Global War Against Terrorism: One Year Later

Real Audio of Briefing

        GEN. PACE:  Thanks very much, Rick.

       Thank you all very much for this opportunity. Please excuse me, I have a bit of a cold that I'll work through. If you can bear with me, I'll do the best I can. But I did not want to miss this opportunity to come here on the eve of the attack on the United States and, in fact, an attack on the whole world to say thank you to you and, through you, to your citizens for the tremendous outpouring of love and affection and support that the entire world has given to the United States, especially in the time frame of 11 September of last year. And since that time together in many, many ways we have worked to stem terrorism around the world. Some 90 nations have arrested over 2,400 terrorists worldwide. About 160 nations have assisted in confiscating over $100 million in illegal terrorist funds. Some 1.5 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan in that time frame. So I think collectively the world should look at ourselves and be pleased with the progress we've made. And again, from me personally, to be able to come in front of you, and through you, your citizens and say thank you is an important opportunity.

       With that, I'd like to answer your questions.

       MODERATOR: As a reminder, please wait for the microphone before you ask your question and please identify yourself -- (off mike) -- we'll start in front with TASS.

       Q Thank you, Rick. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

       My name is Andrei Sitov. I'm with the Russian News Agency, ITAR-TASS, here in Washington. Obviously, the question -- about Russia: What, in your opinion, is the most important contribution that Russia has made to the war with terror -- international war with terror?

       GEN. PACE: I think to try to pick one particular contribution would be unfair for a couple of reasons. Number one, I'm sure that I only know about the military contributions, and I know that there are other things that your government is doing to assist on the financial side and the like.

       What I can certainly say is the absolute truth, which is that the cooperation, especially between President Putin and President Bush, has been extraordinary. And I think the genuine friendship that those two men have for each other as individuals and their going out of their way, both of them, to find ways to find cooperation between the United States and Russia already has had tremendous impact not only on the war on terrorism, but on the future of the world in many, many other ways.

       So I cannot say to you that this particular event is the most important, but I can certainly tell you that Russia's leaning forward in cooperation not only with the United States but with many other countries around the world in the war on terrorism and on finding ways for peaceful solutions has been very, very useful.

       Q (Off mike) -- a new war with Iraq?

       GEN. PACE: Where we are right now is, we have a (sic) ongoing war on terrorism. We have a war in Afghanistan that we still have work to do. The president of the United States makes policy for the United States, and the U.S. military is prepared to do our nation's business around the world as we're directed to do.

       MODERATOR: (Off mike) -- up front.

       Q General, my name is Jennie Ilustre. I'm with the Philipine Daily Inquirer. My question is, what will be the mission of the next joint military exercises in the Philippines, which starts next month? And how many troops will be involved?

       GEN. PACE: Thank you.

       First of all, let me thank your government and your citizens for the tremendous cooperation we've had together this past year. The exercise that ended the 31st of July, which included upwards of 1,200 U.S. soldiers training alongside your very capable soldiers had some significant results, as you know -- especially in Zamboanga. So together, I think that we have already had some very good progress.

       The intent of both governments for the future is to continue to find ways to train together at a much smaller level of U.S. involvement -- somewhere in the several-hundreds -- maybe four (hundred) or 500 U.S. soldiers at any one time, training alongside of our Filipino counterparts to learn tactics, techniques and procedures; to share ideas about how to combat terrorism; and also how to just increase our capability as military to military, to be able to work together.

       So it's -- the next step in the Philippines is a mutual training opportunity, not a specific focused mission.

       Q (Off mike.)

       GEN. PACE: No, some remained behind from the last exercise. Again, the numbers escape me, but it was about 1,200 at one time that were in the Philippines. That's down now to a couple of hundred that stayed behind as a bridge between the forces that were there to train last time and the opportunities to train in the months ahead and to do the planning with your military and with your government to see what was possible. So there has been a cadre of U.S. military that has been in the Philippines since July.

       Q (Off mike.)

       GEN. PACE: That's how it is planned right now. But I do not want to mislead you because I know that the two governments are still discussing opportunities throughout the Philippines to train together. And wherever is best for your government and for mine to work together, we will. So I wouldn't want to focus on a particular island.

       Q (Off mike) -- public radio. General, two questions, if I may. First question is, if you try to evaluate the fight against terrorism after one year, where are you standing today? Which goals could you achieve? Which goals are still not achieved yet? The first question.

       The second question is, how helpful were the interviews with the detainees in Guantanamo Bay to achieve these goals and to fight terrorism worldwide?

       GEN. PACE: Thanks very much. First of all, with regard to the war on terrorism, 11 September last year we were attacked. On 7 October, we had deployed U.S. forces and coalition forces thousands of miles from home into a land-locked country to begin a war in a country about which we knew very little, and about whom we had very little contact. So just the fact that we were able to mobilize our resources and deploy that quickly and begin operations that quickly is a major success, in my view, on the way the U.S. military and our coalition partners are able to work together anywhere in the world that we need to.

       Successes. Certainly the Taliban government no longer exists. Al Qaeda no longer has free rein within Afghanistan. That's very, very good. Many of the leaders of both the Taliban and the al Qaeda are still alive. That is not good. So there is still a lot of work to be done just in the Afghan theater to continue to, number one, pursue the terrorist leaders, and number two, and I think most importantly, in Afghanistan itself, to assist President Karzai in providing for his countrymen a secure environment inside of which they can begin to renew their businesses, build the roads, build the schools, do the health care and the kinds of things that a nation wants to provide for its citizens. So there's a lot of work for the international community to do together in helping to rebuild Afghanistan.

       With regard to your second question about detainees in Guantanamo, we take the information we get from them, put it together with the information that's shared amongst intelligence organizations around the world and with our own intelligence, and put together a mosaic or a puzzle to try to determine what is going to happen next or where particular people might be.

       So that's -- it all -- it all flows together in a matrix that we use to determine what we should do next. But that's about as far as I can go in the kinds of information we get from the detainees.

       MODERATOR: Mr. Papantoniou -- (off mike).

       Q Lambros Papantoniou, Elettheros Typos Greek daily, Athens. General, do you have anything to say about Greece's support to your effort against terrorism globally?

       GEN. PACE: Sir, I would -- I would welcome the opportunity to thank the Greek government specifically and the Greek people in particular for all of your support, not only for the tremendous outpouring of love and affection in the days and weeks after the attacks on my country, but also all that your government is doing to partner with not only the United States, but with the other nations to track terrorists and terrorist organizations inside Greece and to do the kinds of things that your government can speak for itself on what they are doing, which is very, very helpful to the international community on the war on terrorism.

       Q (Off mike) -- offer any kind of specific support -- (off mike) -- to (fight ?) globally?

       GEN. PACE: Sir, I do not recall specifically. And there is a very specific answer to that question, and I will get it for you. We can make sure we get that to you. I'd be happy to provide to you what your government has said. But I'd be remiss to try to remember exactly what Greece offered. And therefore, if I may, I will get that to you off-line, but precisely.

       Q Thank you.

       GEN. PACE: Yes, sir. Thank you.

       Q Yes. Jose Lopez of the Mexican News Agency. The Mexican government decided last night to abandon the Rio treaty because they regard it as obsolete. The State Department said that they think that the fact that it was invoked after September 11th shows that the treaty is still useful. From a military point of view, could you share with us what implications if any, either political, military, strategic, might come about if Mexico -- because of Mexico's decision to abandon the Rio treaty?

       GEN. PACE: Well, the whole area of treaties and agreements between governments is way outside my lane as a military guy. What I can say is pure fact, which is any opportunities for militaries around the world to work with each other, to advance the cause of peace, to fight against terrorism is a good thing from my perspective. Whether it's done inside of a treaty or inside of a government-to-government understanding of some other kind or is able to be worked between military men to me isn't as important as the opportunity to continue to work together. So regardless of whether or not there's a standing treaty, if the United States military and the Mexican military can continue to work together against terrorism, against narcotraffickers, I think that's very good.

       MODERATOR: (Off mike.)

       Q Thank you. Phoenix TV of Hong Kong. Military questions. First, the heightened terror alert today. Is the Pentagon -- we understand the Pentagon probably will announce to arm those surface- to-air missiles around Washington, D.C. Is this true? Has this been done before? And secondly, what is the ministry doing specifically to prepare for tomorrow's events?

       GEN. PACE: I can answer that partially. Not that I don't know the whole answer; I can only give you part of that publicly. (Laughs.) I know that surprises you. Yeah.

       The decision by my government to change the threat as we perceive it inside the United States is a result of, among other things, as we've talked about before, the (kluging ?) together of all the intelligence that we have available to ourselves through our own means and shared with us by other governments. And the picture that we have seen tells us that the threat to our country now is greater today than it has been in recent days. As a result of that, on the U.S. military side we are, as you would expect, looking at our posture inside the United States and worldwide and making changes to the way we do our day-to-day business to be better prepared in case we are attacked.

       One of the things that we are looking at is on the air defense side, as you mentioned. As you know, as was, I think, announced yesterday or the day before, there is an ongoing air defense exercise here in our nation's capital. One of the possibilities is to in fact issue to that exercise unit live missiles. If that decision is made, I am sure that there will be a public announcement coming out of the Pentagon. That decision, as I stand here, is not yet -- has not yet been made. So, what -- the announcement yesterday was exercise because that's what we have going on. If the exercise changes, there will be announcement to announce that change.

       Q (Off mike.)

       GEN. PACE: This is not the first time that we have had a air defense exercise in the United States, and it is not the first time that we had an air defense exercise in Washington. In fact, there was one back in July of this year. So this is another in a series of just teaching ourselves how to better defend ourselves. If, in fact, live missiles are issued, that would be a first in the Washington area.

       Okay.

       Q Thank you, General.

       MODERATOR: In the back.

       Q My name is Nestor Ikeda and I am a reporter for the Associated Press covering Latin American affairs.

       Just want you to go back to Latin America again, on Colombia and Peru. As you know, from the very beginning, for this fighting against terrorism, the U.S. administration has promised to fight every terrorist group worldwide. In Colombia, there are three officially labeled terrorist groups, and in Peru there is one. But no major military action was taken in the last 12 months against those groups. Would you tell us, what are the military plans -- U.S. military plans against those four terrorist groups in Colombia and Peru in the year to come?

       GEN. PACE: I can answer that, but to do that, I need to take a step a little bit higher than the military plans. And that is, what are the plans between the United States and Colombia, and what are the plans between the United States and Peru? It is the governments that will decide what is best to be done with the U.S. in support of Colombia, with the U.S. in support of Peru, being very sensitive to, as we should be, the sovereignty of Colombia and the sovereignty of Peru.

       Having, as you know -- had a time down there as a commander of U.S. forces, I am very familiar with the terrorist organizations that operate in both Colombia and Peru. They are narcoterrorists, which means that they get a lot of their funding through narcotics trafficking. They are terrorist organizations.

       And if I can just use Colombia as an example: The Colombian government, through its Plan Colombia, has, in fact, embarked -- did embark, about two years ago, and now, under President Uribe, is continuing to strengthen that government's own internal approach to and resolve against those terrorist organizations. And they continue to have a dialogue with my government about what is appropriate -- what support is requested from Colombia and what support my government feels is appropriate to give. And that dialogue continues.

       It would be inappropriate, then, for me to presume to know what he political leaders will decide amongst themselves and certainly would be inappropriate for me to broadcast ahead of time what military operations might take place, because that would put Colombian soldiers at risk; it would put Peruvian soldiers at risk by broadcasting ahead of time what events might take place.

       Q Hi. My name is Makada (ph) from Nippon Television Network. Sir, I have one more question about the air defense exercise called Avenger. In the future, do you plan to carry out the same air defense exercise in other U.S. cities?

       GEN. PACE: Not determined yet. We are still learning how best to do this. We have tremendous capabilities in our Federal Aviation Administration, as far as watching our airways. We have tremendous capability, in the form of our jet fighter aircraft, in protecting our cities.

       There are opportunities for some what we would call point defense for missile systems on the ground. But it's not an easy problem to wrestle with, because there are something like 60,000 airplanes that cross the United States every day. And trying to make sure that you know exactly what each of those airplanes is doing and to pick out of that group, then, those that might be hostile and then making a decision to shoot one down with a missile, so to speak, really requires a degree of finesse and refinement that we need to make sure we get right.

       So that's why we started on the exercise programs we have, so we can learn how do the military radars best mesh with the civilian radars and then how do we use that information to best get the information to the right people to make decisions, so that the president or the secretary of Defense or whoever is designated to make that decision has the opportunity to study accurate information, make a wise decision, and then take action on it.

       But where we go next, I'm not sure. Okay? Thanks, sir.

       MODERATOR: In the back and then -- (off mike).

       Q Hello. Yes. Pablo Bashalat (sp) with the Reuters News Agency. If we could go back to Latin America once more, the U.S. shares with Mexico an extremely busy border. From a military standpoint, what are you doing to make that border more secure?

       And the second question was, what areas of South America do you consider to be potentially high-risk? One such area that has been mentioned is the triple border between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where there's a lot of movement of people. Are you focusing on that area or any other area in particular in South America?

       GEN. PACE: Thanks. First of all, with regard to the U.S.- Mexican border, what we want to have -- certainly what I would like to have, as a U.S. citizen -- is as open and free a border as is possible, so that he movement between the United States and Mexico for Mexican citizens and U.S. citizens can be as free as possible.

       Obviously, with the constraints of terrorism, with the constraints of narcotics traffic, there needs to be some police work done there. So this is much more, in my mind, a police function than it is a military function.

       This is very much U.S. police with Mexican police working a common problem, as opposed to a standard military mission where you kind of -- you guard your borders against somebody else. That's not what we're doing with Mexico. We're trying to jointly make our borders more free for our citizens and more difficult for terrorists and narcotraffickers. So it's in the police function.

       There are things, though, that the military has, you know, certain kinds of radars and night-vision devices, and the like, that are very helpful to police. So at least on the U.S. side of the border what we do is, on occasion, we deploy some of our Reserve units that have the opportunity then to train with their equipment, and what they do is when they see something, they report that to the police, who then do the police function with the information we provide to them.

       With regard to your second question, there are two areas in South America that are particularly prone to terrorist activities, and they've both been mentioned by you in the audience already. One is the Andean Ridge area, where the organizations that run narcotics are virtually indistinguishable form the terrorist organizations that they are. I mean, they are hand-in-glove terrorists and narcotraffickers together. And then there is the tri-border area, which is relatively free of police activity, that has in the past fostered the opportunity for not only terrorists, but other illegal actors to have free opportunity to come and go. And I know that the countries in the tri- border area are working together to try to solve that.

       Q Hi. Mike Levali (sp) from Tokyo Broadcasting System. Next week, the Japanese prime minister, Koizumi, is taking a trip to North Korea for an unprecedented meeting with Kim Jong Il. I'm wondering, from a military perspective, what type of implications, both beneficial and pitfalls, what type of implications could this have on the Korean peninsula?

       And secondly, North Korea has seemed to recently open up diplomatic dialogue with various countries. On the military side, has there also been any movement of troops or any movement at all on the military side on the Korean peninsula that you could tell us about?

       GEN. PACE: First of all, having had the great pleasure of living in Japan for two years, in '94 to 96, as the deputy commander, U.S. forces there, I would be the last person in the world to try to grade the homework of the prime minister of Japan on his trip to North Korea. I wish him well, as I would any person whose motive is to try to find peaceful ways to solve problems. And as a military man, I am enthusiastic about that prospect. For 50 years, we have looked across the DMZ at each other, military versus military.

       And if there were to be a diplomatic solution to that, guys like me in uniform would be very happy to see that resolved.

       With regard to -- your second question is on military-to- military, there has been no change in the readiness of the United Nations forces in South Korea to defend that republic from aggression. So that's still a very, very capable, competent, ready force. And --

       Q I was aiming more on the north side -- (off mike) -- have you been able to notice through satellite or through any other means, have you been able to notice any meaningful movement of troops on the north side that might correspond with the diplomatic opening?

       GEN. PACE: (Pause.) I cannot answer that without getting into an area that is classified. Sorry. Thanks. Thank you.

       Q Marjorie Freesner (sp) from ANSA, the Italian News Agency. And I would like to go back to the air defense. When you said that the new level of alert stemmed from information that we gathered together with information that the allies have gathered, I had originally understood that the biggest threat was to American installations abroad. But when you mentioned that the fighters, that the jets over Washington might be armed with live missiles, I'd like to ask you, does that mean that you believe there is a credible threat of a hijacking similar to the ones of last September 11th? And I have another question that -- I have to apologize for arriving late. And if you already answered it, I guess it's my tough luck. But do you have anything -- can you confirm or deny the New York Times story about al Qaeda going back into Afghanistan?

       GEN. PACE: Thanks. Let me try to answer those. I'll try to remember everything you asked me. And if I forget, just re-ask, okay?

       First of all, let me make sure I am precise in what I've said about live missiles. We have had since 11 September last year at various times over the cities of the United States fighter aircraft. When we put those fighter aircraft up, they are always armed with live missiles. When they are in the defensive mode positions over the cities in the United States, they are sent up with live missiles. The difference this time that we were talking about with the other reporter was that the air defense exercise, which is one of a series that we've been conducting, that is currently taking place in Washington, based on the intelligence threat that, although perhaps, in your words, although I will not confirm or deny that, even if the threat to U.S. citizens was, quote, "overseas" as opposed to home, we have to believe that it's part of a greater network. So although we may know about a threat in one place, we need to extrapolate from that that there's potential threat elsewhere. As we look at the fact that tomorrow's the anniversary, we want to make sure that we are properly positioned.

       So as we're looking at that, one of the discussion items is whether or not we should have this air defense exercise include the availability of live missiles to the units that are on the ground. Now, if that decision was to be made, announcement of that would be made out of the Pentagon.

       But the decision that was announced yesterday was accurate yesterday, which was there's an air defense exercise going on, and at that time, and right now, there are not live missiles.

       Did that answer it?

       Q Yes.

       GEN. PACE: Okay. Then the other part about al Qaeda coming back to Afghanistan. We have to presume that the al Qaeda network will continue to seek refugee wherever it can. And that's why we continue to have operations like we have had in Afghanistan recently, where we go out for a period of time, search a particular area, come back into our cantonment, go back out someplace else, and do kind of a checkerboard around the country to make sure that as best we can, that we keep them off balance. This is very much a thinking, learning enemy. He will try to adapt to the way we operate, and we will try to adapt to the way he adapts to the way we operate. And it will be give and take like that for a while. But we will continue to pursue the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership wherever we're able to locate them with intelligence.

       Q General, thank you very much. I'm Sujono from Indonesia. Do you have any timetable for restoring U.S.-Indonesia military-to- military relation? As I understand, that when Secretary of State Powell visited Malaysia last month, he stated that he will pursue that, but didn't give any timetable yet.

       The second question is about IMET. I think the Senate approved in committee, and also House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations has agreed to restore full IMET to Indonesia. I'm just wondering how will that program implement, and how much is the funding for that program to Indonesia?

       Thank you very much.

       GEN. PACE: Thank you, sir.

       First of all, there's no doubt in mind that what Secretary Powell said is exactly what he meant, which is that he would come back and assist with the dialogue here in the United States between our two countries. And I would expect that is a government-to-government decision that your government and my government need to be comfortable with as far as how much military-to-military cooperation we want and at what level, recognizing that there are sovereignty issues for both nations that we need to respect.

       As a military guy, I welcome any opportunity to work with militaries of other countries for lots of reasons, and number one, every time I've had the opportunity to do that as an individual, I've learned from my counterparts. That's a given. You get a chance to travel to another country and work with their military, you are going to learn something, no matter who you are.

       Second, when we do have the opportunity to work together, we get to understand each other better in our cultures. And it's one thing to sit on opposite sides of an ocean and say, "They do this," or "They do that." It's something totally different when you know an individual in the country, and all of a sudden it becomes very personal, and you know that "they" really means "him," and that that particular person you know wouldn't do that, and therefore probably that country wouldn't do that. So it's just the open dialogue, I think, breaks down barriers that are artificially build through people's lack of knowledge of each other.

       Therefore, I really do like the IMET program, the opportunity, I- M-E-T -- somebody will help me with what the acronym means, but it's training between the U.S. forces -- correction, it's primarily opportunities for officers and NCOs from other countries to come to the United States and train or for us to send small teams to other countries to help them train. That money is funded out of the U.S. State Department. The exact number will be part of public record. I don't have it in my head, but we can get you -- that's an easy number to get as far as each country is concerned, because it's part of our Congressional Record. But that is another great way for us to get to know each other. I mean, each of the military schools that I have been to in the United States, there have always been members of other countries there. And again, it's just been an opportunity to learn -- to learn from them, number one, but to get to know each other better. So that when I travel now around the world, more often than not, I meet a counterpart who has -- I've either been to school with myself or has been in a U.S. school. And that makes all the difference in the world. That doesn't mean that they love the United States. It means that they understand better the United States and our strengths and our weaknesses, and therefore, at least we have a more common ground from which to operate.

       Q I am Ming Nguyen (ph) from Vietnam. My question is, recently we have heard a lot about the Bush doctrine, with a focus on the preemptive strikes and regime change. From your military perspective, can you give some details about that doctrine?

       And my second question is that during the summit in Brunei, Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken about the second front on the war against terrorism in Southeast Asia.

       Can you give us clearer and bigger pictures of the U.S. cooperation and involvements in the war on terror in Southeast Asia? Thank you.

       GEN. PACE: I can try to answer your question in part. First of all, the policy of the United States is very much owned by the president of the United States. And those of us in uniform have an opportunity to make recommendations through the secretary of Defense, and some of us in uniform who happen to also be members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have an obligation to give our recommendations directly to the president. But we do that in private, as well we should, and then we execute our commander in chief's guidance, as well we should.

       So I'm not going to make any comment one way or t'other about my commander in chief's policies, which I support both professionally and personally. So I need to put that aside because that's way outside my lane. And I thank you for letting me sidestep that one.

       With regard to the global war on terrorism being, as it is, much greater than just in Afghanistan, as I mentioned up front -- I'm not sure if you were here at the time, sir, I think you were -- over 90 nations have arrested more than 2,400 terrorists worldwide; over 160 nations have collectively gathered up more than $100 million of terrorists' money; more than a million, million and a half Afghan citizens have voted with their feet by returning to Afghanistan. So this is very much not only about Afghanistan but about -- global.

       If you were to take a look at the map going eastward from Afghanistan, there are numerous countries that either openly, willingly support terrorism or that have terrorist cells operating in them and are working to eliminate them. And it runs the gamut from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Georgia, tri-border area in South America, Colombia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, North Korea, Pakistan, back to Afghanistan. And I'm sure I've missed some in there because there are at least 65 countries where we know there are terrorist cells around the world.

       So I think we do ourselves a disservice to try to focus in on a particular sector of the world. This truly is a global problem, and we need to share across boundaries and across borders, amongst intelligence agencies and amongst police forces, so that we collectively can work together to move more quickly than the terrorists can. Having the information is one thing; doing something about it while it is still useful is another thing. And that's where we need to get collectively better, I think, at the way we do business.

       Q Tania Schott (sp) from (La Vision ?), Venezuela. I just want to know if there's anything to say about the cooperation from the Venezuelan government to the U.S. fight against terrorism, when it is saying that President Chavez has contact to the Colombian guerrilla and Syria and Iraq and so on? Do you have any comments on that? Thank you.

       GEN. PACE: My personal contacts inside Venezuela have been with the Venezuelan military, which I have found to be extremely professional, very well-led and very capable. And although government-to-government relations may ebb and flow, the opportunity for military-to-military relationships that continue to serve the best interests of both countries, that continue to serve world interests is where I, when I was the commander-in-chief of U.S. Southern Command -- where I focused my efforts, because I do believe that even when countries' policies are not in harmony, that there are still common grounds where police forces and military forces can work together against a common problem and a common foe. And that's about what I would say to your question.

       Q Elbashir from Sudan. I came late, so I don't know whether somebody has raised the question of moving gold by the Qaeda in Sudan. And that was moved across countries' borders and everything. And Sudan government denied that. The American government's kind of quiet about, but the Post came yesterday -- (inaudible) -- and referred to it again. Do you have any (comments ?) about this gold movement?

       GEN. PACE: (Chuckles.)

       Q Is the Sudan back again in the terrorist camp? What --

       GEN. PACE: I read the newspapers, as you do -- one, for information, two, to find out what's still secret. I can't and won't confirm or deny whether or not that reports in a newspaper, from an intelligence point, are true. I can simply confirm that the newspapers say -- that that's what they're reporting.

       But that's even more basic than that, I think.

       Let's assume that regardless of which country it was coming and moving forth from, that they're -- that in fact al Qaeda does do business with gold. They've got to business with some kind of money, and as I mentioned, there's been a lot of very good work in the banking system to prevent them from having access to at least a hundred million dollars.

       So they're going to be looking for alternative ways to fund their activities, and if gold is the way to do it, then collectively we need to find ways to track that gold and to do something about it when we know. So if somebody did know about a shipment of gold leaving wherever, going to Sudan or any place else, what did we do as a global community to share that information and to do something about it? Because sooner or later that problem is not only a U.S. problem, it's a problem for every freedom-loving person in the world. And we need to find ways to not point fingers and not to say -- have my newspaper article say this and your newspaper article say that. But -- that's fine, but let's do something about the underlying problems and opportunities to work together to make it so that the reports are "This is what Country A and Country B did together, and this is a result that they got."

       MODERATOR: In the back, in the center. And we've got time for maybe one more question. Sir?

       Q Ping Lu of China Times, Taiwan. Speaking of that military contact, you know, Taiwan's deputy secretary of defense, Mr. Kang, is in this city right now. And that's the first time in more than maybe a quarter century. Did you or will you or other generals meet him? Or -- if the answer is yes, what were or what will be the topics between your discussion? Thank you.

       GEN. PACE: He was at the Pentagon this morning. I did not meet him, because I was at another meeting this morning. I do know that a very senior officer in our government did meet with him, and I do know he has meetings with other senior government officials in our government. I will let them make the pronouncements about their own meetings. I was not privy to the discussions, so I do not know what they discussed.

       But it is certainly appropriate that nations amongst each other have the opportunity to discuss issues, that the minister of Taiwan has a chance to come to the United States and then discuss things with some counterparts here, so we can understand each other better, so there's no misunderstanding one way or the other about where we stand on certain issues, and so that we have an opportunity to enhance the things that work for freedom without creating additional problems.

       So I do not know what his discussions were about, because I was not there.

       But I do know he's here, and I do know he's had meetings with senior officials.

       MODERATOR: Okay. Last question.

       Q Mr. General, my name is Miroslav Lozansky (sp). I am military correspondent from Belgrade, Yugoslav daily Politika. My first question is, do you have any fact about al Qaeda group in Bosnia, and maybe in Kosovo? And second question is, after Iraq, who is next? (Laughter.)

       GEN. PACE: The first answer is no. The second answer is your assumption is beyond my scope. Your assumption is that Iraq is next. There -- I do know for a fact that my president has not made a decision about that. I do know that my president is going to the United Nations on the 12th, the day after tomorrow, to talk to his counterparts up there and to work with the international community to find a proper solution. I do know that Saddam Hussein is a problem, and I know that the leaders of the world are working together to find the best way to deal with that. And I think I'll stop right there. (Laughter.)

       MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, general, once again for coming here, sir. And thank you all, also.

       GEN. PACE: Thanks very much again. I really do appreciate this opportunity.