke secrets, what sort of assistance is the U.S. providing to ensure that the nukes stay [inaudible]? A: I don't think I can go into any of that. First of all I'm not -- I think that's something you ought to ask State Department or something. You shouldn't ask me that question. Q: Let me ask it a different way. In light of those incidents and attacks on his life, are you concerned about the "positive control" of his nuclear arsenal? A: I think the answer to that is no. Obviously countries understand how serious that is. It is their issue. Again, this is not really a military question. There might be military ramifications and things we have to be ready to do, but I think we're satisfied with the security of their nuclear weapons. Q: Same region, different issue. Can you bring us up to speed on the level of effort being applied to the search for bin Laden. What specific region do you think he's in? There are credible reports of cross-border movement. Has this become a major SOCOM issue now that [inaudible]? A: It's an issue for Central Command because it's their area of operation that we think he's still in. It's an issue for SOCOM because they have some of the forces that might be used. It is not a bigger issue today than it was yesterday than it was two years ago. The issue is, we have spent an enormous amount of time in all our intel agencies to work the bin Laden problem. Having said that, I can't tell you where he is. I don't think anybody can. There are areas where we think it's most likely he is and they remain the same. They haven't changed for months. Q: In Pakistan? A: Well, I don't know that. Q: But that border region? A: We think in that border region somewhere. We don't know. We don't know where he is precisely. We know it's easy to move back and forth across the border and we know there are folks in that region that are sympathetic to the cause and we know there are folks in that region that like their autonomy and don't like central governments, and we know there are people in those regions that don't recognize the border. They've been living there for centuries and they go back and forth at will. So the border is [inaudible]. We also know the border is not clearly described in all cases. The so-called Doran Line. Even Doran admitted he didn't know where parts of it were, even though it's pretty well 13

14 mapped out. So who knows? Q: Is there equivalent to a Task Force 120 that was sent in Iraq to -- A: Now you're getting into operational matters. Let me just tell you there has been no diminution of our effort to go after UBL. It's been intense. There have been operations that have gone on to try to work that problem. Let me just say that. We're organized to take advantage of any leads. Q: Have you come close at all? Can you say -- A: I'm not going to talk about it. Q: Sir, last fall Secretary Rumsfeld put a memo out that basically put the J8 from the Joint Staff on equal footing with policy in the PA&E in determining the next big budget. What is the big change that gives the military a lot of say that maybe it didn't directly have at the table before. I'm curious what in the old process was maybe lacking or needed to be changed to bring the military into this process? And also what do you guys tend to bring to the table in terms of new or different advice? Maybe some [inaudible] capabilities that you want to focus on for '06? A: There are several things happening. I don't characterize the J8 like that. I never remember any memo or anything that ever said that. Q: October 31st. A: What did it say? Q: It basically said that Mr. Henry, Crieg and General Cartright would be the three point people that would -- A: Well it has to be put in the context of what we were talking about. What was the subject of the memo? Q: The new budgeting process. A: The new budgeting process, yeah. This goes into the analysis piece, so it's not a total process. The process is big, has a lot of players. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has by statute certain things he's responsible for making assessments and recommendations on that process and so forth. And the services play and all that. What changed was former Secretary Aldridge, used to be AT&L, did a study that said why don't we try to determine in the front of the budget process what the big strategic 14

15 issues are and pick them out? And don't pick out the world. In this budget cycle one of the big issues that we want to, we want to at the end of this process have opinions about, as opposed to the way it more typically works today where the process moves along and you get to the end and you have a lot of maybe disassociated, unconnected, but lots of big issues at the end. So you don't decide it up front, you wait until the end for them to bubble up and there are so many that you can't handle them in a very, as thoughtful a way as you want to. So what Pete Aldridge thought we ought to do in his group is let's try to front load that kind of discussion, then take those issues and work through various analyses and come through it where we would have earlier in the process, much less disruptive at the end. If you wait for the big decisions at the end, the services have already built their programs and you say okay we're going to change this to that. We're going to buy two aircraft carriers this year instead of one. Can you imagine what that does to a Navy program that's been tightly put together? And now you've got a month or two before it has to go to Congress and everything just ripples through there and where is that money? So we're trying to do that part up front. That was an example, not a current example of anything that we're considering. But that was the thought process. Of course in that process one of the ways you look at what capabilities you need and where you have overlap, maybe too much overlap, and where you have underlap, not enough capability, is being worked by how we're going to fight which is sitting down and saying okay, here's our joint operations concept about how we're going to fight together as a team. Then you break that down further into [inaudible] pieces under the joint operating concepts and all the way down so you can start to analyze, okay, if we're going to fight that way what kind of capability do we need? Then again, where do we have overlap or underlap? Then you start to address those. That last piece on the operating concept and so forth is where the J8 plays a -- (END SIDE A/BEGIN SIDE B) -- by law the unified commanders are supposed to be represented in the process by the Chairman, among others, and we do that through the J8 and through all that work they do. Q: I'm not clear on what he said. If I can just ask a quick followup. Are you saying that this is not a very big change? A: It's a huge change. No, it's a huge change, Amy. There's always been this responsibility but the huge change is in when we're going to address these problems -- earlier in the process; and how we're going to bring our joint operating concepts to bear 15

16 on this. So we're going to have something to bounce ideas off of and not just no backboard there where anything goes. There's going to be a lot more rigor in the analytical part of it. A lot more rigor in that part. So no, it's a big change. It's a huge change. Q: Sir, the Pentagon, a couple of questions on security for U.S. forces in Iraq. The Pentagon and commanders on the ground have taken rather extraordinary steps to ensure that the OIF-1, OIF-2 rotation is not hindered or waylaid by attacks on all those pieces moving, transports, etc. My first question is, has it worked? Is there any evidence at all that insurgents have targeted U.S. forces in motion? Is there any evidence that they have tried to and there have been attempts that have been foiled? And related to that I wanted to know if the decision recently, rather quietly announced, that U.S. forces going in in OIF-2 will not be based in Baghdad, but will be based outside of Baghdad, is that related at all to security concerns? It has been cast as an attempt to give Iraqi security forces more impact, but I'd like to know if that's also related to security concerns. A: I'm not aware of any attacks on deploying forces. There may have been inside Iraq that I'm not aware of, but I'm not aware of that. Q: Or attempts? A: I'm just not aware of any. There may have been attempts and they may have been foiled locally and I just wouldn't be aware, but I'm not aware -- I'm trying to think. We've deployed 40,000 people in right now and 30,000 out. So there's a lot of movement, but I'm not aware of that. One of our concerns was of course to ensure continuity which is as important, because it leads directly to effectiveness which is directly related to force protection. On the Baghdad piece, that has been really misreported and exaggerated in ways that I don't think reflect what's happening. The notion has always been that as the Iraqis become capable of providing police or the Civil Defense Corps providing security that we would back away and let them do it. People have related this to the cantonment idea in Vietnam. It's not at all. It's not even close. I don't know how people can look at this and say that that's what's being thought of. But to have tanks stationed in Baghdad neighborhoods where they can't maneuver might have been useful early on but it's not particularly useful now. So this has nothing to do with resolve. It has nothing to do with we don't want our people killed. It has everything to do with letting Iraqis where they can start to take over 16

17 responsibility for their security with our help. And like I said earlier, we're going to help them until the job is finished. This is not something we're going to run away from. There is no intention to run away from this. We have to be integral to this security situation for some time yet. The time will be when we finish the job and we have the kind of environment that we think can be sustained by the Iraqis themselves. Q: Is this accurate then as it has been reported that those U.S. forces that -- A: There will be units that will pull out of the neighborhoods with their tanks and they'll move somewhere else, yes. Absolutely. That's accurate. But the why and the wherefore is what I explained, and not what has sometimes been explained as gee, we're worried about force protection or gee, we're worried about. That's not the reason. The reason is to let the Iraqis do the job with our help. And we're not needed there. It's not efficient to have tanks in places where they can't maneuver. That might have been important early on when the threat was different. We're actually handling the threat quite well. We have rounded up a lot of folks that we're after. We've had great impact. If you look at the Zarkawi letter, if you believe that that's an accurate depiction, and you have to, you've got to be careful here because he's appealing for funds. But he talked about the resolve, the difficulty of operating when Iraqis don't like them and all those sorts of things. The fact that it's difficult to find safe houses and all those sorts of things, which we think, and finances, which we think is true. We're having a fairly major impact on them. We're being successful. The thing you worry about of course is what he also said, that sectarian violence is the way to, you know, we'll start some Shia on Sunni stuff. We'll go attack the Shia and we'll get the Sunni and the Shia fighting and that will be a way to ensure extremism prevails in Iraq. But I think we're having good effect. This strategy -- we talked about this over a year ago about how as Iraqis start to replace us that we would sort of withdraw from the territory that they would then be responsible for securing. But not on a permanent basis. If they need help, we're going to be in there mentoring them and training them. There's a lot of on-the-job training that goes on across the security forces with the possible exception of -- well, I'd say across all their forces. They're going to need that for some time. We expected it and we're planning for it. Q: The Joint Staff supposedly is working on a study called Global Joint Force Presence Policy that the Navy and the Pentagon [inaudible] which is supposed to change its deployment schedule [inaudible]. I assume it also has some relation to this world basing policy that you're looking at. What's the status of that, and do you expect any major changes in the way we -- 17

18 A: The major change in the Global Force Presence Policy is to ask unified commanders as they look at their areas of responsibility, to ask for capability and not things. We used to have what we used to call the Global Naval Force Presence Policy and EUCOM had a carrier presence. It might have been at 1.0 before, five, six years ago, so they expected to have a carrier assigned to the Mediterranean or in their area of operation. What we're asking them now is what capability do you want? What kind of effects do you want to have on your theater and what capability do you need to do that? Not that gee, you've been given us four submarines and a carrier battle group on some kind of a regular basis and that's what we want. That will affect how many forces and capability we have out there at any given time. It also goes back to a notion of surge capability. That notion is that we can, particularly as it applies to the Navy but the other services as well, that for instance a hypothetical, but we may not have as many forces out and about on any given day, but our surge capability will be higher than it's ever been before. So again, if you had a crisis somewhere in the world and you wanted to surge capability, we're going to have a much better chance of getting the kind of capability we need there because of the surge. So that kind of goes hand in hand with that. We need to get you more detail on that some time. Q: Is there a formal policy that's going to be issued at some time? A: Let me check on that. We need to talk to you about that. We need to bring that out and explain it in a little bit more detail. Clearly the global footprint business will be part of that and how we can respond and so forth. But the main thing is try to get people talking. We've been trying to work this a long time. Talk in capabilities. Don't talk about I need another -- I grew up in the X community, now I'm the X community guy in EUCOM and we need four X's for a fortnight. It's sort of a self-perpetuating, non-thinking, not useful sort of mentality. We've got to get okay, what are you trying to achieve? What effects do you want to have in your theater and what capability do you need for those effects? And please don't come back and say I need ten P-3s, an Air Expeditionary Wing, and a carrier battle group. That's not how we want to do business. It's a huge difference in mindset, but if you grew up in X community and you're now the two star and you're responsible for making recommendations to your unified commander you say if we don't have four X's over here all the time the world is going to come to an end. That's what we're trying to get at. We're trying to change mindsets. And it's huge. This is as transformational as anything else we're doing, actually. Q: General, I wanted to ask about the attack last week on the police station in Fallujah. Do you have a clearer idea now who carried out that attack? And more broadly, what 18

19 does it tell you about the resistance at this point? It's been a couple of months since Saddam was captured and there had been a concern that what had been a Ba'athist resistance might take on a more nationalistic flavor. A: Fallujah is a very difficult place. How much of that have we released in terms of the Mayor? Perhaps the Mayor's involvement? Voice: It's been talked about. Voice: The Mayor's [inaudible]. A: Frank will have to call you back and make sure you got the straight skinny here but I think -- before I say it because I don't know -- Q: Just say it. [Laughter] A: No. We'll have Frank call and the question was over here, and we'll call back and say - - I think I know the answer but I've got to be careful here. But we think we know and -- What was the second part? Q: More broadly what it tells you about the resistance at this point two months after Saddam's capture -- A: I don't think -- That's been a hot spot from day one. It's been the most difficult area. I don't think it tells us anything in particular. It goes back to some of the tactics in how U.S. forces support the Iraqi forces. There are things there that General Abizaid's working on but I don't think it says anything more broadly about it one way or another. That's just a very tough place. We'll get back to you. Q: Can you at least say whether that was an indigenous -- A: That's what I'll make sure. I don't want to tell you what I think. I'm going to check it out and then I'll tell you. I'll tell you, but I don't want to tell you now because if I'm wrong then I've got 50 people I've got to tell, or 25, and I'm not going to do that. Q: General, how will the U.S. military leadership structure evolve in Iraq between now and June 30th including the [inaudible] four star general? And how is it going to look after July 1st? And let me just add this one issue. What happens if the new Iraqi sovereign entity asks U.S. troops to leave? A: First of all I don't think that last one's going to be an eventuality but we'll work that out beforehand. Security is important to these Iraqis that are trying to make a decent society out of Iraq and our help's going to be needed for some time. If nothing else we've 19

20 got to think about the external threats to Iraq and certainly the new Iraqi Army is not going to be up to that in terms of size or their training. So that is not a particular concern. That will be handled under UN Resolution 1511 and so forth which will pertain until, pertain sometime into the future doesn't go away when you start the process of Iraqis taking over more sovereignty. The structure we're going to try to put in place here in the next couple of months will be the one that will carry us through that transition and continue on. Whether it's a three star or a four star headquarters is to be determined. That has not been determined. The model, if you will, if you go over to Afghanistan and you look at General Barnow and his relationship to General Austin, and Barnow's relationship to the Ambassador, to Kalizad, and his work in Kabul, you can see it parallels almost exactly that model where you have a headquarters, who knows what it will be called, but it could be Combined Forces Iraq which would be -- Combined meaning a multinational headquarters because you'll have multinational forces in there. You'll have the Brits, you'll have the division the Polish are now leading. That's part of it. You'll have the Koreans and Japanese and others that will be part of this as well because it will be a combined headquarters. And it will also be working very closely with Iraqi security forces. Again, it will be a three or four star to be determined. Then below that you'll have a tactical headquarters is. Like Austin is in Afghanistan, you'll have Tom Metz who is currently understudying General Sanchez. He'll be the tactical commander responsible for the day-to-day tactical issues. The higher level headquarters will be responsible for working all the security issues in that country and working with the U.S. embassy team and probably all the other countries involved in that because there will be lots of bits and pieces in that security part that other countries will have. So that's what we envision. And whatever we set up in the next month or two will take us through that transition as far as we can see. Q: General, after the Iraq war it was reported that you rewrote the strategic planning guidance to reflect that future wars could be fought with fewer forces and quicker. How do you respond to critics that say that Iraq is a pretty weak example to base such a fundamental change. That the Iraqi army was very weak, we didn't have the forces in place for phase four and transition, and the logistics problems -- A: I don't agree with the premise of your question. Did you say we wrote it? OSD is responsible for the strategic planning guidance. We make inputs to it. That's not a military document, that's a civilian leadership document on how we have to plan. Q: I assume if you didn't agree with it you wouldn't have -- 20