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Military Prepared to do What President Needs, Myers Says
Sunday, February 24, 2002
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

In the Pearl case, the Pakistani government cooperated fully with American officials. Myers said the two countries were working as a team.

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the U.S. military is prepared to do whatever mission President Bush orders it to do.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers said the U.S. military "will be ready. We may not have all the preferred munitions in terms of (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) that you'd want, but we have other munitions that we could substitute."

He also said that Osama bin Laden is "probably" still alive. Ultimately, the chairman said, he believes America would ultimately capture the terrorist leader.

Myers appeared on Fox News Sunday and ABC's This Week. He said the United States is not concentrating on bin Laden alone. American forces are also hunting for Al Qaeda lieutenants, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and his lieutenants.

Myers said U.S. personnel are also undertaking another important mission in helping Afghan officials build a national army. Currently, armed forces in Afghanistan hold allegiance to regional warlords. The national army would report to Hamid Karzai's interim government and its successor regime. A national army would be in charge of maintaining the borders of Afghanistan, Myers said, and would help bring security to the country.

"This quite likely would require American trainers in there for a period of time," he said. "But in small numbers. We've done this around the world and it doesn't take a lot of troops to do the training mission." In fact, once started, he said, contractors could do much of the training mission.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

Dan