'Countries Have To Make Their Own Decisions'

Press Conference at Roosevelt House, July 29, 2003

General Myers: Good morning and many thanks for turning out early this morning here at Roosevelt House. It's apleasure again to be in India and I just wish the trip this time were a little bit longer so I can enjoy thefascinating country little bit more. As you are probably aware, I am on an official trip to South Asiancountries. This stop at New Delhi is part of a counterpart visit to discuss regional issues with Admiral Singhand Indian military and government officials. Yesterday's meeting with Admiral Singh was very productive and Ilook forward to continuing dialogue this morning with National Security Advisor Mishra and other officials.

I am indeed grateful for India's continued cooperation on the war on terrorism and would like to highlight thefact that the U.S.-India military relationship has improved significantly over the last couple of years. Ithink this improvement is emblematic of the successful transformation of the U.S.-Indian bilateralrelationship over all. My visit, I don't think, is any more than an example of this continuing transformationthat demonstrates the commitment of the United States government to building this strategic partnership withIndia. And therefore we must continue with this important transformation process. India of course is vital tothe economic prosperity and the stability for the South Asia region and India is a good friend of America.

So many thanks to Admiral Singh the military leaders in the Indian government for their gracious hospitality.It's been a pleasure to be here in New Delhi and with that I will take your questions.

General Myers, I am Jonathan Biel from BBC. Have you or will you have any discussions about gettinga possible deployment of Indian troops to help in an international force in Iraq?

General Myers: We have had discussions yesterday about the situation in Iraq but not about any possible troopcontributions.

Do you want to see Indian troops going to Iraq?

General Myers: What we want in both Afghanistan and Iraq is a robust coalition that helps in both thosecountries and in both those countries, as you know, we have a fairly well robust coalition. In Iraq, forinstance, there are 19 nations that are contributing forces to the effort with 15 others promised and on theway, for a total of 34 countries that will be on the ground in Iraq. 34 countries will be on the ground inIraq. In Afghanistan again the number is fairly high and we have this September NATO will take over theInterim Security Assistance Force in Kabul and we have about 10,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan and around2,500 other coalition forces that are operating with us. So many countries are involved in that. We think thewar on terrorism and creating stable countries in both Afghanistan and Iraq are important to the internationalcommunity.

What about the possibility of Indian troops going to Afghanistan to free up some American troops togo to Iraq. This is one of the things that has been in the Indian press this morning. Were there discussionson that and will that be militarily helpful to you?

General Myers: No, we never discussed that. I'll go back to my last answer that it's important to haveinternational community helping in these efforts and we do have great effort, but it is always up to theindividual countries whether or not they want to participate. That's their decision.

I am Ranjit Kumar from Navbharat Times. Since the United States is likely to bring a new UNresolution, would this new UN resolution facilitate troop deployments in Iraq under UN command?

General Myers: You said a new UN resolution? Yes, I have been gone for couple of days but when I left theUnited States, this gets a little bit outside my lane being a military person, but my understanding was thatthere was some thought being given to that, but there was no definitive decision to go for another UN securitycouncil resolution. So that's being discussed and we will just have to see how that plays out. I don't have ananswer to that. 

Mr. Chairman, Jaime McIntyre from CNN. I realize it's not in your purview totechnically request troops from India, but can you tell us whether in your discussions did you outline howIndian troops-- what kind of contribution they might be able to make in the future in Iraq? Did you offer anyassurances about how the operation is going based on your recent trip there?

General Myers: No, we talked about the situation in Iraq but we did not get in to any we never got to thatlevel of detail about how Indian troops might participate because that's, the Indian government has alreadymade a decision on that, and so we talked in general. I talked. They asked for the situation in Iraq and Iprovided that situation to them. So we did spend some time on the situation of course.

General, you discussed the military-to-military contacts with your Indian counterpart. Are youdiscussing extending those contacts?

General Myers: Well there has been over the last couple of years there has been quite an expansion of themilitary-to-military contacts and I think all U.S. services, the air force, the army and the navy, specialoperations forces, have had various exercises and training events and those will continue. And right now it'sa fairly robust series of exercises that I mentioned and we expect that to continue.

I am Ranjan Gupta, CBS radio news. Why is it so important for you to have Indian troops in Iraq? Imean we have been seeing this for the last couple of weeks people coming from Washington to try and persuadethe Indians. Why is the Indian presence is so important. And if you don't have enough of internationalcoalition what will the United States do? Will it carry on alone? Thank you.

General Myers: I am fascinated by reading some of the headlines today. There is quite an imagination here inNew Delhi in terms of the reason I am here. This trip was set up over three months ago. Three months ago westarted to plan this trip, well before the discussion of Indian troops in Iraq was even broached. So this hasnothing to do with Indian troops to Iraq, absolutely nothing to do. It's a counterpart visit. I had metAdmiral Singh once before in Washington but I had not met him here and traditionally what we do when we have anew counterpart relationship is we try to go to the host country and meet my counterpart and have somediscussions. So that was set up three months ago. 

I think I will just let the answer stand on why it isimportant to internationalize these efforts. The importance is because a stable Iraq, a stable Afghanistan, aplace where terrorists can not gather, they tend together where there are ungoverned areas and that is notgood for any of us and I think India understands that as well as any country on this planet. So it's importantfor the international community to take this seriously but that's separate, that's a very separate thing fromindividual countries' decisions on whether they are going to participate in various operations in differentcountries. 

And in terms of, as I said, we already have a very large international commitment in Afghanistan.We have a very large commitment, I think I said 34 countries are going to send ground troops. We have manyother countries who can provide other forms of assistance in Iraq, economic assistance and other expertise.Some are in there providing medical help. They will not provide ground troops, so they are not in that numberof 34 that I mentioned. So we have a very large group that want to help in Iraq that understand how importantthat mission is. And I can tell you the United States of course is going to be committed to the Iraqi people,to helping the Iraqi people for as long as it takes to get them back on their feet, get them to the pointwhere they have a democratic society and economic prosperity.

Sir I am Ajay Shukla from NDTV. We understand from the government that this visit, your visit, hasbeen actually requested at short notice from your side and this is not a routine visit or part of the DefensePolicy Group. Can you tell us what is the primary purpose of your visit and if it is purely a routine visit,then why are we having this press conference? I mean this is highly unusual for an American General to addressa press conference in New Delhi. What is the purpose of this?

General Myers: I think we are having a press conference because you wanted it. I don't know. Certainly we haveother work to do this morning, but, no, as I said, let me just repeat: This visit, we started the planning forthis visit three -- one, two, three -- months ago. Three months ago. Okay? It has nothing to do with India'scontribution of troops anywhere. It has every thing to do with a counterpart visit. And it is something thatwe do routinely. 

I was last here in February a year ago, a year ago February was here with another counterpartvisit. It is just a way given our close military-to-military relationship, given that relationship ismaturing, it's a way to talk about that relationship and try to further it. And that's the sole purpose ofthis visit. Obviously there are lots of things that are of mutual interest around the world that we care aboutso we discussed other topics. But that's the purpose of the visit. I was not asked to come here by anybody.This is like I said a visit that was laid on over three months ago.

You said you discussed the situation in Iraq with the Government of India, could you share yourassessment with us and secondly, does it bother you that various countries are refusing your requests fortroops in Iraq?

General Myers: Okay. It doesn't bother me; countries have to make their own decisions. Like I said, we havethirty-four countries--one more time--thirty-four countries committing ground troops in Iraq. Many othercountries that are contributing money, medical, health, all sorts of help. 

Situation in Iraq. It is a verycomplex situation and it is not even all over the country. It varies all over the country and there is threemain areas you have to talk about when you have to talk about Iraq. You have to talk about the securitysituation, the political situation and the economic situation. 

We can start on the economic situation. I wasin Baghdad in May, a very informal survey by me looking out of the window of the transport I was in, thatabout a third of a shops were opened. Two months later, as we passed over Baghdad, it looked to me like mostof the shops were opened. The economic activity in Baghdad, and in other towns and villages is very robust.People are very deeply involved in economic activity and the coalition is working very hard to support thatwith various contracts for fixing schools and lots of other civil work. So the economic part is coming along. 

As you know in the political side, Ambassador Bremer announced the formation of the Iraqi Governing Counseljust, I think, two weeks ago, so now there is a political face on Iraqi activity. Three of those members cameto the UN last week and participated in the discussions there. 

On the stability front, if you look at thethree areas in Iraq, North, Central, South, and then Baghdad, so we are talking about 4 areas, 3 areas inBaghdad. In the North and in the South things are really very stable. It is in the Central area, that areabetween Baghdad and Tikrit, and if you draw a great big oblong circle there, that is where 80% of the securityincidents are happening. 

But what is happening over time and in talking with our soldiers and the coalitionforces that are involved in this, over time the Iraqi people are coming forward more and more to help makethat security situation better. They come forward and they say you might want to go out here and look. Thereis lot of buried ammunition or weapons out in this area and they'll go out and we'll find huge ammunitioncaches which we then dig out to bring in. That's how the two sons were found. Saddam's sons were found by anIraqi coming forward to say they are in this house over there and that is happening more and more. 

The Iraqipeople, the majority of the Iraqi people, want a better life for themselves and for their children and theyare participating more and more in this whole process. And I would say that our security forces are verycompetent about their mission in providing security inside Iraq. 

So, I think, on almost every trend line thatyou can devise for how things are going in Iraq, every trend line is up to include infrastructure to includewater, sanitation, power and so forth. There is no food crisis; there is no medical crisis. There are stillparts of the infrastructure that need to be improved. The fact of the matter is that under Saddam Hussein's'regime very little effort and resources were put into the infrastructure. So its is quite dilapidated in manysectors.

I am Rakhee Bakshi from Doordarshan. What about the increasing causality on the U.S. side, we shareand read about?

General Myers: It is still, it is still, particularly in that area that I described between Tikrit andBaghdad, I think it is fair to say, you know, this is still a war zone in many cases. President Bush saidmajor combat operations were over. And he was very precise in the words he used. He did not say combatoperations were over. He said was major combat operation were over. It was not a play on words. It was a veryspecific way to say it is still a very challenging environment. It is a very hard environment. 

The day I gotthere we had three soldiers killed. Their job was to guard a women's and children's' hospital. That was theirjob to guard the hospital, to provide security so the hospital staff felt comfortable coming into thatfacility. They were on a break. And they had gone inside the hospital, on a break from their guard duty, whensomebody dropped a grenade from the second flood and it came down on the first floor and went off and killedthem. Obviously, that is not an act that most of the Iraqi people would think is reasonable because they wanttheir women--they want their children--to be--to have access to medical care. So, as tragic as that is and ourhearts go out to, of course, the families and the friends of those that are killed, but militarily we won't bedefeated in Iraq. And we are going to stay there until the job is done.

I am Dr. Waiel Awwad from Al- Arabiya Channel. There are some reports in the Arab world that theresistance to occupation is a natural phenomenon in the Arab world, especially in Iraq. Do you consider thisas a resistance or really as a remnant of the old the regimes where you always brand them as a terrorist? Doyou think that it will be more organized in the coming days or are you anticipating that you may be able todefeat these resistances?

General Myers: That is a very good question. Our analysis right now is that most of the resistance areremnants of the former regime, particularly former Baathists, fedayeen, Saddam, members of the specialsecurity organization, the special Republican Guard, that they are the ones that are perpetrating most of theattacks against the coalition. Again, it is in a -- 80% of them have occurred in that area between Baghdad andTikrit. That is not to say that there are not other groups out there.

As you know, the regime released all thecriminals that were in jail, so there is criminal activity happening as well. There is also, perhaps foreignfighters coming in from outside Iraq to participate against the coalition. So it is again a complex picture,but the majority of attacks appear to be former Baathist and those that have most to lose by not having theregime in place, where they had favored status. And we think we know how to deal with that, and ourintelligence is focussing on that, and we know we are going to be successful.