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No Certainty from Global War on Terrorism
Friday, October 18, 2002
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

"In each one of those cases, our goal is to deny the terrorists sanctuary. But in each one of those places, the approach to the goal is different, depending on the attitude of the government, depending on the nature of the terrain, depending on other factors. But it is impossible to see how a policy of denying terrorists' sanctuaries in those countries could be assisted by a policy that leaves them a sanctuary with the most murderous dictator we know."

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
People who expect certainty from the global war on terrorism are not going to get it, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said here Oct. 18.

Wolfowitz emphasized the uncertainly of information about terrorist aims, targets and methods during a speech to the Defense Forum Foundation on Capitol Hill.

"One way to think about it is to go back to August of last year," Wolfowitz told the audience of congressional staffers. "If we had launched an attack against the Taliban and said, 'This is to prevent attack on the World Trade Center,' the whole world would have said, 'Where's your evidence?'

"Not only would we not have had the evidence, but we would have been way too late," he continued. "The main hijackers, the pilots who were crucial to the operation, arrived in the United States in early 2000. The rest of the team arrived in the spring of last year. By August, nothing we could have done in Afghanistan could have prevented (the attacks)."
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

Dan