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Myers: 'We are doing exactly what we planned'
(CNN) -- The following is an edited transcript of Wolf Blitzer's conversation with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. BLITZER: Let me get right to the immediate issue, these latest explosions that have rocked Baghdad, the fires that we've been seeing. What do you know about these latest U.S. attacks in the Iraqi capital? MYERS: Wolf, I don't have any specific knowledge of what -- where those fires originated from, if they are from coalition bombing or something that's happening inside the regime there, inside Baghdad. I just don't have any information right now on that.
BLITZER: But without getting into these specific fires that we're seeing, these explosions, I assume Baghdad and the surrounding outskirts of Baghdad were targets for tonight. Is that right? MYERS: Well, there are lots of targets for tonight. Baghdad, in terms of regime leadership, regime command and control, they will continue to be targets. And then, of course, for putting a very high percentage of our air sorties against the Republican Guard divisions that are defending Baghdad. BLITZER: Are those Republican Guard divisions close to the Iraqi capital nearby, or are they farther away from the center of the city? MYERS: Well, it varies depending on which division. There are six of them, and some are farther away than others. The one that's right across from the 3rd Infantry Division is, you know, inside probably -- we're inside 50 miles or right around 50 miles. They're a little bit inside that. There are others that are a little bit farther away. They're probably the closest to Baghdad. But, you know, it just varies by division. BLITZER: What percentage of the U.S. airstrikes right now are being directed at the Republican Guard formations? MYERS: Yesterday, I think that was around somewhere between 40 percent and 50 percent. Today, I think the number is over 50 percent of our air power will be directed at those divisions, particularly their artillery, short-range surface-to-surface missiles, anything that could deliver, potentially deliver, chemical or biological weapons. And those air attacks are not just fixed-wing air attacks. They're also Apache helicopters -- U.S. Army Apache helicopters and Cobra helicopters from the Marine Corps will be working over these divisions. BLITZER: Do you believe that your three divisions, I believe, that you have right now in Iraq can handle six Republican Guard divisions that are surrounding Baghdad? MYERS: Well, as you heard Gen. Franks say this morning, he believes that the forces that are there, the forces that continue to flow, that we have the right forces for the task at hand. And I might remind people that the forces that are still flowing to the region are forces that have been in the plan now for some months. Those people, in many cases, the reservists, they had to be alerted and mobilized literally months ago, and that's the case. So, we're continuing the flow. We've put about somewhere between 1,500, 2,000, 3,000 people a day continue to flow into Iraq. The last number I saw was yesterday's number. I didn't see today's number. But we had over 90,000 of our forces, coalition forces, inside Iraq. And like I say, that number continues to build. Certainly we're going to have the forces we need, that Gen. Franks thinks he needs, his component commanders, his land component commander, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, thinks they need to prosecute this attack. BLITZER: The reason I asked the question is, as you know, maybe two or three more divisions are on the way here, to the Persian Gulf, but it could take them two, three, maybe even four weeks to get here, the 4th Infantry Division and others. Is it fair to assume that the real assault on those Republican Guard divisions around Baghdad will wait until you have all those U.S. heavy-armor divisions in place? MYERS: Wolf, I wouldn't advise anybody to make any assumptions. This plan, and our thrust, and our major attacks, and the way it will unfold will be at a time and a place of our choosing. The one thing you can count on is that we're going to have patience. We have a preponderance of power, we have air supremacy, essentially over the whole country of Iraq. We're operating out of several airfields inside Iraq right now, operating our aircraft from these airfields. We don't have a humanitarian disaster unfolding. We have control of the southern oil fields, so the oil and the revenue from that can be preserved for the Iraqi people. We are doing exactly what we planned to do, pretty much on the timetable we planned to do it. Again, we're going to be patient. We're not going to put coalition forces in harm's way until Gen. Franks and his subordinate commanders are sure that we're ready to go. BLITZER: So the bottom line therefore is, when troops on the front lines are suggesting to some of the embedded journalists who are there that they've been told there could be a 30- or even 45-day pause in the assault on Baghdad, is that a fair bottom-line assessment, that there will be a certain pause? MYERS: Again, I'm not going to talk about time lines. That assertion, I think, is way off base. But I'll leave that for Gen. Franks and his commanders to decide. They're going to decide the timing of this. You know, the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division was supposed to go in through Turkey. Now it's being rerouted to come in through Kuwait. There are other forces that are in-train to go. They've always been in-train to go. But when we have set the proper conditions for major attacks, we will take them. We have not been in an operational pause. The closest we came to any pause, of course, was two days of very bad sandstorms, where it was very difficult to operate. Even in those days, we were doing the sorts of things on the ground that we wanted to do. But particularly today, we're still attacking the Republican Guard divisions with fixed-wing aircraft. There'll be some reconnaissance by our ground forces. We continue to press the attack. We continue to degrade the combat and effectiveness of these Iraqi Republican Guard divisions. Of course we have other actions, in securing the lines of communication, in helping in Nasiriya, in Basra, in terms of ridding those cities of the death squads that are operating there and the Baath Party folks that are still very loyal to the Iraqi regime. BLITZER: Gen. Myers, there are always surprises in battle, in warfare. What have been the biggest surprises so far, as you now are winding up almost week two of this war? MYERS: Well, I think Gen. Franks said it exactly right. You know, war is a very chaotic sort of thing. It is more art than science. You can't predict precisely what's going to happen on the battlefield. It's just virtually impossible. Having said that, I think Gen. Franks would also agree that things have gone pretty much as expected. You know, we had a spectrum of combat that we expected. On the one hand, we had to be ready for catastrophic success. If things went just unbelievably good, could our forces react to do the sorts of things that we wanted to do, such as secure the oil fields before they could be turned into environmental disasters and so forth, some of the things that I mentioned. On the other hand, we had to be ready for a very tough fight from the first moment that we came across the Kuwait-Iraqi border. MYERS: In fact, somewhere along that spectrum is where we are. It probably varies over time. A couple of things, though, that people need to know. One is, the outcome is not in doubt. Victory will be certain. We will disarm the Iraqi regime from its weapons of mass destruction, and that regime is gone. And I think that as every day, every hour and every day goes by, they are beginning to understand this clearer and clearer. BLITZER: Gen. Myers, do you believe that, as some armchair military analysts are suggesting, that you perhaps underestimated the willingness of the Iraqis to fight and die? MYERS: No, I thought, you know -- the toughest part of this is ahead of us. I mean, we're meeting their Republican Guard divisions, which are their best-trained and best-equipped divisions. Some of them are not quite as well-equipped today because we've been working on them for some time now, but they are the ones that you would predict would put up the stiffest fight. I think what you're seeing is, in some cases, acts of desperation. The suicide -- the taxi that was blown up and killed four of our soldiers, those are acts of desperation. Those aren't acts of a regime that is in control of its military, that has some way of having a militarily significant impact on our military. Certainly, the impact on our soldiers, where we've lost life, and so forth, is significant. But in the larger scheme of things, things are proceeding apace. They are into desperation. The folks that are fighting the hardest are those that are closest to the regime, that once the regime falls they'll either be done in by their own people or they're going to have to get out of the country. These are the people that have tortured and raped on behalf of the regime that has oppressed the rest of that population. And I'm sure the population, once it figures out that we're there to remove that regime, that it's inevitable the regime goes away, that we'll see a much different picture. BLITZER: I'll rephrase the question. The other criticism that I'm sure you're hearing is that perhaps you overestimated the impact of shock and awe, the air campaign, especially the first couple, three nights, that that would have a demoralizing effect on the Iraqi military. Was there an overestimation of the air campaign? MYERS: You know, we've been in this now just a little over a week, Wolf, and I don't know that we can make those sorts of judgments at this time. We wanted to start with a lot of violence at the beginning of this war. We also wanted to start the war with some tactical surprise. We think we achieved that by the way Gen. Franks started this campaign, this was his, you know, he was the one responsible for the timing. I think he did a brilliant job in achieving as much tactical surprise as he could. And I go back to some of the things that we have done. You know, we have secured the waterway up to Umm Qasr. We have secured the platforms in the sea where they pump the oil into the ships. I mean, that would have been an environmental disaster for the Persian Gulf if they'd have been blown. Of course, there were explosives found there. The southern oil fields are essentially under control of the coalition forces, so they cannot be an environmental hazard, set on fire, blown up, whatever, by the Iraqi forces. There is not a humanitarian crisis. We essentially control western Iraq, and there have been no Scud launches toward Jordan or Israel. In the north, the Kurdish population has been reassured by the quick entry of our special operations forces. So I think it's way too early to make some predictions about how it's going to work out. You never know when this thing is going to tip one way or another. We have a plan that is flexible and adaptable. Most of all, we have troops, men and women, that are flexible and adaptable with their leadership that can adapt to that full spectrum of warfare. This is war. It is an art. There is a little science to it, but it's mostly art. And so I don't know that we had unrealistic expectations. I certainly didn't. I know Gen. Franks didn't, and I know Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld didn't. This is something that's going to have to play out. Again, the end is not in doubt. It is certain this regime is leaving, and it's also certain that we will secure their weapons of mass destruction and deal with them appropriately. BLITZER: Gen. Myers, let me read to you a quote from a new article that Gen. Barry McCaffrey, retired U.S. Army, who led the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division into Iraq the last time around, a dozen years ago. He writes in the new issue of U.S. News & World Report, "In sum, the plan was marred by interference from Defense Department decision-makers with no battle experience. These officials were prisoners of their own assumptions that the Iraqis would come apart under the shock and awe thunderstorm." Is Gen. Barry McCaffrey right? MYERS: Well, first of all, Gen. McCaffrey is a friend of mine, but that is not how this plan was developed. This plan was developed by Gen. Franks. When he developed that plan, of course, all the subordinate commanders, the land, the maritime, the [special operations forces], the Marine commanders, all had input into this plan. It was gone over and refined and refined and refined over many months. Of course, the civilian leadership played a big role in that, because the chain of command runs from our president, the commander in chief, through the secretary of defense, directly to Gen. Franks. And so, of course, the senior leadership was involved as well. But in the end, it was Gen. Franks' plan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewed that plan on many occasions. Rumsfeld reviewed that plan on many occasions, had many meetings with Gen. Franks on this, but it's unfair to say that any restraints, constraints, any of that, was put on Gen. Franks. It was in the end his plan, a plan that he had to be comfortable with and had confidence. He does, we do today, I do, the Joint Chiefs of Staff do. There is nobody doubting that we have exactly the right plan, that we have the forces we need, and we have forces, as you know, continuing to flow forces that have been queued up now for several months to flow to the region. I don't agree with those assertions. I think people that are closest to this understand how it was developed and would understand that that's just not the way it was done. BLITZER: All right, I'll give you a chance to respond to an article that's in the new issue of the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who quotes an unnamed war planner as saying, "Rumsfeld had two goals, to demonstrate the efficacy of precision bombing, and to do the war on the cheap." That's obviously a very serious allegation. MYERS: Well, that's just absolutely untrue. Now, the one part of it that is true, you will not find a better steward of the taxpayers' money than Secretary Rumsfeld. I would like to think I'm a good steward as well. But that doesn't translate into a war on the cheap. That is not what this is about at all. That is just so far from the truth that I don't know how to counter it, other than I spend an enormous amount of time with our secretary of defense, so has Gen. Franks, so have the other chiefs. We've all been part of this. Our thumbprints, our handprints are all over this plan. This is not war on the cheap. We are not about to put our sons and daughters and those of our coalition partners into harm's way without ensuring they have everything they need to do the job. And you can be assured that's what the secretary of defense is thinking. That's what the Joint Chiefs are thinking. That's what Gen. Franks and his subordinate commanders are thinking. And I think any hint that it's been done otherwise is just a disservice to the truth and a disservice to the American people and our coalition partners. BLITZER: Did the military, Gen. Myers, fully anticipate the impact of the Fedayeen Saddam, the paramilitary units most loyal to Saddam Hussein, and this relatively new development that we've seen in the past few days, suicide bombing attacks against U.S. troops? MYERS: Wolf, I think we knew these were going to be the most loyal and probably the most tenacious, the most audacious, but their only legitimacy is that the regime -- if the regime stays around. Once the regime is gone, the Iraqi people are going to take care of them, or they're going to have to flee, because they're the ones that have promulgated a lot of the torture and oppression that this regime has put on its people. So, the other thing I would say is that the kinds of acts we are seeing from these people are really acts of desperation, and that they are not having a militarily significant impact on our operation. Our lines of communication are secure. Within 36 hours, we went 200 miles inside Iraq. Ground forces are performing superbly. We have several armored divisions in there right now. More are following. We don't know if they'll all close or not. It'll be up to Gen. Franks on how much force he wants and how much he needs. But these extremists are fighting very hard, but the tactics they are using appear to most of us as being tactics of desperation. BLITZER: Well, I ask the question in part because of the highly publicized quote from Lt. Gen. William Wallace, who is fighting this war. He's on the ground now here in the Persian Gulf. And you saw what he told reporters: "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against." That's also a serious suggestion that maybe the U.S. military was not necessarily fully prepared for what was in store for them. MYERS: Let me say that Gen. Wallace is a great combat commander. He's leading his troops extremely well, and you can never discount his viewpoint. Now, later in that article, he also said that our plan is on track. That's rarely quoted. But let me give you an idea of how you can have different perceptions, and that none of the different perceptions are necessarily wrong. I was in a seminar after the Gulf War up at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a couple-of-week executive seminar, when somebody made the statement, one of our instructors, that, you know, the division commanders in the Gulf War didn't think they got the air support they needed. And being an airman that sort of disturbed me, so I went and called -- at the break I called my old boss, Gen. Chuck Horner, who was the air boss during that conflict. And I said, "Gen. Horner, how can this be?" He said, "Well, it depends on where you were. If you're a division commander, you want as much air as you can get. But if you're Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, he's going to put the air where he thinks it needs to be on the battlefield." And so you can begin to see that there are views of the battlefield at the tactical level. And certainly Gen. Wallace is out at the tactical, operational level of warfare. As you move up to Gen. Franks, more at the operational level of warfare, some strategic level, come back to here to Washington, D.C., you get in the strategic and some operational level, that there are going to be different views and people will put things differently. It doesn't mean any of the views are wrong. It just depends on how they're seeing the particular scene. And so Gen. Wallace is doing a great job. He did say we are, like I said, later on in that article, that we're -- the plan is basically on track, and I'm not going to quibble with his characterization of anything. BLITZER: Many Americans, Gen. Myers, were shocked by those pictures of American POWs in Iraq. Do you have any indication that the International Committee for the Red Cross is about to be able to visit those POWs, as required under the Geneva Conventions? MYERS: Wolf, I have no indication. You know, we've been making our case that the Iraqi regime -- they claim to be treating our prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention. And, of course, one of those provisions is that the International Committee of the Red Cross be allowed to visit them as we have done. The over 4,000 enemy prisoners of war that we hold, we've allowed the International Red Cross to visit and we'll be responsive to their comments. We would hope that the Iraqi regime would do the honorable and the right thing and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross in to visit these prisoners of war. That's their obligation. They said they were going to do it, and we just hope they follow through. BLITZER: What about the Iraqi POWs? There are at least 4,000, maybe more. When will the Red Cross officials be allowed to visit them? MYERS: As far as I know, I think they've already been inside. If they haven't, it's because they didn't feel the conditions were secure enough for them to go in. I knew that was the condition about three days ago. They said we want the International Red Cross [to come in]. We said, You can come on in. They said, we want to wait until conditions are a little bit more secure. But I think by now that's been overcome. I think they have probably been inside. But as you know, the International Committee of the Red Cross doesn't make public pronouncements. They work with the countries that are holding the enemy prisoners of war to make their reports. BLITZER: Gen. Franks, at his briefing this morning in Qatar, suggested that he hasn't seen any evidence lately that Saddam Hussein and his top leadership are really in control of the regime the way they used to be. What can you tell us about the status of Saddam Hussein right now? MYERS: Well, right now the facts are, at least as far as I know, we do not know the status of Saddam Hussein, his two sons. I think it's curious -- I agree with Gen. Franks. It's curious that we have not seen Saddam Hussein on a live television broadcast. Everything we have seen has been taped. So whether it was pre-recorded or what the situation is, we don't know. I think it's a little bit strange that a country that has lost air supremacy over its entire depth and breadth, that has enemy forces poised 50 miles from its capital, that has enemy forces, from the Iraqi viewpoint, coalition forces occupying its airfields, that the best spokesman they can put forward is their information minister. It seems to me that they would have a little bigger effort in putting forward some of their senior leadership to try to explain to their populace what the heck is happening. BLITZER: Well, they have, on a few occasions, put forward the defense minister of Iraq. Does that suggest that their military is in command, with the defense minister making some television appearances? MYERS: I don't think we can -- I can't draw that conclusion. Clearly the Republican Guard around Baghdad, you know, they'll be able to communicate with them, if by no other means by couriers, but by other tactical communications means, no doubt. So there is probably some modicum of command and control of the Republican Guard divisions. But I think the farther away you go from Baghdad, that their ability to command and control their forces is probably degraded, and in some cases significantly. BLITZER: The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, told me last week that there was at least one report suggesting Saddam Hussein had been carried out in a stretcher following that first night of airstrikes. How credible is that report? MYERS: Well, there have been several reports about the aftermath of our strike on the residence, and the farm and the place where the leadership was gathering. And the problem is, it's very difficult to corroborate one to another. See, it's hard to connect the dots. Therefore, I think it's unknown what the status is of Saddam Hussein or his two sons or perhaps some other regime leadership. BLITZER: Why is Iraqi television still on the air? A lot of people wonder whether or not you can, if you wanted to, take it off the air? MYERS: Well, let me just say we're working on that. We understand some of the TV is up, some is down. Radio broadcasts are more sporadic. It's a fairly robust infrastructure inside Iraq. And it will take, it'll take some time. Clearly they use that television for propaganda. They use it for command and control, and it's one of our targets. You know very well from knowing some of the target sets that have been struck up in Baghdad that, indeed, that is one of our objectives. BLITZER: So is it fair to say it's a legitimate target, Iraqi television, and that you are still trying to knock it off the air? MYERS: Oh, absolutely, it's a legitimate target. The regime uses it for command and control. That's how the leadership gets the message out. It's absolutely a legitimate target. But let me just remind all the viewers that one of the things that a great power does, and great powers in this case the coalition, does is try to minimize civilian casualties. And so whatever we do to try to take out various components of the regime, leadership, command and control and so forth, we're going to try to minimize civilian casualties. That's just going to be part of the equation. And I think we've done a good job up until now to do that. BLITZER: The Pentagon suggested Saturday that the U.S. and coalition forces were effectively in control of about 35 percent or 40 percent of Iraq. In that area that you now control, have you had any evidence whatsoever finding weapons of mass destruction? MYERS: Well, there are a couple of notes there. We have not found, to the best of my knowledge, chemical or biological weapons at this point in the areas that we are in. I'm not sure we should expect to. I think the closer you get to Baghdad, if you draw a map of where about 90 percent of their chemical and biological production and storage and so forth is, it's generally much closer to Baghdad. So I think that is yet to come. We have done some site exploitation, examination, investigation of several sites. We did find, curiously enough, 3,000 chemical suits in Nasiriya, new chemical suits that the Baath Party had, that these regime death squads had. And it raises the question, why would they have chemical protective suits knowing that the coalition forces don't have chemical and don't have biological weapons? We also found some suits up north, I understand. And then just recently we attacked and now have gone in on the ground into a site in northeastern Iraq where the Ansar al-Islam and al Qaeda had been working on poisons. And it's from this site where people were trained and where poisons were developed that migrated into Europe. We think that's probably where the ricin that was found in London probably came, at least the operatives and maybe some of the formulas came from this site. We are now on the ground in there. It's reported to be a large complex with lots of underground pieces to it, tunnels and so forth, and so it may take us up to a week to exploit that, to investigate that site and determine what is there. So we're doing that. We're looking at some laptop computers, we're looking at other documents that have been found. And we're going to have to put these pieces together. We have people that are working that. Of course as soon as we find something, we hand it to the teams that are doing the investigation, and we will continue to do that. BLITZER: That base is now completely under U.S. and allied control, that base out of Ansar al-Islam in the northeastern part of Iraq? Is that what you're saying? MYERS: That's my understanding. We are in there on the ground with lots of force, with some Kurdish help. Large number of Kurds that have helped us go into that area. It's an area that was struck from the air. It was an area that was -- and then restruck. We had AC-130 gunships up there trying to take care of the target before the folks on the ground went in. We're now in there on the ground and starting our investigation of exactly who's up there and what's up there. I think we even have captured some people that were involved up there. BLITZER: Is there a smoking gun that you've found so far linking these people at this particular base to al Qaeda, under the control of Osama bin Laden? MYERS: Well, I think Secretary of State Colin Powell pointed out in the U.N. that this safe haven inside Iraq had Ansar al-Islam and also al Qaeda operatives there. Some of the bodies that have been recovered, enemy bodies that have been recovered up there, are not Iraqis, they're not Iranians. We don't know for sure, but they're most likely al Qaeda. That is not surprising. We've said that they've been up there. And we're going to have to continue down that investigative path to find out exactly what we do have. BLITZER: Gen. Myers, how good is the evidence that the Iraqi Republican Guard, other units, might be preparing to use chemical warfare or VX gas or other weapons of mass destruction, against coalition forces as they cross some sort of so-called red line on the way to Baghdad? MYERS: Well, a couple of thoughts there. First of all, you never know what their intent is. We have tried to influence it by telling those that actually have to pull the trigger that it's not in their best interest. That rather than fighting for Saddam, why don't you fight for a much better Iraq, Iraq that has a representative government that represents all the people, all factions, all ethnic factions of that populace? Why don't you make that the future you want your children to experience, and your grandchildren? And so we're trying to influence the folks that will actually have to carry out those orders, if they're given. So that's the intent part. On capabilities, we know they have capabilities. We know they have weaponized chemical and biological weapons. They have surface-to-surface missiles that can deliver them, they have aircraft that can deliver them, they have UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] that can deliver them, and they have artillery that can deliver them as well. So some of our airstrikes have been going after the surface-to-surface missiles, the artillery pieces, to try to mitigate the effect that chemical or biological weapons might have if they decide to use them. The other thing I would say is that Gen. McKiernan and his ground forces subordinates are going to have to prepare for worst case, and they are prepared for the worst case, in case they want to use them. So we're prepared for that eventuality. BLITZER: The missile attacks here in Kuwait, I think there have been 14. One of them, the other night, as you well know, hit a popular shopping mall right in the center of Kuwait City. How scared, how worried, should people in Kuwait be that more of these kinds of missiles will hit Kuwait? MYERS: Well, the fact is, you never know. But there has been, and continues to be, a very big effort on the Al Faw peninsula, which is just north of there, where we think this anti-ship missile was fired from, to find out where there might be more, if there are more. They are not a very accurate missile. We have folks on the ground looking for locations. I would not be personally too worried about that. In terms of the surface-to-surface missiles, the longer range missiles that have been fired, those that have been a factor to Kuwait population centers have been engaged by either Kuwaiti or coalition Patriot batteries, and we've had very successful engagements. Many of those missiles, which aren't particularly accurate as well, have landed harmlessly either in the water or in the desert, and often they aren't even engaged when they know it's going to an area that is not inhabited. But I think the precautions that the Kuwaiti population has taken are prudent, and I think that the efforts you see the coalition forces using to try to make sure there are not pockets left where they might be able to hide launchers, I think we're doing everything we can do to protect not only the Kuwaiti population, but the population in Saudi Arabia, in Jordan, in Israel and in Turkey. And we will continue to do that. BLITZER: All of the missiles fired so far have either been the Ababil or the Al-Samoud or, as you say, that Silkworm type of missile. Have they fired one Scud missile yet? MYERS: To my knowledge, they have not fired one Scud. As you know, the intelligence estimates were before that they could put together from pieces that they had left over from previous inspections somewhere between a dozen and maybe two dozen Scud missiles. They are longer-range missiles. They're the ones that could go into Jordan, perhaps Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait for sure. And one of the reasons the plan was developed and was executed in the way it was was to secure western Iraq and to make sure that we did the best job we could do to ensure that they couldn't launch those Scud missiles from the launch baskets that they used in the Gulf War against Israel. And we have air cover and reconnaissance assets and people on the ground in western Iraq operating freely to ensure that they can't use those launch baskets and launch places again. BLITZER: And finally, my last question, Gen. Myers: Iran and Syria, we heard the defense secretary the other day warn them not to get involved in this war. I spoke with representatives of both of those governments yesterday. They denied that they were involved in any way, either letting military equipment cross from Syria into Iraq or, from Iran's point of view, encouraging their supporters inside Iraq to rise up against the U.S. Do you accept those explanations from the governments of Syria and Iran? MYERS: Well, the truth will be in what actions we see taking place, in terms of equipment flowing in to the Iraqi regime, and we're just going to have to watch and wait and see how that plays out. The secretary said what he said based on very good intelligence, and now we have to see if Syria and Iran are going to live up to the pledges that you heard. We certainly hope they do. They should not be trying to influence this one way or the other. They should be just helping as much as they can. And it's certainly not helpful if you're supplying a regime such as the Iraqi regime with weapons, and we'll just have to see how it turns out.
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