Following is a transcript of his remarks provided by the U.S. Embassy Tashkent:

COMMENTS WITH REAR ADMIRAL CRAIG QUIGLEY, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND, FOLLOWING PRESS CONFERENCE WITH GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS

January 24, 2002
Tashkent, Uzbekistan

PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICER MARK ASQUINO: We said that we would take a couple of minutes and take a couple more questions.

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: If you didn't have an opportunity to ask a question or if something that General Franks said was unclear I'll try to clarify.

QUESTION FROM INTERNEWS: Could you give a little more detail about exactly what the time line is for the bases here? We know it's not 25 years in the instance of Khanabad, but are we talking about another two, three, four years...?

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: There is no time line. There has never been a specific discussion of duration with any of the governments in the region. Everyone, I think, recognizes that the work is not yet done inside Afghanistan. Indeed, Afghanistan is only the first part of the global war on terrorism that so many nations have signed up to fight together. So, there just is no time limit on any of this stuff. But, as General Franks and others in the American military and the American government have said, there is no intention to have some string of American bases in this region. There is just no intention of that at all.

QUESTION: There is increasing concern coming out of Russia, especially out of communist and nationalist circles...U.S.-Russia relations have come a long way during the last few months and there is, as I've said, increasing concern about the duration of the presence of U.S. bases. Are you concerned about the nature of U.S.-Russian relations, specifically, military relations given the increasing criticism?

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: We have tried to be as transparent as we could about the types of cooperation from regional governments, the purpose for having U.S. forces stationed in neighboring nations, and tried to be as transparent as we could be. Clearly explaining not only to the Russians, but other nations as well, that this is about a variety of support functions. Sometimes combat aircraft, sometimes humanitarian assistance, sometimes re-fueling aircraft, and a variety of support functions. And I think that that has proven to be the key to success. Making sure that it is just as above board as we can possibly be, and there is nothing under the table or not out there for all the world to see as to what the sorts of support that so many nations in the region are providing. But again, there is just no intention of permanent U.S. bases in the Central Asian region. We look forward to a continuing process for many years to come of close military-to-military cooperation with a variety of nations in Central Asia. But that does not mean a permanent string of U.S. bases in this region.

QUESTION: The work you're doing at the Manas base at the moment does however for an untrained eye, look like you are actually planning on being there for quite a while. I'm talking about things like establishing a rotation of soldiers instead of putting them out as an emergency short-term.... Could you be a little more specific about times here? What are we talking about? We're not talking about these soldiers gone in a year are we?

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: Well, you're looking at rotation, at least on the U.S. military now, other nations I can't speak for them, but, we fully realize that the international effort and the war on terrorism is going to last for a very long time. So we have no intention of burning out either people or machines that are forward deployed to this part of the world. So, as both units and their equipment come to this part of the world, operate for some period of time, some number of weeks or months, whatever, we are very careful to rotate them back, replace them with forces that are appropriate for the circumstance that we find on the ground in Afghanistan at the time, so that there can be some rest, some replacement of equipment, and maintenance can be performed, and our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines can spend time together with their families. I just can't put a finger on any particular length of time because I'd have no confidence in it. All we know for sure is that there remains much work to be done inside Afghanistan to make sure that Afghanistan is free of terrorist elements, as free as we can make it and it will stand on its own as a viable, stable nation in Central Asia. But I just can't put a time frame on it, I'm sorry.

QUESTION: Is there a minimum?

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: We've already passed the minimum, it's ongoing. No, I have no idea.

QUESTION: There's increasing focus on setting up bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Why is that? Some people have suggested that Uzbekistan has not been quite as accommodating perhaps as the United States would have liked.

ADMIRAL QUIGLEY: Every nation in the region comes to its own conclusions as to the sort of support it is willing to provide, the extent of that support. And you're going to find different answers from different nations in the region. The key is that it is very important from our perspective to have a variety of locations that are in this general part of the world from which you can do many things over a period of time. Whether it's combat activity or the provision of humanitarian assistance, moving supplies into Afghanistan, or re-fueling other airplanes that might be working over Afghanistan. You have all of these different needs and it's very easy to rapidly fill up any one site in order to provide the forces that are in Afghanistan with the level of support that they need. So, rather than put all your eggs in one basket, any single location, what we have done is enter into a series of bilateral discussions with the governments in the region and every nation will come up with its own answer and we're perfectly comfortable with that. And as long as at the end of the day we do have a variety of places from which to work and provide the volume of support that will be needed in Afghanistan for the time ahead.

Thank you all very much.