DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Wednesday, January 30, 2001 - 2:03 p.m. EST
(Also participating; General Richard Myers, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff)


Q : Mr Secretary, it's been a week now for the dust to kind of settle and the facts to straighten out on what happened in the raid north of Kandahar last week. You all said -- Pentagon officials have said that 15 Taliban were killed and 27 were arrested. And yet persistent reports from the region, including one today quoting security sources, say that in fact, an anti-Taliban leader and perhaps 17 of his men were killed by U.S. forces who were misled by local Afghans. Admiral Stufflebeem almost dismissed it on Monday. Have you any indication at all that in fact you might not have killed Taliban and that through mistake, you might have killed anti-Taliban government forces?

MYERS : At this point, no, we have no information like that. But again, I'd just -- I'd wait for the investigation to complete. As you know, the situation over there can be very, very complex with allegiances changing, depending on the situation. And so we'll just have to wait till they work through that.

Q : General Myers, at the least, this is the first time we've heard that you're conducting an investigation into this incident. Can you tell us what led you or General Franks to decide to do that, when you started it, and what you're exactly looking at? Because I don't think we've heard this before today.

MYERS : I think it's been announced before. I can't -

RUMSFELD : I think so.

MYERS : -- I think we've said that. If we haven't -

Q : Admiral Stufflebeem certainly didn't indicate that.

MYERS : I have said it before -- maybe not in front of this forum, but I've said it to other forums. So -

Q : Well, so could you tell us?

MYERS : Well, the motivation, of course, is when you -- when the people that you associate with over there, when they bring up the question, you're obligated to go look at it, so that's what we're doing. I mean, it was just -- I don't think it was any sense on our part that we had done something wrong, it was that when there are allegations, you've got to go run them to ground, so that's what we're doing.

RUMSFELD : I've been involved in some discussions on the subject, and it's essentially this simple: that Tom Franks called and indicated to me that there had been somebody who had contacted somebody in the interim government and said that in their view, there were some people involved in that shoot-out that were killed who were not Taliban or al Qaeda. And that as a result of the contact to CENTCOM, General Franks has decided to conduct an investigation. This was some days ago. It was in a relatively short period after it happened, as I recall. And it's been underway and it is -- I would assume, would be resolved sometime in the coming days or a week or two.

Q : Mr Secretary, just one final question on the allegations out of Uruzgan. Do you have any indications that one of the buildings hit was, in fact, a government building, and not part of the Taliban compound?

RUMSFELD : I don't.

MYERS : The facts -- the facts that we heard right after the event were that as they approached the compounds, that the folks on the other side started shooting first. That'll have to be verified, but they started the shooting. And the other thing we know is that there were no women and children involved in any of the two compounds.

And the last thing we know for sure was what the secretary briefed, I think -- gee, it must have been last week -- on the armaments that -- that were found. And that's -- that's what we know, and I think the investigation by CENTCOM will try to figure out the rest of that.

RUMSFELD : Without repeating all of the facts, the notable facts were the ones that the general mentioned. There were large numbers of weapons, which were confiscated, and no women and children. And as the Americans and the Afghan forces approached, they were shot at by the people in the compound, which is something.

Q : A follow-up: I mean, I know that these reports -- this is sort of a pattern: You strike, and then there are reports that maybe the wrong thing was struck. But in this particular case, our reporter in Kandahar filed a story Sunday with some very compelling stuff from some locals. And now the Reuters story comes on top of this, with security officials. It's very persistent and consistent, and it's hard to believe that, you know, nothing so far. I understand you're investigating, but there aren't any concerns that there isn't any thought that perhaps there might be something to this?

RUMSFELD : Well, all we can say is General Franks decided to have the investigation. That seems to me to be the appropriate thing to do. Second, I don't think that it involves a pattern at all. It seems to me what you may be referring to is that when the Taliban ran the country and we were bombing, there were Taliban reports that were inaccurate. But since the Taliban have been -- left the country and taken out of power, I would not say there's been a pattern of that.

Our soldiers behave like soldiers, they look like soldiers, they dress like soldiers. And they don't go around killing innocent civilians.

RUMSFELD : Look, the president of the United States can do what he wishes when he wishes. You know that. He has been considering a couple of legal technicalities, as I've mentioned here, and how he will end up resolving those, we'll know in the next -- in the period ahead.