Rear Admiral Quigley: Good afternoon. I have a variety of announcements today.
First, yesterday the Department of Defense began moving military aircraft and vessels at East Coast locations to protect them from potential Hurricane Floyd damage.
Thirteen naval vessels from Mayport, Florida have left port for the open seas, and more than 400 aircraft from bases in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina are flying to inland locations in Georgia, Texas, Kentucky, and Ohio.
About 7,000 Marine Corps recruits and drill instructors are evacuating the Marine Corps recruit depot at Paris Island, South Carolina and moving to the Marine Corps logistics base in Albany, Georgia.
More than 4,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have been ordered to state active duty to assist law enforcement and local officials with evacuation, general site security, and logistics.
The Army is preparing for a humanitarian response in support of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, should that be necessary as the storm moves along the East Coast.
The Army Corps of Engineers has three teams en route to the southeastern United States, and the teams are designed to provide emergency ice, water, and debris clearance, respectively.
Fort Gilham, Georgia has been designated as a mobilization site for additional reserve assets.
There is a great deal of additional detail, specific units that are moving, but rather than read those from the podium today I would just ask that you get that from the news desk. But we can break down those numbers further if you need additional details.
Q: Are there many other aircraft that are moving in the next 24-48 hours?
Rear Admiral Quigley: There are some, not many, I don't think, John. No. And it really does depend also on the storm's track.
You'll notice that a lot of the preparations that I've mentioned, some do include North Carolina, but most stop at the North/South Carolina border and we'll just see where that storm track takes us.
Second. Tomorrow afternoon Secretary of Defense Cohen will present the Joseph J. Krusel Award for distinguished service in the pursuit of peace. The award will go to Mr. Jeremy Rosner, former Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for NATO and enlargement ratification. Following the award presentation Secretary Cohen will make a few remarks to preview next week's NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Toronto, Canada. Following these remarks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Frank Kramer, will make himself available to the media for a discussion of the NATO Ministerial, the Defense Capabilities Initiative, and other topics of interest. Details are available, again, in a press advisory that we'll put out this afternoon. I don't have the time on that... 3:00 o'clock tomorrow.
Next, Secretary Cohen will make remarks and join the Air Force leadership in awarding Silver Star medals to three Air Force pilots from OPERATION ALLIED FORCE tomorrow at 4:00 o'clock at Andrews Air Force Base. Again, we'll put out more details in a press advisory on that this afternoon.
This Friday Secretary Cohen, General Shelton, and Senator Max Cleland will speak at a national POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony begins at 11:00 a.m.
POW/MIA Recognition Day is traditionally held on the third Friday in September. On that day commemorations are held at many sites throughout the country. The commemoration at Arlington will include formal military honors with assembled troops from all of the military services and two joint service fly-overs -- one with helicopters and one with jet aircraft.
As we announced on June 17th, part of the ceremony Friday will include the formal dedication of a new inscription above the existing dates -- and those are 1958 to 1975 -- on the tomb cover of the Vietnam Unknown in the Tomb of the Unknowns. That inscription reads, "Honoring and keeping faith with America's missing servicemen."
The event is open to the public, of course. Should you wish to attend please contact Patty Heard with the Military District of Washington Public Affairs Office.
Next, the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century will release its first report tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. at the National Press Club. The commission, formerly known as the National Security Study Group, is co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. Both co-chairmen and commissioners will be available at the press club to discuss the commission's report. For further information on that, please contact Mr. Hank Scharpenberg of the commission at (703) 602-4175.
Next, Egyptian military forces and members of the U.S. Central Command's Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine and Special Operations components will participate in a joint/combined coalition computer-aided command post exercise and tactical field training exercise with military forces from nine other coalition nations in Egypt. This exercise is called BRIGHT STAR and will take place October 10th through November 2nd, and will involve approximately 18,000 U.S. military personnel. We'll have further details on that later on this afternoon, as well.
Last, Secretary Cohen announced today that the President has nominated Army Lieutenant General John W. Hendrix for appointment to the grade of General and assignment as Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson, Georgia. General Hendrix is currently serving as the Commanding General of V Corps, United States Army Europe and 7th Army, in Heidelberg, Germany.
Along with General Hendrix' nomination there are several additional, I think four or five, flag officer announcements on the table, and I invite you to pick those copies up before you leave. We broke General Hendrix out because this is the only four star appointment that we're announcing this afternoon, but there are several other two and three star officers on the table on your way out.
With those announcements, I will take your questions.
Q: Craig, in regards to East Timor, have we begun to identify any units or specific assets for use in supporting a peacekeeping/humanitarian operation?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We're taking this one step at a time. The next step that must happen, hopefully this afternoon, as soon as possible, is a complete description from the U.N. Security Council to come up with a mandate. What is the mission of an international peacekeeping force? When you have that definition in hand, each of the nations, the United States among them, can then go the next step in planning to determine what forces are needed to carry out that mandate, whatever that might be.
We have committed to being a part of this and active participation in the overall process, but we need that mandate as the next step in the process before specific planning can take place as to what U.S. forces will be involved.
As we've said before on several occasions, it's pretty clear the areas that we'll be involved in participation -- in the intelligence, communications, logistics, and strategic lift. I would add food support as well. As President Clinton said yesterday and today, I believe, we have humanitarian rations, Humanitarian Daily Rations -- 300,000 of them are being palletized for shipment to Darwin. From there, these are at the Tracy Defense Depot in California right now. They'll be airlifted to Darwin, turned over to the U.N. for distribution. We're not sure what's the most efficient way of distributing those Humanitarian Daily Rations, but we'll work closely with the U.N. on that as well.
Q: Is there any kind of a tentative schedule on getting these rations to Darwin?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We anticipate the palletization to be done very soon. I can't give you an exact timeframe, but that activity is ongoing right now.
Q: Do you anticipate any particular problems flying in and out of greater metropolitan Dili? Is the runway very short? Do they have aids to navigation? The kind of things you usually need?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We're working, again kind of a two-step process there. We're continuing to talk very closely with the Indonesian government, the Indonesian military, the Australians, and also part of the U.N. Security Council discussions going on today for specific access agreements, and which airports would be available. Then getting from the Indonesians the specific capabilities of the various airports. Undoubtedly some will be restricted to certain smaller types of aircraft; some will hopefully be able to accommodate larger aircraft. We're very confident that Tindall, which is the military airfield outside Darwin, can accommodate any of the large strategic airlift aircraft. But we've yet to complete the assessment and discussions with the Indonesians on the capabilities and limitations of the various airfields within Timor.
Q: If you have a U.N. Resolution today, for example, how rapidly do you think the international community can move to have boots on the ground with a peacekeeping force? Days, weeks, months?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We want to see this happen just as soon as possible, and we would be hopeful that a force could be inserted into East Timor within days.
Q: Will U.S. troops be part of peacekeeping or police forces there?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We will certainly be participants in the overall effort, although in the traditional sense of providing what you would think of, Bill, in the sense of like infantry or rifle companies in large numbers as peacekeepers on the ground, that has not been part of our consideration so far. It's been the four areas that I mentioned before, and now the humanitarian, to help in some way, shape, or form in the delivery of the Humanitarian Daily Rations as well.
Q: Just to clarify, you're saying you don't envision having infantry troops, U.S., take part in some kind of thing? They're going to be in those four areas, they're going to be limited to those four areas?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Well I need to be specific here, too. There will be U.S. uniformed personnel on the ground in East Timor. But they'll be operating communications equipment, they'll be providing that intelligence support. They'll be undoubtedly assisting at whichever airports we end up with if it's airlift, in coordinating the resupply, the maintenance and what have you of any aircraft that would be used.
But again, in large numbers of rifle companies and infantry companies that you think of when you think of large numbers of peacekeeping forces, that is not under consideration.
Q: Do you have a general number for how many U.S. would be involved?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Again, in the hundreds, although that just doesn't have much more clarity to it than that. But that's in the ball park I think.
Q: Your qualifier, there won't be infantry or rifle companies in large numbers, it seems to me you leave the possibility there may be some there for security, for the purpose of security duties around the other units. Is that an accurate...
Rear Admiral Quigley: We are always concerned with force protection, certainly. Again, these are a part of discussions ongoing within the U.N. context and with the Indonesian government and military as to who will provide what. But one way or another the U.S. forces that do find themselves on the ground in East Timor will be well protected as good as we can do it.
Q: There are reports that there's already a team of, I think nine if the figure I've seen, U.S. troops, U.S. military personnel of some kind working with the Australians, already in Australia.
Rear Admiral Quigley: Fifteen actually.
Q: Can you elaborate on them?
Rear Admiral Quigley: These are planners from Admiral Blair's staff in Hawaii, Commander in Chief, Pacific Command, were on the ground in Darwin as of last Friday. I don't know what time of day, but as of last Friday, to assist the Australian defense force in their planning efforts. Our intentions are to keep that force there and assist in that effort indefinitely.
Q: My question is basically the same. Are we going to rely on other countries or the U.N. for force protection for our own people that are on the ground?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We are going to be able to provide very clear, unambiguous force protection for U.S. troops and U.S. facilities that are on the ground in East Timor. The specifics of how we're accomplishing that, we're not there yet, but there will be no question that those forces will have a rock solid force protection package in place.
Q: What's the role of airlift? Are we going to be sending planes out to various countries to gather up their troops and equipment and fly them into East Timor or to Australia?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I would envision that we would be doing some of that because that's one of the things that is a great strength of the United States military that many other nations don't have in the numbers that are required to move large numbers of troops and equipment and material from one place to another. But we do anticipate that the makeup of the peacekeeping force will be largely Asian, so you're not talking about huge distances here. So that's an advantage. But still, that's a big part of the world. It will all depend on which nations eventually agree to provide what forces, and perhaps some airlift as well. But that is one of the things we fully expect to be very engaged in, yes.
Q: How long do you envision this going on? How many planes? Like C-17s, C-5s?
Rear Admiral Quigley: The aircraft at the nation's disposal, the U.S. Transportation Command's disposal, are all fair game for selection. It would depend on what you need to move, over what distance, from where to where, and what are the airport capabilities and limitations that you're going to be flying into and out of. That chapter of the book has not yet been written.
Q: The length of time you're talking about?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I don't have a good answer for that one.
Q: Do you have (unintelligible) that Indonesia must agree to the (unintelligible)? (unintelligible) are saying that they don't want U.S. and Australians (unintelligible). So what is, where does...
Rear Admiral Quigley: I think the Australian (sic) [Indonesian] Foreign Minister yesterday listed that as a concern, although not a precondition. Secretary General Annan assured him that the U.N. would continue to work very closely with the Indonesian military and government to assuage any concerns that they may have. But it was a concern, not a condition.
Q: You're talking about several hundred U.S. personnel in this operation. Is that assigned to the operation or actually on the island of East Timor?
Rear Admiral Quigley: On the island of East Timor. If you count aircraft, air crews, if there are ships involved and those ships' crews, we would not count that as a part of the overall numbers of people that would be part of a peacekeeping force, although you certainly should count them as contributing to the overall effort. But as far as the numbers of people that would be operating these intelligence units, communication units, and things of that sort, you're talking about in the hundreds.
Q: Would it be fair to say several thousand people will be contributing to this?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I hesitate to give you a range on that because we've just not gone to that specific level of planning.
Q: Who is going to pay for all the expenses and the cost...
Rear Admiral Quigley: A variety of sources. The Humanitarian Daily Rations, for instance, the USAID will pay for that. There will be some monies coming from the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, I would anticipate. Some would be borne by the Defense Department, U.S. Defense Department; some by State; a variety of other agencies of the federal government. So it would be several different sources of the funding for the U.S. support overall.
Q: Are you going to hit the ground with the humanitarian palletized stuff at approximately the same time you do with peacekeepers? Is that your plan? Or to wait until peacekeepers are all in the sky?
Rear Admiral Quigley: We're looking at it as two separate things. If they occurred at the same time, we're looking at it as a positive. But that's not necessarily a precondition, John. We're going to move on, right now, with the provision of the Humanitarian Daily Rations. And like I said, we hope...
Q: Regardless of peacekeepers?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Regardless of peacekeepers, that's right. And we would look to the U.N. to help with the distribution system within East Timor.
Now as the days go by and we have a peacekeeping force within East Timor, and as they start to spread out throughout the area, if we take another look at it at that point and find out that there's a better, more efficient way of distribution, we'll certainly adapt. But we're looking at it as two separate events at this point. If they can combine, and that would be a better way to manage this effort, so be it.
Q: Is there some kind of a disconnect here? If it doesn't necessarily dovetail with the arrival of the peacekeepers, then you'll rely on the U.N. personnel in East Timor to hand out the supplies. Most U.N. personnel in East Timor have left.
Rear Admiral Quigley: Very true. Very true.
Q:...left in East Timor. So...
Rear Admiral Quigley: ...12 or 13, I'm getting...
Q:...before your troops, seems...
Rear Admiral Quigley: We want to get the foodstuffs, the 300,000 rations to Darwin, and then put this in the hands of the U.N. distribution authorities. Now how they feel they can best get that food then into East Timor, that we would defer to their expertise in this area.
Now in the days ahead when the peacekeeping force goes in and you have peacekeepers on the ground and a larger UN presence, probably a presence of private, non-governmental organizations as well, perhaps that would be a distribution system that might work out. We haven't worked out that detail. But certainly we'd ask for the 12 or 13 U.N. personnel still on the ground in East Timor to do that now.
Q: Has any thought been given to airdropping it...
Rear Admiral Quigley: We're looking for the most efficient way to do this, John. We don't think that airdropping is a very efficient way to do it. But if it's the only way, we'll consider it. But it's not a very efficient way to do this.
Q: Still on the rations. Given the staggering numbers that were used in Kosovo in the refugee camps, can you give us any sense, I don't think you have it now, but can you give us some sense later on what stocks we have of these rations and whether we have to crank up some more?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Yes. These are all coming from that depot in California, but I can...
Q: They're coming...
Rear Admiral Quigley: A very large number. I don't have that with me now. We'll get that for you later.
Bill?
Q: You mentioned the intelligence end of this a couple of times. What is that? Is that troops on the ground, spy planes, satellites?
Rear Admiral Quigley: The ability to provide intelligence products and intelligence information is a potpourri. It's people, it's equipment, it's communications capabilities, it's reconnaissance assets. It's all of the above, taken together as a whole to give you as complete a picture as you can.
Q: For this operation, is it people on the ground or planes flying over?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Since we've not chosen the units that would go in to support this piece of our participation in the force, I can't give you a good answer. But in general, you get intelligence support in those areas that I just described. Ultimately you're going to get to the point where you are choosing a specific unit and that unit has a certain number of people, certain number of pieces of equipment, and what have you.
Q: New subject?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Any other East Timor questions?
Q: One other question.
Rear Admiral Quigley: Jim?
Q: Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank were on the House Floor today, and they were very critical of the military-to-military contacts, the IMET, the JCET, all of the activities that have gone on. They're saying if the point of these contacts is to get a military that respects human rights more, it seems to be a complete and utter failure. That's a paraphrase of their words, but that's the essence of it.
I suspect you have a different take on that.
Rear Admiral Quigley: We have a variety of ways to engage between the United States military and the militaries of other nations. The whole purpose is engagement. You are either involved in a dialogue with the militaries of other nations or you're not. No one expects that every effort will be 100 percent successful, but the alternative is having zero voice, zero chance of success in any sort of a negotiation or a discussion with a U.S. military person's counterpart in another nation.
Human beings react well to faces that they have seen before. People with whom they have had a conversation before. The old cliche about an emergency or a crisis is not the best time to place that first phone call to a person with whom you've never had any relationship is absolutely true. So the whole purpose of IMET -- Indonesia is not a good example of a robust IMET program. We have had a very limited IMET program with the military of Indonesia. In numbers of students, if you compare it with other nations like the Philippines and Thailand, we've got ten times as many students engaged in IMET programs with those nations as we do with Indonesia.
So don't look to Indonesia as this very limited program of IMET to be an example of how a robust program ought to work because this one has been very limited.
But the engagement on a military-to-military basis at all levels, from students in military colleges to diesel engine repair training to the highest level individuals -- King Abdullah of Jordan attended the U.S. Army's Armor School in 1985 as a captain. Now he is the head of that nation's government. Foreign Ministers, Prime Ministers, Defense Ministers of many nations around the world attended some number of either IMET or expanded IMET programs during their years as they matured and developed professionally. So there are many, many examples of positive results from an engagement program, military-to-military, and IMET is just one of them.
Q: In light of the military's actions in East Timor, when they failed to stop the militias or in some cases apparently assisted in their outrageous actions, are the taxpayers getting the influence and access that are obviously the goal of this program?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I think the taxpayers are getting a tremendous return on their investment through this program. This is not an expensive program. $50 million I believe was the dollar figure in 1998. I don't have 1999's completed yet. That trains literally hundreds of people, very junior to very senior, at a variety of training opportunities, both here and abroad. And I think it's a tremendous value. There are lots of examples of strong successes in this area around the world with many nations.
Q: What is the earliest that you expect U.S. personnel to be on the ground in East Timor?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Again, I would hope that we could have a force on the ground within days. I can't be much more precise than that because I'm just not sure. But within days.
Q: The 300,000 rations, are you anticipating those will begin flying from the United States in the next 24 hours, the next 48 hours...
Rear Admiral Quigley: Yes, John. As soon as we get them palletized.
Q: So you'll put them in the air sometime in the next day or two.
Rear Admiral Quigley: Yes.
Q: Press coverage. Have you given any thought yet to covering either the American airlift operations or the wider operation within East Timor, which presumably comes out of the U.N., but I'm sure the U.S. will have some significant say in how that's done.
Rear Admiral Quigley: We're starting to do that now, yes. Working again, with the Australians and ultimately the Indonesians.
Q: I wanted to switch subjects here.
Rear Admiral Quigley: Any other questions on East Timor?
Q: It was reported by the State Department that there is now a risk of refugees in West Timor being harassed by the same kind of militia gangs. I understand that is another theater of potential trouble. Can you comment?
Rear Admiral Quigley: That's certainly a concern, Bill. I've seen the reports that you refer to. We do not have very good visibility or knowledge of particulars on the ground both in West and East Timor. So that's yet another reason for as quickly as we can to get an international force in there to provide visibility as well as the assistance. So we're not able to assess well the accuracy of reports that are coming out on either East or West Timor. All the better reason to get in there sooner rather than later.
Q: A former KGB officer, Vasili Mitrokhin, has said most recently Sunday and in his book that the KGB smuggled explosives into the United States for sabotage purposes against infrastructure. Is the Pentagon aware of this? Have they tried to find the locations of these explosives? What can you say about that?
Rear Admiral Quigley: The book you're referring to I think is due to be published next week, Bill, if I remember correctly. I've seen a couple of reviews on it but I haven't seen it on any shelves, but your point is, and I think there's an example cited in the book of specific directions to an arms cache in Switzerland that was provided in there. The author is much less specific when he refers to any such efforts in the United States, and I think he caveats by saying "could" and "might" and "may". So there's not a lot to go on there. If he has any more specifics, we'd love to hear them.
Q: Presumably the U.S. intelligence community at the Pentagon would have access to his information since he defected in '92. Is this the first that you had heard about anything? You haven't done any kind of interest in actually going after some of these caches?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Not that I'm aware of, Bill. No.
Q: Have you approached the Russians on this about whether or not they've done this
Rear Admiral Quigley: No. No, we have not. Not since the reports came out in the last couple of days on the book.
Again, he's very much less specific on any sort of similar caches in the United States. We would welcome any additional information he could provide, but we need to be a little bit more specific, I think.
Q: It was reported that the Greek Minister of Defense Apostolos Tsohatzopoulos is coming to the United States at the invitation of Secretary Cohen. Do you know what prompted the Secretary to invite Tsohatzopoulos at this time? And may we get something for the agenda?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Secretary Cohen makes it a point to maintain the closest possible relationship with his counterparts, Ministers of Defense in all of the NATO nations particularly, but as well many other nations around the world. So the Greek Minister of Defense as one of his counterparts, part of an ongoing program of discussions where Secretary Cohen would go to Greece and the Greek Minister of Defense would come here. You see that with each of the nations of NATO particularly.
As far as the particulars of their conversation, I don't have that today. I'll see what I can get you, but I don't have it here.
Q: On the BRIGHT STAR exercise, you mentioned (unintelligible). Could you please identify the nine nations participating?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I think I do have that. Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Q: Who initiated this exercise?
Rear Admiral Quigley: This is a longstanding annual exercise. It's been going on for many years. I don't know the year of its origin. We can get that for you. But it's a longstanding exercise. It's been in place many years.
Q: Is there any discussion of the United States cooperating with Russia on counterterrorism now with the apartment buildings exploding in Moscow? Has there been any talk, any ongoing help with those investigations?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Yes. Preceding the terrible explosions in Moscow of the past several days we have had an ongoing exchange of information with the Russian government as it pertains to counterterrorist activities, and have found that very productive, and the Russians I think have found it very useful. It certainly pre-dates the terrible explosions of the past few days.
Q: When you say ongoing conversations, what kind of help is being given and is it military help and so on and so forth?
Rear Admiral Quigley: It's an exchange of information. It isn't so much people as it is information. And trying to share information that we feel the Russians would find useful, and hopefully that would serve them in some way to become aware of some sort of terrorist activity that might be about to take place within their nation that they could take action to stop before it happens. So it's information exchange rather than people or things.
Q: Particularly about the recent explosions of the apartment buildings, is there any help on that since they've exploded? Has the United States...
Rear Admiral Quigley: Not so far. The Russian authorities are going through the aftermath of the explosions for clues, for any sort of information as to the type of explosive device used. Any sort of indications of what do I have here? Do I have criminal activity? Do I have terrorist activity? And when they get that sorted out, if they wish to approach the United States and ask for some help, we'd be very receptive in that regard, I'm sure. It's a common cause. It's an area that we can agree on almost across the board.
Q: Officials in Moscow believe that Osama bin Laden is behind all these terrorist activities in Russia.
Rear Admiral Quigley: I would refer you to the Russians that made those statements.
Q: They are saying they are now ready to work with Washington.
Rear Admiral Quigley: On that I would agree.
Q: Does this have the signature of the tactics used against the United States to put enormous amounts of explosives next to or in buildings? Isn't that the Osama bin Laden fingerprint?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Sadly, it's the fingerprint of a large number of terrorist organizations around the world. It's a pretty efficient way to do damage to large numbers of people and structures, unfortunately. So I don't think he's got sole claim to that.
Q: During his visit to Moscow, Secretary Cohen pledged U.S. assistance in tracking down those responsible for these specific bombings. Do you know, was he going beyond what has been a traditional relationship as of late in terms of intelligence sharing? Is he talking about anything else besides exchanging information?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I think if the Russians would come to us in this particular case, and if they would have some sort of exceptional request, I think that's what Secretary Cohen was referring to when he made that statement when he was in Russia.
The exchange of information has been ongoing and longstanding. But if there's a particular request that the Russians would find particularly helpful to solve this, I think we'd be very receptive to saying yes, if it's at all within our power to do so.
Q: The CIA last week released an unclassified estimate on missile threats and one of the statements in that report was that Pakistan has M-11 missiles from China. This statement has been disputed by the State Department in order, apparently, to avoid sanctions on China. The senior CIA official who briefed reporters referred people to the National Air Intelligence Center Study which says that these missiles are in fact in Pakistan.
Does the Pentagon have a view on whether Chinese M-11 missiles are in Pakistan?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I think you're talking two issues. On the one hand, the State Department said that it's not enough to go sanctions because intelligence reports by themselves are not enough to impose sanctions or make a sanctions decision, Bill. But I'm not going to get into...
Q:...components versus missiles. And the judgment is that the missiles are there. Is it the Pentagon's view that Pakistan has M-11 missiles as opposed to components or related technology?
Rear Admiral Quigley: I'll have to take that question.
Q: Admiral, Secretary Danzig went to the White House a week or so ago to deliver a briefing, as I understand it, on the situation on Vieques, and yesterday a group, a delegation from Puerto Rico was here and met with Secretary de Leon to discuss Vieques.
Is there an attempt underway now to resolve the Vieques situation independent of the Rush Panel? What is the Rush Panel's status now? Has its report been delivered either in writing, or has there been any kind of informal briefing? Where are we on this thing?
Rear Admiral Quigley: Let me address yesterday's meeting first. That was a specific request by the Governor, knowing that the Rush Panel report had not yet been delivered, so that it could be very clear, the members of the Governor's Working Group could make very clear their positions to Under Secretary de Leon on that issue before the Rush Panel was published and it moves on up from Mr. Rush to Secretary Cohen and beyond. So the timing of that was very specific, Dale.
I spoke to Mr. Rush yesterday morning. He's still working on it. I would expect it out in the near future, but I don't have a precise time line for you.
Q: Yesterday (unintelligible) a report on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and he is getting, according to the report, much more stronger day by day. Food for Oil is being sold, several shipments (unintelligible).
So what is the (unintelligible) now of the U.S.'s concern involving Iraq.
Rear Admiral Quigley: I'm not sure I understood your question. I'm sorry.
Q: His military and he is getting much more stronger than in the past.
Rear Admiral Quigley: this was in that report yesterday.
Q: And Oil for Food is being misused by him. Rather than feeding the babies, but spending on his military.
Rear Admiral Quigley: I don't think I can add anything to yesterday's report.
Press: Thank you.
