TRANSCRIPT

Defense Writers Group

A Project of the Center for Media & Security New York and Washington, D.C.

Gen. Richard Myers, USAF Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff January 22, 2003

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: We're on the record....

General Myers: Can I make a quick opening statement?

A: Go ahead.

A: I just got back Monday night from a trip to Germany and Belgium. That was to participate in the change of command at Stuttgart, to observe and be one of the folks in the audience for the change in Hoehenfels when General Joe Ralston gave up to General Jim Jones. All that went fine. I went down to Italy. Had a meeting with my counterpart in Rome, General Mastini. Up to Vicenza for a troop visit. Two things up there. There is the Southern European Task Force which is in Vicenza and also there is the 173rd Brigade there as well. We went through that. Then down to Turkey, a counterpart visit. Lots of speculation on the visit, this has been on the books probably for six months, so...We were always going to Turkey. Then troop visit at Incirlik before we went down or up to Ankara. Had a meeting with my counterpart again General Kudkamen (?). Then their minister of defense and then came on home. Lots of other things happening. First of all, the troop visit folks are seem to be bearing up very well. Lots of reservists at Incirlik, Guard and Reserve, doing well. In the Q&A session, I didn't hear any reserve component specific questions. They were much broader and very good questions. Of course, the folks in Vicenza, I met mainly with leadership there, not as many troops because it was on a Sunday and we didn't want to call troops in. So we spent time with the leadership. Again, people seem to be real professional about their duties and pretty well motivated for the mission.

Some other things have been going on. You probably recognized that on the 10th of January the president signed another change to our unified command plan. This one gave Strategic 1 Command some more responsibilities to include responsibilities for an integrating function for missile defense, responsibilities for C4ISR, responsibilities for Global Strike, responsibilities for information operations and there is one other there, that we gave them. Some of these are going to have to mature. We know what the responsibility is and we know the boundaries, the specifics will take time to be implemented, as Strategic Command adapts those new responsibilities. It will take time to kind of play that out. With that...

Q: There has been a lot of speculation about Turkey. I wonder if you can clarify just a couple things for us, briefly. Number one, has Turkey formally, as the reports say, approved the United States putting troops in, in addition to aircraft? And is it going to be a problem that you are not going to be able to put as many troops in as you hoped for?

A: As you know, we have some people in there doing some site surveys now. I still think it is a really good policy to let the Turkish government describe what it is they will permit, US or other forces, other countries do on their soil. I am not going to get into that. I would only say that Turkey has been with us in every major conflict -- Korean War forward and I think they have the same desires for the region as we do and that is a stable Iraq that is not a threat to its neighbors, that doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. I think on that, we all agree. I think the partnership we have will allow them to do what they feel is in their best national interest and I think -- I'll just let them characterize their support.

Q: Won't it be pretty obvious, if you are moving troops to Turkey, will any of these troops be going to...

A: I am not going to talk about where our troops are going. That is just something I am not going to talk about.

Q: I want to ask you a little bit about the Guard and Reserve call-up that has been foreseen and expected to come in fairly large numbers. Up to this point, we haven't seen large numbers called up for duty related to the potential war in Iraq. Can you tell me what the timetable looks like? Are we going to see that soon? What ballpark size Reserve/Guard call up can we expect to see?

A: I don't know what kind of numbers you are thinking about but the last time I looked, for those called up inside CONUS for what we call Operation Noble Eagle, which is defense of continental United States, there were about somewhere in the area of 56 thousand called up. That had been the size around close to 80 and went as low as below 50. It is back up to about 56 thousand. We are building, as you know, building up forces in the Gulf clearly and there are reserves as pieces of that. That continues. The facts are that there is a lot of our combat capability/combat support and service support capability in the reserve components that, you know, if you want to have a credible force, you've got to call up the reserves along with it. So that is continuing.

Q: There are reports that it will be 100 thousand/200 thousand. 2

A: A hundred or two hundred thousand of reserve component?

Q: Yes.

A: I think in terms of the current build up, that is off base. That is way off base.

Q: Can you give us a better number?

A: Well, the problem is, you alert some. Some of those you mobilize. And then some of those you deploy. It is sort of three steps. Every number would be different. We've alerted more than we've mobilized and we've mobilized more than we've deployed. The deployed number is much, much smaller than those numbers you've used. Because we deal in all three of them and we work this kind of continuously. I'll go back to see what I can release in terms of what we can release in terms of numbers. I'll work that with (inaudible) to see if there is a number we can release on. It changes fairly quickly. If I were to lay out a number, in any one of those categories, it would probably be off by some. Let's go see what is...

Q: Would it be fair to say that you expect more than double your number called up? To more than 100 thousand?

A: You talking about Reserve or active?

Q: Reserve and National Guard?

A: It depends on the situation. Obviously, if the president/the UN decides force is the only way to disarm Iraq from its WMD, then the reserve numbers would be potentially quite high. Certainly, for what we are doing in this case, to kind of put pressure on Iraq, to help the diplomacy along, the numbers aren't going to be near that size. And to make sure I am clear, I am differentiating between -- I am keeping separate the Noble Eagle piece. I separate that out. So, when you say 100 thousand, I am taking the 50 some thousand we have for the home defense piece out of that. If you add it in, you know, you could get to 100 thousand easy.

Q: You and the Secretary have talked about the slow, deliberate build up of forces in support of diplomacy. At what point in the next point or so does the slow, deliberate build up of forces become a credible invasion for whatever the president decides to do? Are we talking mid- February? End of February?

A: Hopefully that will be in the mind of the Iraqi regime. We think we have credible force any time the president says go do what you have to do. So, if the Iraqi regime were to attack Kuwait, if they were going to attack Turkey or Israel or Jordan or Saudi Arabia now, we'd be prepared, have to be prepared to have a credible deterrent in the region. The build up is going to proceed apace. I would say -- the reason I kind of hesitate on these dates is, what are we telling Saddam? 3 We are saying, "Hey, Saddam, by 18 February they are going to be as strong as they are going to be." Well, I'm not going to say that. I'd like to answer your question, but I can't do it. I just can't tell you what date we are going to be...

Q: But what about a rough order of magnitude. Are we talking weeks or a month?

A: We're ready now. We're ready now. And the Iraqi regime should have no doubt that if the president of the United States decides that we need to take action, we are ready today.

Q: How long can you sustain a large force in the region from a morale, logistics and from a regional sensitivity stand point, if this drags out a number of months?

A: We are doing our homework on that. My guess is, my estimate is, we can do that for some time. I mean, several months, no problem. There are a lot of things that go into that. Can the force that you have forward deployed, can it train? That is a little bit uneven, but in most cases, you can. In some cases, you can't. And so then you worry about that piece. Obviously, we don't have near our whole force in the Middle East. So we could rotate units. That is always possible. I would say -- I am trying to do some analytical work right now to answer that question a little more specifically. And we haven't finished that yet. But I don't think in the near term there is any big impact on the force.

Q: Near term meaning several months?

A: Yes. For sure.

Q: I find the vocabulary being used -- disarming Iraq of their weapons of mass destruction -- to be interesting. Do you have the intelligence required to know where all of those weapons that you can go in and take them out? Or is this going to be more of a search and destroy operation?

A: It will probably be a little bit of both. I think the secretary and I have both said in our regular news events that it is a large country. We have very good evidence that they practice very aggressive denial and deception techniques. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide and cover up any of the chemical or biological or nuclear programs and the material. Therefore, we know where -- we have pretty good intelligence on some of it, but not all of it. It is going to be -- we'd have to see how that would play out. My guess would be, we'd get a lot of our information from people who would want to not be associated with their weapons of mass destruction programs any longer. We hope that they would be treated in a fair way than if they are associated with them. I think some of this will be discovery. When they are hiding it, you need somebody to come forward and tell you where it is. And I think we'd have to rely on that and other means to find it, as a matter of fact...(using) more aggressive search and so forth. Following up on things that have not been followed up on perhaps. I would suspect that a lot of it -- you have to believe that there are people that do not appreciate using chemical weapons on their own population. You just have to suspect that there are people are so afraid for their lives, that they are unwilling 4 to come forward now. But if they thought the regime was going to topple, they would come forward very quickly and say, hey, here is what we know and here is where it is. I think that would be the reality of it.

Q: General, you talked about rotation of forces in that part of the world. That is the key way to maintain a US troop presence there for a long period of time. Are you seriously considering the wholesale rotation of US forces into that region?

A: Not at this point, no. We'll have to see how long the process goes on and at some point -- you know, these forces didn't all get there on the same day. So, in the way you are thinking, it wouldn't -- well, it might be, but it is not wholesale on some given date.

Q: Well, the notion isn't that this build up is going to continue and then it is going to have to stop and then it is going to start degrading because you are going to go ahead moving forces through to maintain that edge, if that is what you need to do?

A: Yes, I think that would be the notion. And that, if we are there for some length of time, that the numbers would ebb and flow some as you go through that business. I think I said before, nobody should read into that, if they are at some level and they decrease by 10 percent over time, that that is any indication of a lessening of resolve or any of that issue. It would just be trying to manage your force in a way that allows you to stay postured for a longer period of time.

Q: The president has characterized inspections process as something like a bad movie that he is not interested in watching. Secretary Armitage said yesterday Saddam has very little time left. But the French are suggesting that the inspections be given at least two more months and a poll in the Washington Post today says 7 in 10 Americans would like much more inspections. Why not give a few months more to this process to work? Is weather that much of a concern for your war plans?

A: To answer your last part first, no, weather is not a factor. We've talked about this a great deal. Clearly, warfare in the desert when it is brutally hot during the day, particularly if you are confronted with weapons of mass destruction, chemical or biological weapons and you have to put on your protective suit, some of you have worn those, you know that it gets very hot, very quickly. We have discussed this at great lengths with General Franks, with the service chiefs, he's discussed it with his combatant commanders and there is no doubt that no matter what time of year, we can fight and prevail in that environment. We will do better in that environment than any potential adversary will do in that environment. Part of that is enabled by the fact that we can fight at night. We are as good at night as we are in the day time. That is not true of most forces. It gives us a tremendous edge.

On your other question, that is clearly a political question. I'll leave it the president and the State Department and others to talk about the negotiations.

5 Q: What is your advice on that point?

A: The advice is that the military can stay postured and with enough flexibility that no matter what the decision is or when the decision is, we'll be ready to go. That is the advice and that's what we've tried to provide the president of the United States, is maximum flexibility so it will reinforce the diplomatic efforts and that is currently how we are postured.

Q: On this question of alliances and coalitions of the willing, you do wear the stars and not the pinstripes, I was hoping you could set right out for us...

A: Uh-oh. I'm being set up.

Q: Do you have today what you need from allies to carry forth a regime change order should the president decide that? How much more difficult would it be without further alliance support, a UN vote, those sort of things?

A: Clearly, from a military point of view, the more coalition support, in most cases, the easier the job would be. We have, in my estimation, I think in General Frank's estimation, we have the coalition support to do what we need to do. Again, I am not going to characterize it country by country. That will be for the countries to characterize. But we have very good coalition support. One of the reasons is, I think, and to go back to the fundamentals, the fundamentals are that none of these countries in the region like the situation in Iraq right now, either. They didn't like the idea of an Iraq that has chemical and biological and aspirations for nuclear weapons, that has attacked its neighbors on the east and the south before, that has lobbed missiles into most of them, in fact all of them with the exception of maybe Syria. They don't want -- they think it is a terrible mix to have chemical and biological and potentially nuclear weapons mixed with a regime that is as unstable as it is. I think we'll have very good support. Obviously, the more of that, the better, frankly, for all sorts of reasons. I think if you asked General Franks that question, we're very pleased with the support we're getting.

Q: I've heard from some officers that the deployment is somewhat behind schedule, the flow of forces to the Middle East. Is that a problem? Is it taking longer than expected? And is that going to delay the point at which you would say US forces are at the optimum readiness?

A: You need to come work for me because I am not getting the same feedback. I don't mean to be -- it is, I am not aware of delays that have any impact on our operational capability right now. I think things are proceeding apace. I talk to Tom Franks every day. I talk to Jim Jones, previously Joe Ralston every day, the two commanders that are trying to manage the logistics and the flow of things. I talk to John Handy. I think, by and large, thins are moving at about the right pace. There may be individual units or things that, you know, you may want to move up in the flow. But this is a process that iterates. There is not a perfect plan that you then go execute. There is a plan that, as we saw yesterday and today say, you know, what we really need is this unit needs to be moved up here. And some of them we can delay a little bit. And there is some of 6 that which goes on, but that would be the natural flow of things. There is not in a major way an issue with that.

Q: Think for a moment beyond a potential war with Iraq...

A: I'd love to.

Q: ...to the war on terrorism. You and others have said that war could go on and on. And (inaudible) has signed off on this lengthy document that clarifies the J-5 shop, sort of providing a framework for how to think about this war long term.

A: Right.

Q: The next thing one sees, among others, confronting state-sponsored terrorism, other than Iraq -- like Iran or Syria. I wonder what you see in that regard. Can you envision military action these state-sponsored and other forms of actions?

A: I think, you know, the way we deal with them is set out very early and it has to be. It has to be only if it is from a national power. It just has to be. In some cases, military situation. We did try some diplomacy in Afghanistan, gave the Taliban a chance to give up Al Qaeda. They elected to fight. So then it became a military operation. In terms of WMD and the nexus of terrorism in Iraq, diplomacy is operative right now. In terms of Al Qaeda finances, there have been a lot of organizations that have worked that. There have been police organizations that have rounded up a lot of the Al Qaeda leadership, as well as the military. I would say it is a combination and it is also -- it can't be thought of as a US-only sort of operation. It has to involve the international community. I think we have over 90 partners in the overall war on terrorism that are contributing in various ways. With some countries, we've gotten unprecedented operational cooperation on this anti-terrorism fight. I think people realize that, you know, an attack on New York doesn't just affect the United States of America. It doesn't just affect the West. It affects everybody. It affects American airlines, it affects European airlines, it affects Middle Eastern airlines. Everybody, you know, has their confidence in flying safely has eroded a little bit. An attack in London, an attack in Bali all affect all of us. I think those 90 plus countries understand that. It is going to take all of that. There will be, I think, there will be time when military action will be required. If you asked me to be specific, I probably couldn't be very specific right now. But I think as a general case, there is going to be a requirement for military action and some of the steps that we are taking, that you see and that you report on, is that we are trying to shape ourselves to be better prepared to take that kind of action. Some of the things we've done with Special Operations Command, which you've seen, some of the things -- I just talked about the UCP change. Some of that was all meant to give us a perspective. If you think about Strategic Command for a minute, from their perspective, we want to be global so we gave them missions that might be global in scope. Clearly, their old mission of nuclear war planning tended to have a global nature about it, but then you go into global strike, which is not necessarily nuclear, but other types of ways to have an affect on the battlefield, information operations, C4ISR piece. 7 Those are trying to posture us to be able to deal with a threat that is global and not a threat that is regional, as we've been organized in the past. I guess my answer to your question is, sure, I think the military instrument will be used in the future on this war on terrorism. There is no question in my mind. But I also think it is going to be, to be effective, it has got to be across an entire front of instruments of national power -- economic as well we haven't mentioned much about that, the old sanctions business, which comes up when you start talking about North Korea, for instance.

Q: Can you help me understand the difference of opinion under Secretary Rumsfeld's plan, or idea, to give authority and money to Giambastiani's Joint Forces Command to buy network- centric systems?

A: The idea is, that -- and I don't think, there is a lot of the detail to be worked out yet. I hope I cover this -- if I don't mention this later. But let me just say, I don't think there is any intention to make Joint Forces Command an active mission agency. If you look at how we fight, as we bring the service capabilities together, the glue that holds this together, the glue that enables us to fight well is the command, control, communications ISR piece. That is the glue. And the problem is, there is no one entity that is responsible for developing that glue. You can't say, well, they are the ones that do that. And the idea with a unified command like Joint Forces Command that works the experimentation and the training and so forth, they need to have the oversight responsibility to ensure that as the services bring systems on board and as we fund systems in the C4ISR business that are essentially born joint that we have, we ask for capabilities that we know are going to be joint from the start, that those are appropriately resourced and that they carry through to the end. In the past, it has been that some of these very potentially significant programs, that the resources for them will be siphoned off for other things. The attempt here is to ensure somebody that is linked very closely to the Joint Staff and to the secretary, as the unified commander is, that they are going to watch over this and ensure it is executed in a way that gets through to the war fighter. They will not be an active mission agency. They will be sort of an oversight, making sure these things come on board.

Q: The Iraqis say they shot down a Predator. Do you have any confirmation on that?

A: No. We can find out.

Q: Information Operations ending up as, being at StratCom. That has been at a number of places now. It started out with...

A: It will be pieces of that, not the whole enchilada. Pieces are already at Space Command and when we created the new commands, then those pieces flowed and we are looking at how much more ought to flow. Some of that is to be determined.

Q: We don't have any reporters currently of a Predator being shot down or even losing one?

8 A: I can't say that. He might know and we might not know.

Q: We don't have any reports. That doesn't mean nothing has happened.

A: Right.

Q: I don't believe before too long we'll see a budget.

A: You will.

Q: This one has been touted as the transformational budget. Can you tell us, was there any effort to break the one/third, one/third, one/third mold on this budget? Is there more, less or about the same amount of horse trading this time around than at previous go rounds.

A: The one-third, one-third, one-third mold, I can tell you that when the secretary and the deputy secretary or myself or Pete Pace, when we are ever in a room talking about budget issues, service share of the budget was never discussed. Ever that I remember. What was discussed was, what kind of capabilities do we want to buy for the future and what do we need to sustain the force today? And how do we take care of our people? It was never thought of in those terms. And frankly, I don't know what share went to -- I have not seen a chart on that. I doubt if the secretary has, he may have, but he certainly hasn't when I've been in the room. There are a lot of items in this budget that I think will help as the process of transformation goes forward help us in our quest to be faster, more agile, more flexible force. But you've got to be a little careful because transformation is not necessarily a material thing. It is not buying things necessarily. Some times that helps. It is not necessarily more technology, although technology can help and it can be transformation as stealth was. There is another huge piece to transformation and that is the organizational doctrine, how you train leadership personnel -- all those things you talked about, facilities for that matter, that are just as transformational. Example I use is and it has been used a lot is the blitzkrieg. Everybody had tanks. Everybody had airplanes. It was how the Germans put it together that made it transformational and made it effective. That is working as a team. So, I think we've got to be careful. Yes, there are a lot of items in there that will help us transform the military and in that regard, it is a good budget. There are some really good things in there. We just have to be a little cautious how we talk about transformation, lest we get people who don't work on it every day thinking that transformation is a new ship, plane or tank or a tank with wheels or a stealthier airplane. It will all help, but, in and of itself, it doesn't necessarily portend.

Q: I ask this question (to you) as the senior advisor to the president on strategic military policy, the secretary of Defense has told Congress that imagine how hard it would be to put a coalition together if Iraq already had a nuclear bomb. North Korea allegedly has one or two nuclear bombs and we are negotiating, instead of invading. Is it not the lesson here that if you don't have a nuclear bomb yet, and you looked at the United States pre-emptive strike policy, it would behoove you to hurry and get a nuke because that way the United States won't invade you. Therefore, isn't this nuclear policy as now being played out counter to any efforts for non- 9 proliferation?

A: First, I would offer that we are still negotiating with Iraq. There has not been a decision to use force. We are negotiating on both fronts. There may be some who read it that way. I think that would be a grave mistake. Clearly, nobody wants conflict. The president says nobody wants conflict anywhere. But, if there must be conflict, I don't think a country having whatever kind of weapons. I mean, we think, if you think about the devastation that could be wrought by biological weapons, in some scenarios could be as devastating or more devastating than a nuclear weapon, that that is not determinant whether or not force must be used to disarm.

Q: My point is, if I've got a nuke, there is less chance of invasion.

A: That is a dangerous assumption, to me. That could be a very bad assumption on anybody's part to make, to come to that conclusion, I think. You've got to look at these two situations -- North Korea and Iraq. For 50 some years, we know pretty clearly what capabilities North Korea has. With regard to nuclear weapons, there is speculation that they have a couple. If they start reprocessing their plutonium, they could have more fairly quickly. We also know -- and what they've shown in the last 50 years, their intent has been, they haven't attacked their neighbor. There have been some small incidents on the DMZ and some of those things, but they have not attacked their neighbor. They have been accused of proliferating missile technology, but not the chemical, biological or nuclear pieces of that.

If you look at Iraq, we know they have chemical and biological and intent for nuclear capabilities. They also have shown the intent to use them. They've showed. So, they not only have the capability, but I think you could say, they have the intent to use them and have in the past. That intent, sort of the tent piece, is missing in North Korea right now. I think they are two different situations for that reason. And for lots of other reasons, too, I think. But we started diplomacy in Iraq over 10 years ago and here we are today. Diplomacy will work along in Korea. I think it is a very bad assumption to assume that a nuclear power, by having one nuke or two nukes, that that takes force off the table. Nothing, in my mind, could be further from the truth.

Q: I am going to ask you about fratricide and more precisely air-ground fratricide. There is sort of a puzzle here because the more precise weapons you have and the higher percentage of precision weapons you are using, despite that, there seems to be a stubborn rate of fratricide or at least when you are dropping ordinance you can hit what you are aiming at, but you don't often know what the target is and sometimes it is not what you intended. My question is, whether there are significant questions that have to be made in terms of doctrine, tactics, technology to resolve this problem or whether you are happy that the tweaks that have been made, have solved it to the extent it can be resolved and that, if we go into a conflict with Iraq, for example, that whatever air-to-ground friendly casualties there are, are just the fortunes of war.

A: Am I happy? I don't think you can ever be satisfied that we've solved that dilemma, that fratricide issue fully. Clearly, in the last decade and a half, two decades, where we've been 10 engaged, fratricide is a lot less than it has been in previous major conflicts. We know that. We do know in Afghanistan, of course, we had unfortunately some fratricide incidents that have been, as you mentioned, there have been some organizations, some doctrine, some tactics, techniques and procedures, some technological changes, training, I mean, across that whole gamut of things, we all talked about how you transform, it is the same set of things that you have to change to help ensure you don't have the incidences. Are we there yet? No, we are going to have to continue to work that because war is not a science, it is an art. It is very inefficient. Things on a battlefield get very confusing and we need to try to, as best we can, erase that confusion so we have good situational understanding and awareness by all the players in the battlespace. We will be -- what I would say is, I think we will be much better in the next potential conflict than we were in Afghanistan. We've gone to school on that. And I think if you look at the command and control and communications that we have, it is all part of helping avoid fratricide, that we are much better postured today in terms of those capabilities than we were in Afghanistan. In fact, we are better postured today in Afghanistan than when we started in Afghanistan. I don't think you can ever be satisfied. I think this is an area that needs to be continuously worked because it is an outcome that is so tragic and we just don't want it.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Very small troop movements. Nothing really to indicate any particular posture, defensive or offensive. There has been some unit movements, but not much. And nothing to show that the military hierarchy isn't responding to orders.

Q: Are you concerned (inaudible)?

A: I have not seen that. There are some indications about some -- some indications about unrest in some of the Iraqi leadership, but just hints. We have not seen any purges. We know that I think the regime has taken measures, if you will, to enforce the loyalty of the people you are talking about. They have taken some extra measures by populating some of the military units with people they consider very loyal to keep track of them. But that has been going on for a long time and as you noted, from time to time, there will be a purge or two of folks they consider less loyal to the regime. But besides not anything real unusual at this point.

Q: Can you quickly characterize that unrest you are talking about?

A: Just hints of -- no. I don't think I can.

Q: (inaudible)

A: I would hope that in the end, that is always the goal. In fact, the goal really is that we have always tended to have this situation where intelligence people are in one stove pipe and the operators in another and we are real happy if they talk together. When today's world requires that they be totally integrated. For intelligence folks to think of themselves purely as, gee, we're the 11 providers of intelligence, and operators to think of themselves purely as the users of intelligence and not realizing that there is a lot of areas where they overlap and where they have to be, really, if you want to be as quick and agile as you need to be against an enemy that is adaptive, for instance, like the Al Qaeda, you can't have an intel pod, throw it over a transom to an operator and say, here's what we know. This has got to be continuous, 24/7 sort of relationship and synergistic to the point where operations help with intel and vice versa. I think the new under secretary can help with that piece of it. I think they'll have a huge impact on rationalizing the resources that go into the intelligence business and that is something that has needed, in my view, that has needed some better coordination than we've had in the past. And this office ought to help do that. I think George Tenet out at CIA believes that as well. [end of side 1]

... it is not only to your point, but would it help with getting intel to the operator. I think in terms of resources and so forth, it is going to have a huge play in that in making sure -- and I would think there would be some efficiencies from that in the end, that we are able to look broadly at systems and not consider them in the stovepipe that we would have considered them in the past. I think it will be a huge boon for that piece of it, as a matter of fact.

Q: Back to Iraq. We here a lot about the relatively poor state of the Iraqi military. What is your assessment? Are they a credible fighting force? And will they fight? Beside potential use of WMD, what concerns you most about having to fight Iraq?

A: I think you have to consider the fact that they have 23 divisions, as a credible force. We know they are not as strong as they were during Desert Storm. Will they fight or will they not fight? We don't know. That is an unknown and people have their different estimations. Certainly we think that the republican guard will be more likely to fight than their regular divisions, but again, that is an unknown. There overall fighting capability, their air forces are considerably reduced from where they were. Their integrated air defense system, their air defense system is at least, in and around Baghdad, is just as robust as it was during Desert Storm. And how they will react is an unknown. I think clearly we've tried to make the point that if force is required, it is not against the Iraqi people, it is against the weapons of mass destruction and the regime that supports that. We are prepared for the worst case, I mean to say that. We are prepared for the worst case there. WMD is a big concern. Using chemical or biological weapons would be a big concern, not if they are just used on US forces in any potential conflict, but the potential use on Iraqi civilians because you have to deal with that as well, you couldn't just ignore that. I think we are concerned about using large segments of the civilian population as shields for their armed forces, would be a huge concern because the last thing you want to do is have a lot of non-combatant injuries or deaths in any kind of conflict. That would be a worry. They put out the call and I guess there are volunteers from around the world that are going to go over and be used as human shields at the request of Iraq. That would be troubling as well for the same reason. I think probably -- and a lot of this is unknown, but the biggest unknown is the use of chemical or biological weapons and how they might be used. I think we've got to be prepared to deal with it and understand the implications. We are. We've talked to all our commanders, all units. We are as prepared as we 12 can possibly be today for that issue. We've worked through lots of smaller issues in our most modern protective gear forward with our troops and so forth and we've worked through that and are confident on that.

Q: The services all ask for more personnel. Earlier the secretary said find efficiencies within your ranks and didn't give any except the Marines for the new anti-terrorism brigade. But you are going to build up the special ops guys and the services haven't been able to find enough efficiencies. What is the prospect of adding personnel and where are you going to get the people to plus up on special ops?

A: Those personnel, I believe, I've got to be careful here. I think they've already been identified for the most part. They've already been agreed to. In terms of within the Army for how they are going to devote the forces to that. When the budget comes out, I'll get you more detail on that.

Q: There is no plan to plus up special forces...

A: No, not for that. And that was, what we've looked at and I think the department has said that there are a couple hundred thousand positions that could be converted to civilian or contractor positions, freeing up military to do others. And I think the secretary is just trying to put discipline into the system rather than considering manpower a free good and all we need is to have more and more of it. He is trying to say, ok, what do we really need in terms of those who need to wear the uniform and those positions that can be either DoD civilians or contracted out and in my view, he is right. There are career fields that are chronically short in every service, all the services have their career fields that are short and there are issues there, but the other thing you have to realize is that is sort of the zero-four budget. It probably wouldn't be until '05 or '06 before you actually see people being recruited, trained and online. There has to be some internal alignments within the services to meet some of those gaps and of course we are relying on the reserve component more than we ever have for some of these specialties. I think in the Army, I think of military police, given force protection needs around the world and here in the continental United States, we have totally changed the force protection situation at Fort Myer where I live. And it requires a lot of military police. Over time, they have changed that composition and probably even total numbers to make it a little bit more efficient, but those sorts of things are going to have to be worked probably internally in some of these positions that can be converted, then they can convert some of the people to the shortages.

Q: Secretary Rumsfeld has suggested migrating missions back from the reserves to the active duty because so many mission specialties are almost all in the reserves. That would threaten the whole total force concept. Are we going to lose something by doing this?

A: I think it is fair to look at. You are always going to need the reserve component for a major conflict. It is just a fact of life. There are some specialties and we need to look at that mix very carefully and see if we put, in some cases, 100 percent of our capability in the reserve component and so you can't even do some of the things you need to do day to day without going into the 13 reserves. I think that mix is being looked at right now. As you know there is a study going on to see if we have got the mix about right. In terms of total force policy, I think that in terms of making sure the reserves are trained and equipped as the active duty is, I think that goal needs to stay pre-eminent in this whole thing. We need, our reserves need to be as good as our active duty and you can talk about training and other forms of readiness -- maybe some of the units don't need to be as ready as other units and so forth, but no, I think the total force issue, in terms of having very competent forces in the reserve component needs to stay at the forefront.

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