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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=6493674 The Times of India April 11, 2002 US troops in Afghanistan for long haul: Minister AFP [ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2002 11:25:38 PM ] BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan: American troops will keep a long-term presence in Afghanistan because they have accomplished only one of their three strategic objectives, US Army Secretary Thomas White said on Wednesday. The minister told US soldiers during a visit to this air base north of Kabul that the campaign had been "enormously successful" but had yet to result in the eradication of enemy resistance or the capture of Osama bin Laden. American troops have had little contact with remaining diehard al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in recent weeks following the end of the massive Operation Anaconda offensive in mid-March. White refused to comment on troop numbers and movements within Afghanistan but insisted that the military's operational capability would be maintained. Some 4,000 troops were at Bagram at the height of Anaconda but the number has now fallen to around 2,000. "We are in this for the long haul. The president has been very clear about that and we will sustain the operational capability here to pursue the campaign," the minister said. "This is a long-term deal. We have had initial success... but there's more to do. This is not a short-haul operation, this is a long-term operation." White said the first of the conflict's three main strategic objectives had been achieved with the ouster of the Taliban from power late last year. But he said there was still work to do. "The second strategic objective was to root out the al-Qaeda network - we are doing that. "(The) third one is to get bin Laden and we are pursuing that. I think we have made enormous progress." Asked if the campaign could only be seen as a complete success when bin Laden was captured, he replied: "No one said it was going to be easy." US President George W Bush announced that he wanted bin Laden captured "dead or alive" in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks, which the Saudi-born dissident is accused of masterminding. A 25-million-dollar bounty has been put on his head but there have been no confirmed sightings of him since the Taliban's ouster. White said the US troops had proved themselves the world's finest and hinted they could have a role beyond Afghanistan as part of the Bush administration's stated global war on terrorism. "You will prove it again wherever in the world this global war on terrorism takes us and however long it takes us to be successful," he told the troops. "Every American is proud of what you are doing. I have never seen the American public so united behind us in the way they are in the war against terrorism," he added. Earlier this week, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said American troops would remain in Afghanistan until the Afghan national army was ready to take over. "You'd want to have an environment that was reasonably hospitable to the government, people going about their business, going to school, trade with other countries, and that'll take a little time, I would think," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon press conference. Pressed later on the prospect of war against Iraq, White repeated Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein's regime was part of an axis of evil, but said the question of military action against Baghdad could only be answered by Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
