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ARMY GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS: Troops Likely to Stay in Afghanistan for Years
Thursday, August 15, 2002
By Robert Burns
Associated Press Writer

“We didn’t go in there to leave in a way that allows it to turn back into a terrorist training camp,” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said. A key to preventing that outcome is establishing a unified Afghan army, he said.

AP
The United States is likely to keep troops in Afghanistan for many years to guard against it becoming a haven for terrorists again, the American war commander said Thursday.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, whose Central Command troops are leading the anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, made no specific prediction about how long U.S. forces would remain there. Noting that the United States has long-term military commitments in many countries, Franks singled out Korea, where tens of thousands of American forces have been stationed for half a century.

“It does not surprise me that someone would say, ‘Oh gosh, the military is going to be in Afghanistan for a long, long time.’ Sure we will be,” Franks said at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at his side.

There are about 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of an international coalition that is hunting for remnants of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist organization and leaders of the Taliban militia that harbored them. The troops also are training an Afghan national army and providing civil services.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a public appearance in Savannah, Ga., on Thursday that the global war on terrorism may go on for years.

“It could last years and years, so we must be patient,” Myers told a conference of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States. He said he is frustrated at the pace of progress but mindful that the goal is to destroy the far-flung al-Qaida network before it attacks Americans again.
(More: The Army Times News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan