There are no initial indications that these were innocent locals, and I base that on the facts that this team, in addition to just looking at the site where the strike occurred, also did some exploration in the surrounding area to include some caves, a nearby village, and talk[ed] to locals, |
There's a lot of dust in the air right now, ... With that dust in the air, it's very hard to tell exactly what's going on. |
There's about as many helicopters that can safely operate in the valleys for the moment, |
This is a fully vetted process. |
This mission was called in due to the fighting that was occurring between the opposition groups and those Taliban forces that were dug in, |
This was an agency mission, ... This was a case where Central Command was not actively participating or coordinated with this particular strike. |
Those who have dispersed, it would appear, are trying to get back together and regroup so that they can ascertain, do they have leadership, do they have mission, can they do operations? |
We are responding to where we are asked to go and for that we rely on Pakistan to determine. |
We are responsive to the opposition groups whom we are supporting in that effort right now, ... I think it would be fair to say that if the opposition groups were to ask us not to bomb a specific facility or location so they can continue their discussions, we'll certainly honor that. |
We believe those dangerous groups are still in Afghanistan. |
We have leveled the remaining structures that were found on the surface, and we have closed all the caves that we would intend not to be occupied. |
We just don't have the evidence that, you know, that's proof-positive, |
We know for a fact that these were legitimate military targets in that area that were struck, |
We know there were no off-target hits, so there were no collateral damage worries in this series of strikes. And therefore, I can't comment on these civilian casualties, because I don't know them to be true. |
We will utilize all of our forces and all of the types of warfare that we have to bring to bear, with the exception of weapons of mass destruction. |