Posted on 07/22/2002 5:50:39 PM PDT by kattracks
The Pentagon (CNSNews.com) - An air strike that Afghan officials said killed more than 40 civilians in Oruzgan on July 1 was based on observations by U.S. troops on the ground, not false information from rival Afghan forces, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Monday.
"We had people on the ground with eyes on targets who saw anti-aircraft [weapons] and targeted them," Rumsfeld said. "It was not some rival warlords turning the United States on their rival warlord enemies."
Rumsfeld said he had reviewed 15 to 20 minutes of a four-hour videotape from the Air Force AC-130 gunship that attacked the villages.
"Clearly there was ground fire," the defense secretary said. But the formal U.S.-Afghan investigation now underway will provide answers, he said.
"It's an unfortunate fact of war that inevitably innocent civilians are killed," Rumsfeld said. "This has been true throughout the history of warfare and it remains true even in this age of advanced technology and precision-guided munitions."
Progress in Nine-Month-Old War
Nine months into the war on terror, the United States is closer to the beginning than to the end, Rumsfeld warned.
"Our goal is that Afghanistan not become a base for global terrorist networks again," he said. "That work is of course by no means complete. Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives are still at large, some in Afghanistan, others fled across the borders waiting for the opportunity to return."
In response to questions, Rumsfeld confirmed that Pakistan had captured several suspected al Qaeda fugitives in the past two weeks, including one who may have been a top finance official for the terrorist network.
Although U.S. officials are not certain of the identity of those who were apprehended, "there is some hope" that one is a high-ranking al Qaeda finance official, Rumsfeld said.
"It's hard to know in near real time after someone is picked up what they are," he said. "There is so much lying and disinformation and so many aliases."
Rumsfeld predicted that Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks, will eventually be captured or killed, if he is not already dead.
Rumsfeld said, however, "it would be nice to find [bin Laden]." The al Qaeda leader is either dead or alive, but not sending out videotaped messages because he's physically disabled or afraid to expose his location, he said.
E-mail a news tip to Lawrence Morahan.
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Still think we were set up on that one as I couldn't see why "orphans" were shipped in for this wedding party (which was not attended by the bride and groom).
These people want reparation from us for the body of a good guy or bad guy and they go on their way to fight their tribal wars and kill their own good neighbors.
Sac
We assume people are being mistreated and can be liberated by us because our motives are pure - we're the good guys (we actually are.) Only happens if the many factions fighting each other actually stop. Apparently that's going to take some time. Until then civilians will continue dying.
That is the only thing that will get the truth onto the nightly news.
This is culture of Arabs in a nutshell
When and how did this become limited to Arab culture? From what I have observed it could easily be attributed to any number of cultures with the western culture very near the top.
More evidence bin Laden is dead. This would not happen to a high level finance guy, if the person he needed to finance was still alive.
Was President Clinton in a biker gang? Let me make some introductions, dagoofyfoot, I'd like you to meet the folks that ran Enron, and over here are the guys from Authur Anderson, and down in Bermuda are the Global Crossing founders, guys I'd like you all to meet dagoofyfoot. The team from Worldcom couldn't make it today. To the best of my knowledge at this time none of these people were members of biker gangs.
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