(Briefing on weapons of mass destruction exploitation in Iraq. Participating were Stephen A. Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence, and Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director, Defense Intelligence Agency.  A photo of the mobile lab discussed in the briefing is available at http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/May2003/030507-D-9085M-001.html)

Cambone: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pentagon on a fine afternoon. With me this afternoon is Admiral Jacoby. Admiral Jacoby is the director of DIA, and is here to answer any questions that we might have where we need his expert views on some of these matters.

What I thought I'd do is two things. One is to talk a bit more broadly at the start about what we're trying to do over in Iraq in theater to look after weapons of mess destruction and other things. It's -- and then to get to the subject of interest, I suspect, for the day toward the end.

So let me start broadly with what we're trying to do in the theater in terms of the weapons of mass destruction program in particular. We do have a -- the coalition -- a comprehensive approach to identifying, assessing and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and delivery systems, and that effort is focused on three things. We're looking to interview and obtain cooperation from key Iraqi personnel, some of whom are doing so as walk-ins and voluntarily; others are those who have been members of the former regime. We're looking to access and to assess and exploit a number of sensitive sites throughout the country. And we're working very hard to obtain and exploit documents, computers, hard drives, things like that, which can give us some indication of how those -- that WMD system operated and to glean from that additional information that we can use for another round then of interviewing people and going after sites and looking for documents.

So what we have ongoing here is a highly iterative process in the theater where we try to make -- take advantage of each bit of information to get to the next step in unraveling the puzzle that is the weapons of mass destruction program.

We have been, as you know, interrogating captured members of the regime and obtaining the cooperation of key Iraqi personnel. In some cases, most recently, for example, we have a mid-level scientist come in and help us to a number of sites, three, four, five sites, from which we have gleaned more information that has been useful for continuing -- for continuing that process.

With respect to the exploitation of documents and such, you have undoubtedly heard that there are large groupings, troves of documents that are various places throughout Baghdad, for example, and we have taken people up to those sites. They have begun the process of surveying them, triaging them, trying to find some way to, in the end, use modern electronic means of scanning those documents in, sending them back here for further work by experts who, in turn, then return that information back to theater for further information exploitation.

And out of those documents, which are terribly important, we think we will be able to gather the evidence and the details on the scope and the content of WMD programs there, to look after the organization of that WMD operation, as well as the command and control procedures both for the development side of the house, as well as for plans to make use of those weapons of mass destruction.

And finally, and terribly important as well, is to learn more about the proliferation network itself, both inside of Iraq and abroad, related to things like front companies and people who may be involved, and technologies that, for instance, may still be in pipelines and might be diverted to other places.

So let me tell you a little bit about how we do this every day and give you a little bit of a feel for what happens.

The command, CentCom, has a command inside of Iraq known as the Coalition Land Component Commander -- Coalition Forces Land Component Commander or CFLCC, as you know. And each day, within that organization in what they have as their operation center, which is known as the C3, they sit down and work through their priorities. That priority list itself has been pulled together as a consequence of information that we had going into the conflict of sites that we thought important. As you know, there are some thousand sites that we identified; those sites included not just weapons of mass destruction sites, but also prisoner of war -- prisoner camps -- prisons, rather, prisoner of war locations, terrorist camps and facilities, as well as regime and leadership targets. So there are some thousand of them, roughly, of which about half are related to weapons of mass destruction. And each day they sit down, and based on what they have learned, they try to set down their work for the day, and then they send a group -- and I'll get to that in a minute -- out to do the kinds of exploitation or the interrogations, and so forth, that are necessary in order for them to go through the process each day.

As it stands now, we have been to about 70 sites that we were looking to cover. Now, what's interesting about that is that those are the 70 sites that were on the list when we started. Since then, we have been to about another 40 which have come to light as a consequence of this process that I have been describing to you here. And the way this works is with respect to a WMD site in particular, once it's been identified, there is a survey team, which may have been there already, having come up with the troops as they came through the countryside, or sent out in advance. And they will go to the site, they will do a survey and determine whether or not it's important for more advanced units to come in and take a look at what's there. So, it's a site survey team. And so their job is done.

Next would come in a mobile exploitation team, an MET, as they're being called, which would do a much more thorough assessment of the site and also inspect any additional sites that CentCom might have recommended.

And then, to the extent you need disablement of a facility or a capability in the site, there are disablement teams that are sent out to disarm, or render safe or destroy those -- any delivery systems, weapons, agents or facilities that might be found.

Now, the organization that currently is assigned this mission is, as I said, working for the coalition forces land component commander, or CFLCC. It is known as the 75th Group. It is assigned this discovery and exploitation mission. It, in turn, is supported by a military intelligence brigade, the 513th. These units have been, by the by, in theater for a very long period of time.

The expertise within the 75th Group extends across some 600 people, and they are distributed across interrogators, interviewers, people who do the document exploitations, the material exploitation and the analysts; that is, the people who each day sort of come together, take the information that's come on board and try then to make recommendations about what might be done next. The expertise within the group is made up of people from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, from the individual services, from DTRA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the FBI, and then there are coalition partners who, themselves, are part of this ongoing effort.

That group, the 75th, will soon, toward the end of this month, begin to have an augmentation take place, and that will be done under the auspices of what we're calling the Iraq Survey Group. That group will be headed by a two-star general, a major general, Keith Dayton, who, as it turns out, is a member of Admiral Jacoby's staff. He will take the lead for the discovery and the exploitation that we have been talking about. And in particular, its mission is to discover, take custody of, exploit and disseminate information on individuals, records, materials, facilities, networks and operations as appropriate relative to individuals associated with the regime, weapons of mass destruction, terrorists and terrorist ties and their organizations, information having to do with the Iraqi Intelligence, Security and Overseas Services, and those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and POWs. So it's a very large undertaking of which the weapons of mass destruction effort is a part in an important part of that effort, but only a part.

The organization will pretty much double or triple in size. There'll be some 1,300 experts who will be associated with this organization, plus another support element of maybe another 800. So you're talking about 2,000 people, more or less, who will begin arriving with the lead elements of the command starting toward the end of this month and the expertise, again, from the organizations I described a moment ago and will include, as well, people from Treasury, some of whom are already in theater, by the way, as well as U.S. citizens who had been in the past UNSCOM inspectors, some other contractors, and again, our coalition partners.

Now, that effort is going to be supported by a fusion cell that is being constructed here in Washington, again under the executive agency of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It is made up of experts from around the United States government. And they receive information from the 75th Group now, and they will receive it from the ISG as it stands up. And their job is going to be to do that kind of in-depth analysis that's necessary in order to make this a successful effort over time.

The -- so, let me say, then, a word about how -- particularly about weapons of mass destruction and how that process unfolds. When one comes across a site where we think that we need to be taking samples, for example, there are roughly four sets of samples taken, one for processing in-theater, two are sent here to the United States, and another one is sent to a non-U.S. laboratory for independent analysis and the verification of the results of those tests. And there is a very strict chain of custody process that is put in place to assure that those samples are not tampered with either in the theater, in transit, when they're in the laboratories, or when the results come back to us here. That's all supplemented, then, as I said a moment ago, by interviewing the personnel who we think are involved. I made mention to you of the subordinate scientists as well as the lead scientists are being interviewed. The regime figures are interviewed. We go through the documents and so forth. And then, if we find we've got to dispose of materials, we do so in a way that is safe for all concerned.

So that takes me, then, to the issue of this morning's news, and probably your interest.

Isn't that right, Charlie?

Q: Yes.

Cambone: I thought so.

Coalition forces have come into possession of an Iraqi trailer which is very similar to that which was described by the secretary of State in his presentation before the United Nations back in February. The interior layout of that trailer matches closely what was described by the secretary of State, on the basis of information provided to us by a source. That source, as you may recall, had a hand in the design and the operation of this type of facility. He was even knowledgeable of the death of a number of people who had been working on such a facility.

The facility -- this mobile production facility came into our hands on the 19th of April at a Kurdish checkpoint near a place called Tallkayf in northern Iraq. The Kurds reported to us that the trailer may have been in the company of military vehicles prior to that, and along with a decontamination truck, they said. The trailer, it turns out, is painted a military color scheme and was found on a heavy- equipment transporter that is typically used for carrying tanks.

There are common elements between what we had in the statement from the defector that was used in the secretary of State's presentation; for example, the external super-structure and its dimensions; the equipment, such as the fermenter on board, the gas cylinders to supply clean air for production; and, significantly, a system to capture and compress exhaust gases to eliminate any signature of the production. The fermenters are used for growing cultures. And the recovery systems make air filtration unnecessary to prevent -- and prevent the release of signs indicating the fermentation process. Interestingly enough, the gas recovery systems really are not necessary for, and not normally used for legitimate biological processes.

So, while some of the equipment on the trailer could have been used for purposes other than biological weapons agent production, U.S. and U.K. technical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond what the defector said it was for, which was the production of biological agents. At the moment, it had been up around the Mosul area. As I said, it is either on the way to or has arrived in Baghdad. We will go about the process of going through further sampling of the system.

Thus far we have only been able to sample it on the surface, those things that we can reach. And what we'll do now is a much more thorough and complete and more intrusive examination of the system, undoubtedly to include its dismantlement in order to be able to reach into those places where we would want to get to in order to take additional samples. And that means that there will be many more tests that will be taken, and so it will be another considerable period of time before the next round of testing comes back and we get some results.

I should tell you that the -- this testing is taking place in environment in which there -- this vehicle has had a very caustic substance washed through it. Some call it ammonia. I do not know what the compound is. It's also been painted -- nice green military colors, apparently. And so the testing is sort of taking place in that kind of an environment. And so in part that is the reason for wanting to get much more intrusive and get inside of these systems and -- rather than only being able to touch them on the surface.

So that is about where we are on this at the moment. And I guess if, Admiral, you don't have anything else you need to add, or there's anything you all think I should include, I'd be happy to take a few questions. Charlie?

Q: Steve, are you leaving open the possibility or not that biological agents or traces of biological agents might still be in the van? And if not, is this the smoking gun that you've been looking for to prove that Saddam indeed had active chem-bio research, whatever, going on at the time the war started?

Cambone: If -- part of the reason for wanting to continue with the testing is to be able to reach into those parts of the equipment that can't be reached by the superficial testing that we've been able to do. So that process has to go forward, and we'll see what they -- what that yields.

On the smoking gun, I mean, the -- I don't know. I mean, what we have here is what we were -- the secretary of State talked about, along with other things, in his presentation to the United Nations. That was based on information that was provided by a number of sources, and it confirms that what the secretary -- that what the source said existed and the secretary of State reported is in -- is there in the possession of the coalition forces. As time goes by and the more we learn, I'm sure we're going to discover that the WMD programs are as extensive and as varied as the secretary of States reported in his February address.

Q: Have four sets of samples been taken of this truck and sent places?

Cambone: (They have ?)

Q: And doing the math here, 110 sites have been exploited so far out of roughly 500 on your list -- 70 and 40.

Cambone: Yeah, about that.

Q: Is it --

Cambone: No, 70 of the ones we went in with. We went in with about 580-600 sites that, starting -- that we, over time, had developed and prior to the conflict thought would be related to weapons of mass destruction. In addition to those 580, there have now been 40 sites which, as a result of activity in the country since the war started, have been identified and visited. Okay?

Q: But only 70 of the (586 ?) have been (visited ?)?

Cambone: Seventy of the original 580 have been --

Q: And no traces of weapons have been found at any of these sites though?

Cambone: Not to my knowledge.

Q: On the expectations, is it possible that no specific weapons will be found, and that perhaps precursor chemicals and the documentation of this program is really what is going to be recovered on the ground?

Cambone: That may be. It may be that we find that in some cases there will be larger and smaller stockpiles of things. In some cases, they'll be larger and smaller parts of, say, the missile and delivery systems. In other cases, if for example this is a mobile production facility, the question you ask is why a mobile production facility? Well, the source told us it was in no small measure for the purposes of avoiding detection and that it was used on those periods of time when they least expected to have inspectors in the country. He also made reference to its survivability in the event of conflict, and he also talked about being able to bring it to the point of use rather than having large stockpiles put in place.

So they undoubtedly had a wide variety of ways in which they intended to prepare the capabilities that they wanted to use.

Q: But I guess my question is, from what you're seeing, do you believe that you will eventually be led to or actually find hard biological, chemical weapons on the ground in Iraq?

Cambone: I think we're going to find that they had a weapons of mass destruction program. Now, how it was configured and how they intended to use it is part of the hard work that they're going through right now.

Q: Could you explain why the U.N. arms inspectors, non- American members haven't been invited in to participate in the hunt?

Cambone: I can't do that for you. I'm sorry.

Q: Why?

Cambone: I don't know the answer to that. It's not that I can't; I don't know.

Q: All right. Then my second question would be, this non-U.S. laboratory where the samples are being looked at, is it in one of the coalition countries that supported the war? Because it would seem that what you guys are trying to set up is an impartial third party.

Cambone: For now, the answer to that is yes. And I don't know where that's -- that I don't know the answer to. It is being discussed, I know. I mean, the question you are raising is sort of under how do we want to configure this and relationships, and I can't answer that question. I just don't know at the moment.

Hang on, Tony. I'll be with you in a second.

Q The mobile trailer, you say it's not a smoking gun. But is it fair say that it is the best lead so far, or is there other things that we don't know about yet that's still too early in the preliminary testing?

Cambone: It's the one that is come to light at this point. And as I said, I mean, in answer to this question here, I mean, we are poring through documents, we are talking to people, and more of this is going to come to the surface as time goes by. It is a tough, laborious process. Let me give you just an example of why this is as hard as it is, and maybe some of you have heard the story.

We're sitting upstairs one day, and someone comes in and says, "Do you know what's going on in Iraq?"

And we all look around and we say, "No, what?"

"They are burying an airplane."

We said, "Excuse me?"

"They are taking an airplane and they are trying to bury it."

"Why?"

"Don't know."

Presumably they didn't want it seen, they didn't want it found. I mean, they're not unused to making it difficult for us to find the things that we need to get our hands on.

Tony?

Q: Yeah. I wanted to get the caveats on the trailer, if you could. Is it most likely a mobile biological warfare site, or what's the -- how far will you go in terms of what --

Cambone: The experts have been through it. The experts have been through it. And they have not found another plausible use for it, based on the equipment on board, the configuration, what they can divine of the process by which it works.

Q: Okay.

Cambone: Okay? And they are going to continue to work their way through time and again any of those kinds of alternative uses to which it may be put, at the same time that they are going to work their way through this next round of intrusive inspection and continue to work the documents and continue to talk with the defectors and continue to gather the documentation and to continue to look for what must be part of -- if this -- other elements of that production facility apparatus.

Q: Can we just go back over those numbers one more time, please, of the sites?

Cambone: Sure.

Q: There are five --

Cambone: Let me sort of give it to you in big numbers.

Q: Right.

Cambone: There are about a thousand sites altogether on what is called the ISML, the --

Jacoby: Integrated Master Site List.

Cambone: There you go. (Laughter.) IMSL. That's why we've got --

Jacoby: -- the admiral here.

Cambone: -- the admiral here. Of that, some 570, 600 sites were related in one fashion or another to weapons of mass destruction.

Q: Four hundred others have been identified since. So --

Cambone: Okay. So there are about 600 sites related to weapons of mass destruction. Of those 600 sites identified prior to the conflict, we have been through roughly 70 of them.

Anne?

Q: Admiral? Oh, I'm sorry.

Cambone: Hang on.

(Cross talk.)

Cambone: Just -- just -- hang on. Hang on. Let me finish this part, and then I'll get you the other.

We've been through roughly 70 of those 700, roughly 10 percent of them that were on the list to start. In the meanwhile, since the conflict has started, and as a result of leads that have been picked up inside the country, another 40 sites have been identified and visited.

Q: Are there other sites that have been identified but not visited?

Cambone: Probably, but I don't know what that number is. I mean, for example, there were another three of them today. So each morning they sit down and they go through this. What did you get from your interrogations, what did you get from your documents, all right, what did so-and-so tell you. They compare notes, and that's how them come up with those additional sites.

Barbara.

Q: You go through this process and you have upper tier, mid- tier and lower tier scientists thinking about coming forward --

Cambone: Iraqis, mm-hmm.

Q: Iraqis -- or even talking to you already. What are you -- incentives are you offering these people, or encouragement, to actually talk to you, since you do feel that's one of your best ways of getting information?

Cambone: There is a rewards and incentives program in place in the theater. There is authorization for the command to use that as they think appropriate in the course of doing these things.

But your question sort of goes to another issue, which is the expectation that we have that -- not only with respect to weapons of mass destruction, but to a variety of other things of interest to us, that the level of voluntary cooperation will come up as the security situation improves and as people in the country are more and more confident that the elements of the old regime are not going to wreak retribution.

Q: My clarifying question, though, is not all of these people, then, are being held in U.S. custody. Is that right?

Cambone: No, that's right. I mean, some of them are people who are coming in to talk about what is -- what they know and how they came to know it.

Q: Could I just follow up on that for a moment? We keep hearing reports --

Cambone: But you're late. You didn't hear all the beginning.

Q: We keep hearing reports of Iraqi scientists who have contacted former U.N. inspectors who say they want to come forward but they are concerned that they'll either be subject to reprisals from the Ba'athists, or they're concerned they might be prosecuted as war criminals, and they said they're not getting the assurances that they would need in order to come forward. How are you handling that or what are you doing about that?

Cambone: Well, let me say that if they are looking to do that, there is a process by which it can be done. The people over in the theater are prepared to -- you know, to receive those kinds of overtures; they have the authorities that they need for the rewards and the kinds of things that need to be done.

The question about their security is going to be a function of being able to gain a handle on the security situation as a whole, to get the IAA up, and then the government, and so forth, in place so that security situation improves in a way that they feel comfortable in going about their daily lives. I mean, this is going to be a process that will take some period of time.

Q: Well, what about the fear that they might end up in jail or some --

Cambone: Yeah, and I can't speak to that in detail. I mean, I know that there are some people that the government -- the United States government and the coalition partners as a whole are interested in for reasons that you're intimating, and then others that are not. And I don't know how to resolve that question standing here.

Tom? And then I'll get to you.

Q: One to follow on Jamie, then a second question. So I'm gathering that the reward incentive program that the local commanders have their option to do, that does not include any kind of making a judgment on amnesty or anything like that?

Cambone: I'm not aware what the policy statement is on that at the moment. I don't know the answer to that.

Q: My question -- my actual question, not the follow, is that the vehicle that you all found, that you've been talking about, how many -- based on intelligence sources and, you know, all the other kind of sources you used to compile a kind of working list, how many of these kind of vehicles do you think Iraq possessed?

Cambone: Yeah. When the secretary did his account, as I recall, it was something on the order of 18 was the number that's sticking in my head.

Staff: Right.

Cambone: (Aside) Isn't that right?

Q: Has that changed at all?

Cambone: I'm not aware that it has. It may be that this element of that apparatus is a newer model, a modification, a variation, all right? And where I believe the secretary probably talked about -- I think his schematic had three vans, this could be two different -- slightly different configurations, slightly different equipment; you know, modifications to improve efficiencies.

So, you know, I don't know what the final number would be, but I think that's the working number.

Let me get Tom and --

Q: (Inaudible.)

Cambone: Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.

Let me get Tom, and then I'll come back over here.

Q: Oh, you said Tom, and that's my name, as well.

Cambone: I'm sorry.

Q: And mine also. (Laughter.)

Cambone: Really?

Q: Me too! (Laughter.)

Q: Me too!

Cambone: Jerry. (Laughter.)

Q: What's the current thinking on whether any of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or production means left the country? What's the intel on that? And where do you think it went?

Cambone: You know, part of the reason for getting after the people and the materials and trying to get to these facilities is in the order that -- I mean, there's a clear worry -- concern about that. And part of what I said about getting, for example, after the documentation, the proliferation networks and things like that are designed to give you some insight into where you might look if indeed that has already happened. You know, we continue to worry about it, and that's why we continue to press as hard as we have on getting this done.

Q: What kind of biological agents have been used to -- have been produced in this type of system in the past, according to your sources?

Cambone: There I will turn to my expert.

Jacoby: The source talked about three agents. They used a code name. We're not exactly certain of the three agents that are being referred to. So --

Q: Do you have any idea what they would be, I mean --

Jacoby: (Inaudible) -- two. Anthrax was one. Botulism.

Q: The staphylococcus story.

Jacoby: And the last one?

Q: Staphylococcus.

Q: Staphylococcus. And can you say whether Dr. Ammash has provided information since her arrest?

Cambone: I'm not going to talk about specific people and what they may or may not have said. I -- that's the same as sort of the operational information that we've been dealing with all along.

Q: But that was --

Cambone: How about here?

Q: Okay. Can you talk about how well this mobile lab was cleaned by this -- whatever --

Cambone: Again, I can only tell you what appears to be -- with the reports that have come back, of what appears to be the case with respect to it on the surface, and that is that they -- it was pretty thoroughly washed down.

Q: And are people -- can you categorize -- are people confident that once you do start cutting this mobile van up, you will be able to determine --

Cambone: Disassembling. (Laughter.)

Q: -- chop it up, whatever -- are they confident of being able to determine whether or not this was in fact used to create anthrax or --

Cambone: Well, let me come back. Again, you know, if you go through the testing and you find the traces of the feed material or the product, that's, you know -- on the other hand, as I said --

Q: But you're pretty confident that these tests will be able to determine --

Cambone: Don't know. Don't know. I mean, that's part of the reason we want to take it apart, is to see what in fact it may yield.

I'm sorry. You've been very patient.

Q: Yes. Thank you. What are your concerns about the charges that perhaps the U.S. may have -- this may have been fabricated in some way? In other words, how did you get this van? Are you worried about those charges, and what's being done to assure that this is a legitimate find?

Cambone: No, fair question. And, you know, guy driving around on the back roads and got a tractor, and behind's a trailer, and you say, gee, why is this here? That's why I've said what I've said. It is very similar to what was described to us by the source. Using all of those techniques that you see in movies and the TV show "Columbo" and all those kind of things, they've gone back to the source and they said, "Geez, I mean, what do you think?" And you know, he says, "Eh, it's looking like what I thought it was, and gee, how about this and that, yeah." And so, the source seems to be of the view that this is either the thing that he knew or some variant of what he thinks he knows, so that's one thing.

And then secondly, you end up doing what I said, which is the experts in this kind of thing sit down and try to start going through it, and asking yourselves: What's the equipment for? What are the suppliers? Where do we know they've been connected? How did the documentation come together? How is the van configured? What -- how do you think the process works? Where do the piece parts fit in here? And so you go through all that, and you ask yourself: What other processes might be accomplished by this kind of configuration and this type of equipment? And the conclusion they have come to thus far is that they have not had one.

So, now you go to the next step, and you say, let's start, in effect, taking it apart and seeing what's on the inside and so forth. And so, they'll go through that.

So, it's a very laborious process of asking yourself the very question that you've raised and then going back and finding every way possible to answer those questions. And that's why, you know, it takes time. And it isn't sort of an instant "eureka." It is a constant effort to get to the answer.

Q: Can we ask Admiral Jacoby a few questions, since we get so rare an opportunity to talk to him?

Cambone: Only in the next two minutes, because we're both on our way out the door.

Q: Well, that's why I want to get to him now, before he gets away. (Laughter.)

Admiral -- first of all, let me just ask you a general question. Is it possible that a lot of the intelligence the U.S. had about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program before the war is going to turn out to be wrong now that you're on the ground and able to check it out?

Jacoby: It's far too early to tell. As Dr. Cambone's been saying, this is piecing together a major jigsaw puzzle, and we're only just beginning to gain insights and to work the puzzle.

Q: But I mean, have you entertained that possibility? I mean, here you've checked 70 sites so far, you haven't found anything. I know you have a lot to work through, but is it possible that because of the nature of intelligence, that just a lot of things are not going to check out?

Jacoby: Actually, I remind myself more often that we're dealing with a regime that was expert at hiding things, very practiced at it, and frankly, it's not a surprise to me that the fixed sites aren't immediately giving us strong indications of past usage.

Q: So do you think the WMD is still there?

Cambone: I'm mean, you've got to remember -- but you've got to remember when -- back when Secretary Powell did his address, he talked about -- all right? -- the observed effort by the Iraqis of moving things out of these places, all right? So that's an activity that's ongoing.

Q: Can I follow up with Admiral Jacoby on one point?

Cambone: We've really got to go. We got one more.

Q: Admiral? Excuse me, Admiral, you --

Q: (Inaudible) -- with Admiral Jacoby on one point? The thing that I think is still confusing is prior -- just as the war was unfolding, Defense officials, intelligence officials kept saying that they were convinced there were weapons of mass destruction and there was direct threat to U.S. troops in the theater. We heard about the red line. We heard about all of these potential threats, of actual weaponized chemical and biological weapons directly facing U.S. troops on the battlefield. You were prepared for that and you thought it was there. What happened to it? What happened to all this stuff?

Jacoby: It's too early to tell. It really is. That will -- that will come more clear as there's more access to the people that are making the decisions.

Q: Admiral?

Q: Admiral, is there any level of frustration on the ground? Any level of frustration on the ground?

Cambone: Thanks, folks.

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