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投稿者 べーこん 日時 2000 年 12 月 13 日 18:35:31:
回答先: 中国、ＩＣＢＭ再実験に成功 米国防総省が発表 投稿者 12/13 朝日 日時 2000 年 12 月 13 日 18:30:26:
DoD News Briefing
Tuesday, December 12, 2000 - 1:30 p.m. EST
Presenter: Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
Bacon: Good afternoon. Here I am, right on time at the stroke of 1:30. Charlie, write that
down in your book.
Q: It's the first time --
Bacon: This is the beginning of a new era. For the next five weeks, I'm going to strive to be
right on time.
Q: Right.
Bacon: Better late than never in being on time, right?
First of all, Secretary Cohen is in Los Angeles. He will speak at a Veterans Foundation
dinner tonight and will be back tomorrow.
Second, a team of negotiators from the Office of POW/MIA Affairs, Prisoners of
War/Missing in Action Affairs, will begin discussions with North Korean counterparts
tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur to establish a schedule of remains recovery operations for the
year 2001. We have had considerable success in the last year with recovering remains
from North Korea, and we are meeting to set up a schedule for the next year. We had five
recovery operations in the current year and brought back 65 sets of remains. And that
compared with a total of 42 sets of remains in the years 1996 to 1999. There were three
recovery operations in 1999.
And finally, there are some Portuguese visitors here, I believe. Is that correct? Some
descendants of Henry the Navigator, who made it all the way to the United States. And we
welcome them here. They are members of the Luso-American Development Foundation. And
thank you for coming.
So with that, I'll take your questions. Charlie?
Q: Before we get to the V-22, I've got two quick ones. Did the Chinese launch test an
intercontinental missile while the chairman was visiting China recently? And what -- go
ahead.
Bacon: Well, they launched -- they tested one on November 4th, and I believe the chairman
was in China at that time, although I haven't gone back to check his calendar.
Q: Was it about a successful test -- where did the test -- was it over the Pacific?
Bacon: No, it was over Chinese territory.
Q: How long-range?
Bacon: Well, I'm not going to get into great details. The missile itse
lf, as has been
published, has a range of approximately 8,000 kilometers. Obviously they didn't sent it
8,000 kilometers, but they had a much smaller flight path, shorter flight path for it.
Q: That -- wasn't that the third test of that missile?
Bacon: I believe it was the third test. I believe the first test was in August of 1999, and
they have had two tests this year. This is a program that's been ongoing, the DF-31
program, since the late-1980s, and the test was pretty much as expected in terms of
timing and in terms of results.
Q: Did the U.S. know in advance?
Bacon: Sorry?
Q: Did you know in advance?
Bacon: Well, I don't think I'll get into details like that.
Q: Did the U.S. know in advance?
Bacon: That's not a question I can answer.
Yes.
Q: So far they've just tested it with a single reentry vehicle, right? Is that still that
case?
Bacon: I don't think I'll get into details like that.
Q: That would be very significant if it was now MIRVed, correct?
Bacon: Well, you can draw your own conclusions.
Yes.
Q: New subject?
Bacon: Sure.
Q: Is Saddam Hussein -- is the Iraqi military moving against the Kurds in the north? There
have been a number of reports.
Bacon: Well, let me tell you what we know about that, and I start with the caution that
most of our information comes from Kurdish reports. As you know, the northern corner of
Iraq is Kurdish territory, and there is a line called the green line that was established in
1991. It was the line to which the Iraqis drew back to after mounting a military operation
against the Kurds. That green line runs approximately from -- it runs from a point on the
Iraqi-Turkish border down to a point on the Iraqi-Iranian border. And it's divided in half,
approximately, by two Kurdish groups, the KDP and the PUK.
The KDP is the Kurdish Democratic Party.
There is a town about five kilometers inside the green zone -- in other words, beyond the
green line in Kurdish territory -- called Baidhrah, spelled B-A-I-D-H-R-A-H. It's a town of
about 10,000 people. T
he Iraqi army generally has a brigade right in that area, around
Baidhrah. And on Saturday we got a report from the Kurds that the Iraqi forces had moved
across the green line and assumed positions in some ridges around Baidhrah, not in -- they
did not go into the city of Baidhrah, but they assumed positions around Baidhrah on some
ridges.
The Kurds claim to have responded by mobilizing their own reserve force, about 5,000
people. I think there were about 150 Kurdish military people or fighters, militia, whatever
they're called, in Baidhrah at the time, and they said that they mobilized reserves of about
5,000 people. This is the Kurdish report.
The Iraqis did move some reinforcements into the area. But basically what's happened is,
no shots were fired. There was no direct engagement between forces, and the Iraqi troops
have withdrawn from the hills around the town to a plain. They were essentially a little
north of the town, in the hills. Now they've withdrawn to a plain between the town of
Baidhrah and the green line, essentially south of the town.
This has been -- as I said, there -- it -- no shots were fired. There was no direct
engagement, and it seems to have calmed down. And both sides are apparently moving back
to their original positions.
There is some report from the Kurds that this may have been a political move by the Iraqi
forces, encouraged by a tribal faction, a religious faction of the Kurds, one faction
jockeying with another faction.
We don't know why this happened. The Iraqis have not explained it to us, and we have the
Kurdish speculation, but that's it at this stage.
Q: Does the United States consider this a violation of its warning against attacking the
Kurds, or --
Bacon: Well, there were no attacks. I think that's the crucial point here, that there were no
shots fired, there was no direct engagement between troops, and it was not an attack. It
was, from the best we can tell, a movement of some troops and then a return toward
original positions. So this does not appear to be a threatening or serious incident at this
stage.
Yes?
Q: The assessment that no shots were fired and there was no direct engag
ement and that
the Iraqis withdrew from the hills to the plain, is that still based on Kurdish reports?
Bacon: Almost all of what I've told you is based on Kurdish reporting.
Q: Has the United States ever pledged that they would come to the Kurds' aid in a situation
like this? Is this covered under that no-fly zone -- you know, threaten the Kurds?
Bacon: Well, the no-fly zone patrols functioned during this period, and in their normal way.
We did not change our flight operations in any way during this, but they continued to
monitor what was going on.
Q: (Off mike) -- in that umbrella area?
Bacon: Well, Baidhrah, as I said, is on the other side of the green line, but the fact of the
matter is there was no attack here. There was no military -- there was no military firing.
There were some movements of troops; they moved in and now they appear to be moving
back. So --
Bacon: You said they moved in. Did they move across the green line?
Bacon: Yes. They moved across the green line.
Q: The Kurds in this area are really worried about this movement and they said that future
threat, they could be attacked.
Bacon: Well, I can't psychoanalyze the Kurds or comment on what they have said. All I can
tell you is that according to their own reports, the Iraqi troops appear to be moving out or
at least back toward the green line, and they no longer surround the town as they did at
one point. At no time did they move into the town and, I repeat, there were no shots fired.
Yes?
Q: How large is -- (inaudible word) -- again?
Bacon: Well, there were two battalions that moved, that took separate positions, and each
battalion was about 400 people.
Q: Was there any information about what prompted the Iraqi troops to --
Bacon: Well, all I can tell you is the Kurds themselves speculated that it might have been
the result of some political jockeying between a Kurdish religious faction or tribal
faction on the one hand and the Iraqis on the other. But beyond that, I don't have any
information, and that was their speculation as to what could have caused it.
Q: New subject -- and I might have missed it. Has the secretary said whether he's
available for further government service, or has he said he's going to go into the private
sector, or hasn't he said?
Bacon: Well, the secretary's plans are to go into the private sector. But he's made it known
that he would be available for certain government assignments from time to time -- blue
ribbon panels, the type of thing that former Senator Rudman has done. I think he would like
to operate primarily in the private sector. He does plan to leave the department -- leave
his post as secretary of Defense on January 20th.
Q: Has he said what his new private-sector job is yet, or --
Bacon: He has not, and I think it's up for him to announce that.
Q: Well I thought maybe he already had and I missed it.
Bacon: You miss very little, George. I'm sure that if he'd said it, you would have caught it!
(Laughter.)
Q: He said he's going to finish his book.
Bacon: Yeah.
Q: Well, he was going to do something with Sam Nunn. That's -- you don't know anything
about that?
Bacon: I'm sure that he'll talk frequently with Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn has moved to Atlanta,
hasn't he?
Q: Well, they had a deal -- well, I won't get into it. They had a deal going before he took
this job and --
Bacon: Well, that was a long -- a lot of things have happened in the last four years.
Yes?
Q: Semi-related -- a transition question. As the election season appears to be continuing
on, what risk is there that the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee is simply going to run
out of time here to provide military support to the inauguration? The clock is ticking for
that.
Bacon: Well, there is no risk that the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee will not be able
to do its job. It's up and running. It has headquarters in a building that used to house the
Department of Education, right opposite the Air and Space Museum on Independence
Avenue.
It's in the process of doing everything that the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee does to
prepare for inauguration, and that is basically to handle a lot of logistics and to support
two other inaugural committees; one is the Joint Congressional Inaugural Committee,
which actually runs the inaugural ceremony on the Capitol grounds. And they do things like
-- they're prepared to provide snow removal, if there's snow; blankets, if it's cold. They've
already provided -- or arranged to provide two trailers to house the media [correction:
two flatbeds for media platforms] up there near the Capitol during the inauguration. So
they are forging ahead with that.
The other major committee with which they coordinate and support is the Presidential
Inaugural Committee, the so-called PIC. And that committee is set up by the
president-elect. The problem they've had, obviously, is without a president-elect, there's
no Presidential Inaugural Committee, and therefore, there's a whole large suite of offices
empty over in the former Education Department headquarters waiting for the Presidential
Inaugural Committee to move in. Clearly, there can't be a Presidential Inaugural
Committee until there is a president-elect.
The AFIC would love to sit down with representatives of the two transition teams and
give them a checklist of steps that will have to be taken as soon as either Vice President
Gore or Governor Bush is determined to be the president-elect, because they'll have to
move very quickly to make a number of fundamental decisions, such as whether or not to
have a parade. That's a decision that the Presidential Inaugural Committee makes. The
Presidential Inaugural Committee also decides how many inaugural balls there will be and
where they will be; it decides the invitation list for the inauguration, and then once the
invitation list is set up, the military facilitates the movement of those people to and
from the inauguration to -- if there is a parade, to their spots along the parade route, et
cetera.
Q: But can they actually legally or -- I don't know -- regulatoryily-wise sit down with
representatives of the campaigns prior to a president-elect being declared? Because the
GSA hasn't done it yet. There isn't an official president-elect. So are they asking for the
campaigns to contact them? What do they want to have happen?
Bacon: Well, I know that the White House chief of staff, John Podesta, has met with
representatives of both presidential candidates. Obv
iously, the CIA is providing
intelligence briefings continually to the vice president, and now also to Governor Bush.
So under the theory of similar, equal treatment, I think that if the two campaigns were to
send representatives over to meet together with the AFIC people, they would give them
basically, you know, here's what lies before you should your candidate be named the
president- elect. And so they could start thinking about it.
Now, it could well be that neither campaign has gotten to the point of thinking about the
inauguration because they've been so -- the teams have been so involved with legal
strategies and other things. But if they have thought about the inauguration, the AFIC
would be willing to sit down with the two of them together. I don't think this -- I mean,
this is really in the information-passing mode more than anything else.
Q: And, just to close out a little more substantively, has the U.S. military gotten any --
from a substantive point of view -- any interest in sitting down with either --
representatives of either and beginning to brief them on military affairs similar to the
CIA briefings?
Bacon: No, I don't think we've reached that stage yet. And obviously when there is a
president-elect we'll do that. I assume that the CIA is keeping them up-to-date on the
intelligence side. And we'll have -- certainly Vice President Gore knows what's happening
militarily. And certainly Governor Bush has very close advisors, including his vice
presidential running mate, who have intimate knowledge of the military and certainly an
ability to report on and interpret what's happening -- all the exciting events happening in
this building.
Q: Ken?
Bacon: Yeah.
Q: I'm sorry. What is the reactional mood within the military because of this presidential
drama continuing? I mean, is there any kind of -- how they feel? (Scattered laughter.)
Bacon: I think the military feels exactly the way the rest of the country does. It's another
illustration that democracy is the most exciting, least boring form of government.
(Scattered laughter.) There's always something new under the sun. And I think the
military, like every other American, and indeed many
people around the world, are
watching with great interest what's happening.
Q: I'd like just to follow -- I'm sorry -- any reaction from world -- and paramilitaries
concerned and from world leaders to the secretary of defense -- how they feel from this
or any --
Bacon: The secretary has traveled in the Middle East, right after the election, went to nine
countries, and he was in Brussels last week.
And he's had an opportunity to speak -- he has an opportunity to speak from time to time
with colleagues around the world.
And what he's -- I think what he's found is that people are watching very carefully. There
is a strong feeling that the president of the United States is important to the fate of
world peace and certainly world prosperity. People have a great deal of confidence that
we will continue to handle this the way we have, which is according to the laws of the
land and calmly and as quickly as possible.
The secretary has assured them that there is not a crisis. This is a constitutional process;
it's not a constitutional crisis. And I think that anybody who takes the time to follow it on
CNN or any other channel, or to read newspapers will see it as a process -- a long process,
to be sure, but a process and not a crisis.
Q: Ken, is the SecDef as assured or as confident as Marine leaders that the V-22 program
is still safe and kicking? And has he received a request from the commandant to form a
blue-ribbon commission to look over the whole program?
Bacon: Well, the secretary is in the process of appointing a blue-ribbon commission to
look at the Osprey program. He will talk to the commandant personally about this tonight.
The commandant will join him in Los Angeles, and they'll have a discussion about this. But
this is something that started this -- that the secretary started this morning. The
commandant certainly supports this move, and it will be -- it will provide an opportunity
to look at the entire program.
Obviously, the secretary has stayed informed. The commandant has kept him informed
about the program. He followed it closely as a member of Congress and certainly now, as
secretary of Defense. And he is determined to make sure that the p
rogram is as safe and
as effective and cost-effective as possible.
Q: How would you characterize his level of concern?
Bacon: Well, first of all, he's concerned any time soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines die
in training accidents or other accidents. And the military, as you learned directly from
Lieutenant General McCorkle, has a very vigorous process for studying accidents, what
caused them, and squeezing as many lessons out of every accident as possible.
I think in the V-22 case, it's not a plane that affects just the Marines. The Air Force plans
to use it. The Special Forces plan to use the V-22 as well. So the secretary wants to have
a bunch of experts look at the whole program. I think that he wants to assure himself that
the program is as good as it can be, and I'm sure that this panel will do that. The Marines,
of course, themselves want to assure themselves that the program is as strong as it can
be, and that's one of the reasons they're taking the steps that Lt. Gen. McCorkle explained
this morning.
Q: These outside experts are Pentagon people or who?
Bacon: Well, they haven't been appointed yet, and I think I'll wait until they are appointed
before speculating as to who they'll be.
Q: I was just wonder whether he wants an outside, independent, so to speak, viewpoint, or
whether he wants the military itself to look at it.
Bacon: I think they will be -- they are likely to include at least some outside people with
extensive military experience.
Q: Would they meet in Washington?
Bacon: Yes.
Q: Is it the crash that prompted this, or is it the crash plus the OT&E report plus --
Bacon: I think it's a combination of all those.
Q: And who initiated the idea for a blue ribbon, the commandant or the secretary?
Bacon: It's hard to know. I think they both had the idea at the same time. But certainly this
process started in the secretary's office this morning. I didn't talk to the commandant
early in the day, but the commandant certainly believes this is the way to go.
Q: You know there's a STOVL [short takeoff vertical landing] version of the Joint Strike
Fighter, and I wondered if this inquiry could be broadened to tha
t, because if there's
something endemic about the technology of this STOVL-type aircraft, it would seem to be
relevant. Is that on the scope for this review?
Bacon: Well, the Joint Strike Fighter is a jet, and this is a propeller plane. I think the
physics are quite different. The mechanics are clearly different. This will focus only on
the Osprey, the V-22, the panel that the secretary's in the process of putting together. So
-- and obviously the V-22 is much further advanced in development now than the Joint
Strike Fighter is.
Q: Yeah, but there is a lot of commonality in the AV-8's early problems, and they hopefully
had applied those to the Joint Strike Fighters.
Vertical flight is vertical flight, and there's a lot of commonality there. It would seem to
be relevant to look at the Joint Strike Fighter in the same inquiry. But it's not on the
scope? It's not on the scope?
Bacon: It's not on the scope.
Q: Ken, could you succinctly put the mission of the blue-ribbon commission that has been
named?
Bacon: Well, it doesn't have a charter yet, but obviously it will be to pull together a group
of technical experts to review the performance, combat capability, safety,
maintainability, cost of the program. But the focus will be on performance, safety, and
maintainability.
Q: Will the secretary tell the Navy not to go ahead with any kind of procurement decision
until after the blue-ribbon panel is done?
Bacon: Well, right now the Marines have requested that, and --
Q: Well, but they've requested it until they know what caused the crash. Will Secretary
Cohen request --
Bacon: I don't anticipate that the panel, which is yet to be set up and yet to have a charter,
so I can't talk about it with great specificity -- but nevertheless I don't anticipate that
this will be a study that will take a long time. I think the secretary will propose a --
after some consultation with experts, will propose a fairly quick, intensive study of the
V-22 program. It's clearly at a crucial phase right now. And the Marines need more lift,
they need modern lift, and so everybody wants to get this done as quickly as possible.
I
think it'll be -- in a way, he will give it the same instructions that he gave the Cole
commission. He will say: "Work as diligently and as expeditiously as possible, but take the
time necessary to get the job done. However, we hope you can get it done as quickly as
possible."
Q: And if the Navy makes a decision before then?
Bacon: Well, I don't think we'll speculate about hypotheticals right now. The Marines have
asked them not to go ahead with the low-rate initial production decision at this stage,
and the Marines will obviously take some time to sort out what happened. And I think that
the schedule will come together appropriately.
Yes?
Q: Flights have been stopped indefinitely or till when?
Bacon: Well, I mean, they have been stopped by the Marine Corps until they more
information.
Lieutenant General McCorkle explained that at great length this morning, and if you
weren't there, you ought to read the transcript rather than repeat it.
Yeah?
Q: Is it safe to say that the secretary remains an enthusiast of the V-22, or has his
doubts, like his predecessor did?
Bacon: The secretary has supported the V-22. He clearly wants a plane that can perform.
He clearly wants a plane that is safe and reliable, and part of the purpose of this panel
will be to make sure that those milestones are met.
Q: Ken, why is this panel being started now, a week before this milestone decision was
going to be made? You've got a whole process within the building that's supposed to look
over the program and approve it step by step, through the milestone process. Why now, on
the eve of this huge production decision --
Bacon: Well, first of all, the production decision has been delayed at the request of the
Marine Corps. Second, I think that the answer is very obvious. There was a devastating
crash last night in which four Marines died, and everybody wants to make sure that the
program is running as well as it can. And the secretary thinks that in the wake of the
crash and the wake of the Coyle report, it's just a good idea to have some experts review
the program from outside the Marine Corps, from outside the Navy. So that's what he's in
the process of doing, in consultation --
Q: (Off mike) -- 19 Marines died in April, and you didn't have this kind of review. It went
through the normal acquisition process. This is somewhat confounding, why you're doing it
now and why you didn't do it in April after that larger, more tragic crash.
Bacon: Right now, of course, we have no idea of what caused this latest crash, but in light
of -- looking at everything in toto, the secretary believes it's a good idea to have some
outside experts look at the program.
Q: Ken, you just said everybody wants to make sure the program is running as well as it
can. Isn't that adopting the Marine Corps line that, well, there may be something wrong
here, or this is a troubled program, but we have faith in it. Is the question here whether
the program ought to be operating at all, as opposed to whether it ought to be operating
well?
Bacon: I think you're all leaping to conclusions. The reason you have a review is to find out
-- is to assure yourself of where the program is, and that's what the secretary has set out
to do. And when the panel is set up and when there is a charter for the panel, we'll have
more to say about it, but the panel has not been set up yet.
Yes?
Q: Can you bracket, ballpark, when you would establish the commission, how many
members would be on it, and roughly --
Bacon: No, I can't do any of those things. I would think it'd have a relatively small number
of members. I think it'll probably be set up this week. It's only Tuesday. I would hope that
it would be set up relatively soon and, as I said, I'm sure the secretary will ask the panel
to report as quickly as possible, but they will need a certain amount of time to bring
themselves up to speed.
We will have people who are technical experts, and they'll have to go through a lot of very
detailed information.
Yeah?
Q: Ken, let me go back to China. The Soviet Union was dismantled. Now China is getting
stronger and stronger militarily. Don't you think it's a threat to the world peace? And
also, anybody in this building is worried about the future of China maybe getting into the
same way as the Soviet Un
ion against the United States?
Bacon: Deng Xiaoping announced four modernizations, one of which was military; it
happened to be the last modernization that China got to. It chose to allocate resources on
agriculture, industry, and other areas before it got to its military modernization. In the
last several years, it has focused more resources on military modernization, but it's still
increasing its education budget faster than it's increasing its military budget, to the best
of our ability to monitor that.
We have an extensive engagement program with China, and the engagement program is
designed to work with them in a way that gives us an ability to look with more
transparency at what they're doing, and gives them an ability to look with more
transparency at what we're doing. We think that engagement program has been helpful in
that it's led to greater involvement by China in a number of arms control regimes. For
instance, they've signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And they've done other things
to limit proliferation.
Obviously, we have to watch carefully any country that is developing its military forces.
But China has been working on modernizing its long-range missile program, which is very
modest, compared to ours; very modest compared to the Russians; very modest compared
to the French and the British. But they've been working to modernize this program for
some time.
I think that we have published extensive public reports on what they're doing. You can read
about the DF-31 in a number of public reports that are put out by the Central Intelligence
Agency, by the Defense Department and other agencies.
So we are watching it. I don't think it's fair to say that this building or this government is
worried about what they see in China. But clearly, we watch any country that is
developing its military -- modernizing its military.
Q: Ken, just to follow that. But also China is flying missiles and other -- I mean their
military technology to Iran and Pakistan on a regular basis.
Bacon: Well they've just -- they made an announcement several weeks ago that they were
going to curb their dealings that lead to proliferation of weapons; at least some weapons.
So, we will watch them and we hope that what they've said is correct. And we hope that
it's a sign that they realize that proliferation is double-edged; that it can come back to
hurt the sponsor someday as well as perhaps other countries as well.
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。