Following is the transcript of Myers' remarks:

Gen. Richard B. Myers
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Remarks at National Press Club
Washington, D.C.

13 September 2002

MYERS: Thank you. Well, to all the distinguished guests here and ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the kind of reception when we walked in. I'm not used to getting applause walking into with a bunch of journalists and the media.

I know I can't take that too far, but I do appreciate it.

And I'd like to thank you, John, for the wonderful introduction, some pieces of information there that not everybody knows. I don't know where you got it all. But thank you for the kind introduction.

It's an honor to be here even though it is Friday the 13th. And even though it is Friday the 13th, I feel very lucky, and I'll tell you why. Thirteen's kind of been my lucky number when I was in Vietnam. Actually flying out of Thailand, I flew with the 13th Tactical Fighter Squadron. And the peg that I used to hang my life support equipment, my helmet, my G-suit and so forth was peg 13. So if I can survive getting shot at and hanging around the number 13, I figured that showing up at the National Press Club on Friday the 13th shouldn't be all that big a threat. We'll see.

As I made the trip over here today, I thought of Jules Verne and his visionary work, "From the Earth to the Moon." And I don't mention that because I think the military and the media are on different planets, quite the opposite, matter of fact. I think we're closer than most realize.

For instance, both professions work odd hours and make sacrifices for their country. And both are responsible for our country's welfare, talking about the U.S. press here. And both professions are no stranger to crisis, and we are reminded of this from time to time in tragedy, unfortunately.

No, but what made me think about Jules Verne was that for all his talent he failed to foresee that man's landing on the moon would be seen live on TV around the world. It was a triumph that was shared by all mankind because of the miracle of modern communications.

I think that point was also driven home by the events of last September, of September 11. All Americans and the world now get a front-row seat as these events unfold. This is a fact whether people are there in person or whether the event comes into the living room. It's true whether it's an uplifting event or whether it's a horrific event.

This week our nation has paused, prayed and remembered the tragic events of last year, the tremendous human loss, the countless acts of courage and the sacrifice that it has inspired.

I think this reflection is important. It's been a really tough week for, I think, most of us that remember those events and were involved in them in some way or another.

But as profound as our sadness has been, we can temper it with a little bit of pride in the way that we responded in the days following the tragedy. And by the same token, I think it's also important that we take stock of how we've done over this past year since September 11. So today I thought I'd use this occasion to give you a "hot wash," if you will, a top-level review of this first year on our war on terrorism. And at the same time, as we get towards the end of my remarks, I'd like to talk to you about what it is I think we need to do better as we move forward.

Immediately after 9/11, President Bush set some goals for our war on terrorism. The first one was to disrupt and deny and destroy terrorist organizations worldwide. The second was to eliminate their safe havens. And the third one was to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the hands of terrorists.

It was clear from September 11 that we faced a very different threat, and we knew we'd need all instruments of national power, and the president made that very clear from the start.

Now, often our military is looked at as the hammer, if you will, in the toolkit of American policy. A year ago the president realized that we needed more than a hammer on this particular threat, and we've been using all instruments and other tools of power, diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement and financial. And we've done that not just with United States instruments of national power, but all our coalition partners as well.

So how have we done? What's the report card so far? Let me start by talking about what the United States military and our coalition partners have accomplished.

In less than a month after September 11, we launched a major military operation halfway around the world into a landlocked country. And when we started, we had no military access in that country or in the neighborhood. Our nearest fighter base was five hours flight time away.

Then, within days we had a carrier battle group off the coast ready for action, and in less than three weeks we and our coalition partners had opened two new bases-brand new bases-and set up operations, expanded operations at seven other bases and moved four carrier battle groups into the area -- two U.S. and two from our coalition partners.

And then less than two months later, and with literally only a handful of U.S. armed forces on the ground, we helped remove a hostile regime from power. We took away a major terrorist safe haven, and we did this with the least collateral damage and loss of innocent life of any comparable operation in history.

Clearly, this was a major military victory.

It also, most importantly, was a victory for the Afghan people. Now Afghanistan is a radically different country from a year ago. Two million refugees have returned home. People are voting with their feet and they're coming back to Afghanistan. Three million children now attend school, and this includes both girls and boys, and they have access to over 10 million textbooks. The traditional political process has chosen a new national government, plus more than 500,000 metric tons of food aid has been delivered. That's about 40 pounds of food for every man, woman and child inside Afghanistan.

How many folks remember the predictions last October about mass starvation that the Afghanistan people faced? Thank God that never happened.

Our armed forces have played an important role in this accomplishment. But a large portion of the credit belongs to other U.S. agencies and the wonderful cooperation of the international community.

The bottom line is that Al Qaida's major base of operations has been smashed. And as a result, our other instruments of national power have become more effective. That's not to say that they weren't effective before. These and other tools have been playing a crucial role right from the beginning in our national strategy.

But with the defeat of the Taliban, we can now use our intelligence and our law enforcement and our diplomatic tools, combined with the efforts of our partners, to accomplish even more dramatic results.

You'll recall back in March that an Al Qaida operative named Zubaida was picked up in Pakistan. A couple of months later, our Moroccan partners arrested some terrorists that were planning attacks against shipping in the Mediterranean. And there's also been arrests of our Singapore allies of an Al Qaida cell in their country. The Singapore police used information that we obtained from our forces and from detainees inside Afghanistan and broke up an attack that would have killed many innocent people.

We've also had success here at home. Two weeks ago, you'll remember, we picked up suspected Al Qaida operatives in Detroit and in Seattle.

All together, we've picked up more than 2,700 people worldwide that have some connection to terrorism. And these are a credit to our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, to our diplomatic efforts, and of course, the efforts of our coalition partners.

Our financial tools have also been active, denying terrorists access to over $112 million. More than 160 nations have joined these efforts.

Together, we've identified more than 230 specific individuals or enterprises that have been helping fund the terrorists with money. These efforts have gone a long way to disrupting terrorists around the globe.

So what I've described here are victories for all our instruments of national power and how we've used them in concert to maximize their effectiveness.

Our military hammer, if you will, smashed the terrorists' safe haven, and that in turn allowed us to use these other instruments of national power, like pairs of pliers perhaps, to pluck them, to pluck the terrorists out of other places that they ran to.

In short, our nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marine and Coast Guardsmen and reservists accomplished what no one, I think, would have thought possible. In fact, if you think back to Operation Anaconda, that's where the Soviet Union had such a tremendous loss of life during their time in Afghanistan. In fact, they called that same area that meat grinder. We went into that area with a force ratio of about 1:3:5. In other words, we were outnumbered by 3:5:1 and were successful and had very little loss of life.

Now, we've done all this while also patrolling our skies and cities and ports here at home to an extent that's never been done before in America, and we've reinforced that valuable lesson that we can accomplish more when we work with out teammates, the other federal agencies and our coalition partners.

So that's the good news. We've made some progress.

The not so good news is what we've learned about the enemy that we're up against. There's a revealing contrast between how we operate and how the terrorist operates.

For instance, we go to great lengths to spare the lives of innocents. And often that means that we add difficulty and even danger to our mission in order to accomplish the task and not endanger innocents. And when we make a mistake-and we're not perfect so when we make mistakes-when we make mistakes, we investigate it and try to take corrective actions so they don't happen again.

I think the bottom line is that our modus operandi really reflects our respect for the dignity of human life.

The terrorists, of course, couldn't be more different. They make it their purpose to kill the innocent. The more innocent men, women and children they kill, the happier they are. The World Trade Center is not the only example. Last week in Kabul, if you remember, they exploded a bomb, a small bomb, and that explosion drew a crowd, and then they exploded a larger bomb, killing many other innocents.

And they didn't just kill soldiers, that wasn't their intention. They murdered their fellow Muslims. These people were on their way to work. They were on their way to school. They were on their way to market. And they were on their way to the mosque.

We've also learned that Al Qaida is a global network disbursed in over 60 nations worldwide, including our own. They're much better organized, trained, financed and focused than terrorists have been in the past. Al Qaida is a shrewd, patient and adaptable group and they've made it an art form to be able to hide among civilians. Of course, this makes our ability to go after them very, very difficult.

And we've learned that the enemy we're facing is willing to commit suicide in order to achieve their objectives. That's significant. How do you deter people that are willing to kill themselves to advance their cause?

This is a dramatic departure from the type of enemy we faced in the past. During the Cold War we deterred the Soviet Union in part because they had something to lose. We knew what their capabilities were, so we worked to try to help influence their intentions. We placed at risk something that the Soviets valued: the survival of their nation. And that was the basis for our deterrent strategy.

Today, we're facing just the opposite of that situation.

I think we know clearly the enemies' intentions: to destroy this American experiment in democracy and freedom.

But we're less sure, much less sure of their capabilities. We know that they have nothing to lose, no homeland, no capital cities, no bridges, no factories. So this clearly means that the old deterrence theory just won't work now.

This past year, we've also learned that the Al Qaida network is actively seeking weapons of mass destruction. The tapes seen recently on CNN offer all of us a very sobering reminder of what that really means.

These videos make clear that with a single event terrorists might seek to devastate our society and those of our allies with chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons. And these videos show that the Al Qaida has the desire. We just aren't sure yet if they have the capability.

To emphasize the importance of this, think about how the terrorist acts have changed: Thirty years ago, a terrorist group known as Black September killed 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich. One year ago, the Al Qaida killed more than 3,000 innocent people. And tomorrow, given the chance, they'll probably want to kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.

The defining question for all of us is, "how do we respond to these changes?" What are the things that we, as a nation, must do? In my mind, there are two broad areas that we should address as we go forward. First, I'm reminded of what Casey Stengel once said, speaking of the New York Yankees. And he said to his team, "You know, if we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as good as we think we are."

What that means to me, and the military, as good as our armed forces are, we can't rest on the success we've had to date. While we must fight this war on terrorism with a great ferocity and tenacity, we've also got to improve as fast as we can. And that means we've got to transform our military forces. And I say this because the war on terrorism is going to take a long time.

But we can't wait to transform. We have to be very aggressive here, or we'll be going backwards. Now in this town, there is a lot of talk about what transformation is all about. For me, transformation is a lot more than putting wheels on armored vehicles, or making a stealthier aircraft or putting new missiles on submarines. These types of changes are important.

But if we still use our military forces as we have for the past 50 years, the changes really won't be of much use. Transformation is about creating new relationships and a new operating culture.

In my view, the most important element will take place between the ears of our war fighters. It means becoming a dramatically better force. And the core of this better force will be getting the right information to the right outfit at the right time.

And the reason why I say that information sharing is a catalyst for transformation can be seen in the story that I'll relate to you now about a guy that was just about to get married. He was very nervous about this. And on the day of the wedding he said, "You know, I've got to say some words and so forth, and I'm really nervous." So all the groomsmen took him aside and said, "Listen, all you've got to really say is 'I do.'" And so they rehearsed that for hours. And then came the time of the wedding. And the first thing the pastor says, "Is there anyone here who objects to this marriage going forward?" And out yells the groom, this is his time, "I do."

Well, the lesson of course, is right information, wrong time. And in the war on terrorism-I was betting whether I would get a laugh at that, by the way.

Do I win this, or? In the war on terrorism, it's extremely important that we get the right information from whatever the source to the right outfit at the right time.

It's never been more important. We have to have our decision cycle very, very quick, because of the characteristics that I described earlier about our terrorist adversaries. Information sharing is the key to becoming more agile, more flexible, and faster in our decision loop than the terrorists. And if and when we uncover one of their plots to use weapons of mass destruction, we've got to have the ability act before they can attack.

So transforming our forces is the first broad area where we as a nation must build on from we've learned from the past year. The second broad area involves the American public. In my view, every American has a role to play. And it all begins with us doing what Americans have always done.

Since the first landings at Jamestown or Plymouth Rock, we Americans have sacrificed in our community, in our nation for others. Last year, we witnessed a resurgence of this sense of public service, and it made all of us, of every race, religion, and ethnic background, I would say, very, very proud. Our challenge is to keep that commitment alive.

To do so, we simply need to be Americans. One of our strongest traditions is national and community service. In my view, there has never been a more important time to serve our nation than now. And the service of course comes in many forms. If you think this is going to be an advertisement for military recruiting, you're wrong, because you can serve many, many ways. You can be in the Marine Corps, the diplomatic corps, the press corps, Peace Corps. You can serve as a volunteer with your church or with your youth leagues. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. The point is to participate actively in this marvelous range of activities that make our culture so strong.

Another American characteristic that we must reinforce is to be vocal. We should participate in public discussion on how we should respond to this terrorist threat. Such a discussion should focus on a variety of key questions. For instance, what do we expect of our government in times like these? What cost do we think as a society we can bear? What level of risk today is acceptable before we take action? What should be our relationship with our friends and our coalition partners?

And does this unprecedented threat, in terms of the potential for tragedy, for human tragedy, does this unprecedented threat require a new approach to national security? Obviously, these are serious questions, but these are also very, very serious times.

These are not questions for just public officials or four-star generals, talk show hosts and pundits. They're questions for dinner tables, classrooms and boardrooms. These are issues, in my view, for all Americans to express their opinion on.

And that, of course, is where you come in. You facilitate the national discussion, like the one the president has called for. You're the ones with the most important element of developing a national consensus, and that is, you provide the information for the most part. We can't prosecute this war on terrorism without you, the press. And we absolutely can't win it without you.

In fact, a free and professional press is an invaluable addition to U.S. national security. Your criticism and your commentary refine the thinking of our leadership while they inform the public. America is counting on your diligence and your objectivity as much as it's counting on the courage and skill of those in uniform.

And finally, you can help with a key element in our ultimate victory over terrorism, and that is, that this fight is going to take a long, long time. America is going to need a great deal of patience. So we must remain focused on the threat and the task at hand. We need to realize that it's going to involve activities that are in plain view and covered by the media and is also it's going to involve activities that are far from public view.

Now, some might suggest that being patient is sort of an un- American trait. After all, we live in a society that is viewed as fast-paced and impulsive. I don't think it's entirely accurate. I think if you stand back and take a broader perspective, we know we're a nation that's 226 years old, and truly, there are other cultures that date back thousands of years. But the fact is that, America, this great experiment in freedom, is a nation with the oldest written constitution.

To me, that means our government is the oldest formal government around. We haven't always been perfect far from it-but we've been patient.

The pioneers who took six months to cross the plains, they certainly had patience and perseverance. We stuck it out in World War II. We had the patience to rebuild the societies of our opponents, even though it took decades. And we kept our focus through 40 years of the Cold War, so now we must keep our focus and remain patient yet again.

From time to time, folks suggest that the war on terrorism isn't a real war. They recall how the American public made dramatic sacrifices during World War II. For instance, families grew victory gardens that produced over 40 percent of our vegetables, and 15 million men and women served in uniform, and industry shifted to a wartime footing. So far, we haven't had to make those kinds of sacrifices for this war on terrorism. But I think it's wrong to kind of make those comparisons.

You've got to remember that the terrorist struck at one of our symbols or symbols of our economic promise, the World Trade Center. And they also struck at another center of our military might, the Pentagon. But they really fundamentally tried to do is destroy the core of our societies-our liberties and economic strength. Of course, they failed.

But our best response is to reinforce those values and institutions that make us great, to exercise our freedoms, to demonstrate our selflessness and to grow our economic power. After all, we're a nation that's not built on wealth and power. We're built on our ideas and ideals. We're built on diversity, on vision and on values.

The liberties we cherish are nurtured in the homes of more than 285 million people. We are Christians, we are Muslims, we are Hindus, we are Jews, we are atheists, of every possible description and background, but we're all Americans. And this is a fight about our resolve to hold on to those values and liberties. And every American, in my view, has a role to play because America includes everyone.

So it may appear undramatic to suggest that Americans should participate in public service, to express their opinion in a public discourse, to welcome a robust and free press and to be patient. But I think that's just about the best approach I can think of for this very different type of war that we're involved in.

After all, to defeat the heartless force that opposes us, we need to have the exact characteristics that they lack, and we need to have in abundance kindness, unselfishness, diversity, tolerance, cheerfulness and, I'd say, a sense of humor.

At the beginning of the second year of the Civil War, President Lincoln said, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty. As our case is new, so must we think anew and act anew."

As we start this second year in the war on terrorism, we, too, must think anew and act anew. For our nation's military, we're doing this by pressing ahead with transformation. As a result, we'll be a more capable force in this war on terrorism, and we'll be ready for whatever tomorrow's challenges bring.

For our nation, we should embrace Lincoln's words and keep alive our service to the nation, engage in public discourse on how to respond to the terrorist threat, and most of all, have patience as we pursue this very important task.

Once again, I'm honored to be here today. It's places like the National Press Club where thoughtful people have always been able to address the most important issues of the day and that are facing our nation. Jules Verne may have overlooked the importance of the media, but I don't. Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: General, a large number of the questions deal with Iraq, as you might imagine.

Most or many U.S. allies, even Arab leaders, privately seem to agree that Saddam Hussein might be a bad guy, dangerous but ask then, what has changed? What is so compelling now in terms of immediacy to take action against Iraq? Let me broaden that to say-to ask-have you seen clear and convincing intelligence evidence that Saddam Hussein is prepared to use weapons of mass destruction or to provide them to someone else?

MYERS: Well, I think the president said it best yesterday in his speech at the U.N. where he talked about the way Iraq has absolutely ignored the Security Council Resolutions that have called for him to disarm, as regards his weapons of mass destruction. And I think we have clear and compelling evidence that in fact he has not done so. In fact, over the last decade he has actually enhanced his capabilities in those areas. He still has a very active research and development and production and weaponization of chemical and biological weapons and a thirst for nuclear weapons.

And the president went on to say that this is a threat to the peace and stability of the region. You mentioned allies. The president went on to say that he is going to consult with our friends and allies. He is going to consult with Congress. But I think his last point is probably the most important, that the only course that's unacceptable here is inaction, that if we don't act, that this nexus between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism could bring a great harm to a great many people.

MODERATOR: Last month, General Schwarzkopf, on one of the Sunday panel shows, said that the U.S. should not go it alone against Iraq, and that Iraq has 400,000 troops, 100,000 of them well trained.

What kind of force structure is needed to deal with that kind of force structure on the opposing side?

MYERS: Would you be surprised if I declined to go into the details of an operational force structure, against any country for that matter? And that's a real problem, and I've talked about this with the Pentagon press corps, and that is, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it's very difficult to make any comment on an operational naturebecause it could be turned around by an adversary, then be used in a way that would be very unhelpful and perhaps a danger to our forces. So I've got to be careful about that.

But what we do know, and this is-obviously the president hasn't made up his mind. And that's another thing he said yesterday, he said: I have not made a decision on what I'll do about Iraq. But he did say that, again, that indecision wasn't the answer.

Having said that, I can talk a little about Iraqi force structure. They are much weaker than they were during Desert Storm, and their forces have generally become-been less and less, although Iraq has found ways around the oil-for-food program to boost some of his defenses, in his air defenses, his communications and his weapons of mass destruction.

We've seen him take trucks that are OK under the oil-for-food program that should be helping the Iraqi people and turn those trucks into either missile carriers or to be able to transport their armored vehicles with them.

So he's found ways around some of these regimes, the oil-for-food program is what I'm talking about, and used it to bolster his forces. But basically Iraq is much weaker than they were back in the early '90s.

MODERATOR: As we're talking about force structure, General, given the war on terrorism, the broader picture, and American commitments around the world, are U.S. forces stretched manpower-wise to a dangerous level or to a level that might concern you? Is the U.S. force structure stressed?

MYERS: Let me start by saying that we have a magnificent armed forces, thanks to the American people, to our Congress and to the political leadership. We have a very strong armed forces that is ready.

As we look at the new strategy that was laid out by Secretary Rumsfeld and the rest of the senior leadership of the Pentagon, the so-called Quadrennial Defense Review, we laid out in some detail what it is we expect the armed forces to be able to do.

And as you look at that strategy and you say, "OK. We're prosecuting a global war on terrorism. Can we fulfill the other aspects of this strategy-homeland defense, major contingencies in other parts of the world-and still have a strategic reserve in case you would need one?" And the answer is, while we are working very hard right now, that we can do more than one thing at a time. And we have the capacity and the capability to do what the president could possibly as us to do.

And I'll just leave it at that. But the military is ready to do that.

Now, before I leave that question. Are people stressed? I would like to say it like this. People are working very hard. But I've traveled throughout the Middle East, Afghanistan, the surrounding central Asian countries, to Asia, to other places where we have our armed forces stationed and here in the United States, as well. The one thing, if you ask any member, I think, of our armed forces, they understand very clearly how important it is right now for them to serve. And you do not hear them complaining.

I've been to some very, very bad places, where we haven't had bases before, where we have our military forces living and where the food is not the best and where all the creature comforts are not very good. They don't complain about that. They never complained once about that. Their only complaint was, "You know, how can we do more?"

In fact, we just had some folks in the office this morning. And I was getting briefed by some people who had spent-oh, I think they have probably spent six months out of the last year in Afghanistan, getting ready to go back in a very, very, very tough job. And I said, "Well, what impact is this having on you and your family?" And he said, "Listen, all of us in my unit understand how important this task is. This is not something we can fail at. We've got to be victorious and we're ready for whatever it takes."

MODERATOR: General, in November, 600 personnel are going to be sent to Qatar for an exercise. What's the purpose of the exercise? And do you expect a permanent presence there?

MYERS: I think this question goes to the issue of a Central Command headquarters forward in the region. Our Pacific Command has its headquarters in Hawaii, basically in the Asia Pacific region. Our European Command has its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, basically forward in the region. And then we created Central Command, and it is in Tampa, Florida. And there has been a debate for as long as Central Command has been around is, where is it best positioned? In fact, there's been debate in the paper about where it should have been positioned for the fight in Afghanistan.

If it weren't for the modern technology I referred to in my remarks, it would have been impossible to keep them in Tampa, Florida. But even at that, I'm sure, Tommy-General Franks-thought about that very often. You know, "Where should I be?"

MYERS: In fact, he made numerous trips to the region to be close to where the action was happening. And in that context, you know, we move things around a lot. And I know there's been a lot of focus on movements of things like this. The headquarters will be part of an exercise. It may stay there permanently, because we're-a decision hasn't been finally made.

But my guess is, there will be-the secretary will make a decision to push forward headquarters into the region. It just makes sense to have your headquarters in your area of responsibility. So I think that's a likely outcome. And it doesn't say I don't think anything about potential action in the region. It's just that we've got to be ready for action and for activities, no matter what we're called upon to do. And I'm talking about the gamut of activities here from humanitarian activities to non-combatant evacuation activities, to more serious activities that-real crisis.

MODERATOR: Among the facilities being constructed in Qatar, reportedly, is a control center-to replace one or to compliment one at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia since Saudi Arabia has said it's soil could not be used for any subsequent attack on Iraq. Nonetheless, how big a setback is the Saudi position on that and even potential denial of use of their airspace?

MYERS: Let me just say at the outset that the support we've gotten from Saudi Arabia on the war on terrorism, on the peace in Afghanistan and other pieces in the region has been very, very good. And we appreciate that support.

Without going into a lot of operational detail, we have backup locations for lots of our command facilities, as you would probably think is smart. And I think that's what you're seeing here, not a major shift in U.S. policy, that's for sure. And I would anticipate in any future operation that we would have cooperation from our friends and allies, and that would include Saudi Arabia.

MODERATOR: This questioner says senior defense officials say Saddam Hussein is using tractor-trailer trucks to house biological weapons labs. Have you seen intelligence to support that, General?

MYERS: There is evidence to support mobile production capability for chemical and biological weapons. It does not take a lot of space for some of this work to go on. It can be done in a very, very small location. And the fact that you can put it on wheels makes it a lot easier to hide from people that might be looking for it. And so, yes, we have evidence that's...

MODERATOR: On the subject of biological and chemical warfare capabilities, General, this questioner asks, if the U.S. were to bomb Iraq's biowar stockpile sites, could that not result in a massive release in which potentially huge civilian casualties could be caused on the ground there?

And secondly, would it not guarantee that Saddam would subsequently use other stockpiles in a "use 'em or lose 'em" kind of theory?

MYERS: Well, now we're getting a little bit close to operational matters. I'm going to pull back just a little bit from that. But in general, as we do, just like we did in Afghanistan, I think, if people saw the process that we went through for targets, sensitive targets, where we might have the potential for the loss of innocent life or to damage structures that weren't the intended target, it's a very detailed process with lots of modeling that tries to predict injuries and damage.

That same thing in a hypothetical way, because I'm not going to address Iraq, certainly would apply to a-let's say you have a rocket propellant production facility. They have very caustic chemicals there. If it were struck, it would release plumes that could hurt people. And so we model that very carefully, too.

And then you have to do the risk, as required by international dimension, you have to say, "Is the military worth of this target worth the risk of injuring X number of people or of potentially causing harm?" And we do that on every sensitive target. Like I said before in my remarks, this is time consuming, and often we default to creating conditions that might pose more hazard and more danger to our armed forces and those of our coalition partners before we'll take a chance of hurting civilians.

MODERATOR: General Myers, this is a question you declined to answer in your appearance I referred to in Savannah, but as a military man you must, we understand, consider the possible military consequences of any action. So what would be the military consequence if the U.S. wages war on Iraq of an Iraqi strike against Israel and Israeli retaliation?

MYERS: I think the Iraqi regime has been pretty consistent about its views toward Israel. And so if they were threatened, or even if they're not threatened, that's one of the things you worry about, is how they would use their weapons of mass destruction against the state of Israel. And we saw what the Iraqi regime did to one of its neighbors, Iran. We saw what they did to Kuwait. We saw what they've done to their internal-some of the populations inside their country, minority populations.

And so there's no doubt that you would have to consider-I mean, I think we consider that today: What is the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction against the other countries in the region?

It would certainly play into the calculation, and it would have to be taken into account. And that's probably as far as I'm going to go.

MODERATOR: General, back to the question of manpower-personnel levels. The army recently announced its third stop-loss order to prevent soldiers from leaving the service. Is this going to be a permanent thing? Does the army need 400,000 more soldiers, as some in Congress-40, 000 more soldiers as some in Congress say?

MYERS: That last issue on the number is still being debated in Congress and between the Department of Defense.

One of the things that helps us in times like these when we have a global war is the Reserve component, both the National Guard and the Reservists. We are working them very hard. A lot of them had been called up for a year. Some of those are just now returning back home, and others are going forward. It's hard on their family life. It's hard on their employers who have to let them go.

At the same time, I'll remind you again, this is such important work that most of them are happy to serve. In fact, some of them have volunteered to serve a second year. Last night, we just said farewell to some folks that came on active duty for a year from Ohio, mostly from Columbus. And they were part of my personal security detail, which I didn't have before September the 11th, but which I now have.

And these individuals came on duty for a year. They left their wives and left their other jobs and supported me in my mission here in Washington, D.C. That's not easy for them, but not one of them complained about being called up.

So one of the ways we handle the manpower issue is the Reserve component, and they have played a marvelous role.

The other piece is that what the secretary is trying to do is to make sure that if you wear a uniform, you're doing something that requires somebody in uniform to do. And he's trying to press the services.

He said, "If you have need for additional manpower, that's fine. But let's first make sure that we don't have anybody in uniform doing jobs that we can contract out, that can be done by a civilian workforce and so forth." And I think that's the right approach. That's the only way to make sure that if you're wearing the uniform, you're doing a job that needs to be done by somebody in uniform by the military. And that's the course he's on.

MODERATOR: General, we have a few more related questions. But I'm going to take care of it right now-take care of something I neglected to do earlier. In introducing the head table, I passed by one of our correspondents at the table. Andrea Stone, national security reporter for USA Today. I apologize for the oversight and welcome you.

General, please comment on the implication of the criminal charges brought today against U.S. F-16 pilots involved in friendly- fire deaths of four Canadian soldiers. Is this unprecedented? Does it have impact on morale of U.S. forces?

MYERS: Just so everybody knows, this relates to the incident where we had two U.S. F-16s. They dropped ordnance on some Canadians in the vicinity of Kandahar that were exercising at night and killed four Canadians.

The reports were released today by-Good reports and reports that were participated in by both U.S. and Canada. And then this morning, we also-so those reports are being released at noon. And then, also, I guess, the Air Force announced that they had brought charges on these pilots.

To avoid any undo command influence on any of this, even though I'm not in the command chain, I can't speak on those issues. We have to let the process play out.

MODERATOR: Two quick questions not related directly to the war on terror or Iraq, General. Has the V-22-that's the Osprey-re- entered flight testing yet at Edwards? And if so, tell us a little bit about how it's going.

MYERS: I don't follow that real, real closely. But I do understand, yesterday, it flew, I think, a little over four hours on two different sorties. So it's starting to re-enter the test phase again. And there is a plan to work the production aspects of that aircraft to ensure that it's safe and operationally effective and reliable. There's a test plan that they're going to go through. And we need to just let that play out and see how it performs. So, yes, it's flying.

MODERATOR: OK. Question about something we mentioned very briefly in the introduction and then have not talked a lot about, space-base defense. What happened to the idea, this questioner asks, of sharing more evenly the cost of space operations among the services? The other says, being an Air Force general, you perhaps naturally support a national missile defense system based in space or intercepting in the air, but are you considering a secondary based system using ships as a platform? And if not, why not?

MYERS: You know, it's interesting what people attribute to me based on this uniform and my previous assignments. And it's been fascinating to read ever since I was nominated that, "Gee, we know why Myers is being nominated. It's because of his support for missile defense." I dare anybody to go back and do the research and find out anything I said about missile defense that would lead them, perhaps, to that conclusion.

Having said that, you have a very important question here. And the missile defense program that was reorganized by Secretary Rumsfeld and under the guidance of Lieutenant General Ron Kadish down at the Missile Defense Agency, I think is exactly on the right track. And it's a broad front of many technologies and then sorting out those capabilities that work and take them forward and take the ones that aren't ready yet, that need more research and development or invention and put them to the rear. And that's what's going on.

I can guarantee you that what we're looking for is the best defense for short-range, medium-range, intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. And it's irrespective of what you can bring to it.

Sure, I serve as the commander of U.S. Space Command, but that does not bias me toward a space solution. I'm for what works. And we're moving along that path.

Just coincidentally, one of the more important ways and efficient ways to bring down a missile is in the ascent or the boost phase, because then any debris falls probably on the nation that launched it. Geometry there is very important. And that would argue for things like airborne laser. It would argue for things like ship-based systems. And I think we're a ways away from any space-based solution.

So just because I wear this uniform, I very rarely think about myself as an Air Force officer. Next week, I'm going to go to the AFA (Air Force Association) convention because they're going to offer me some award.

MYERS: I will probably feel like an Air Force officer for a few hours that night. But the same would be true of my colleague here, Keith Kellogg (ph), who is our J-6 (ph) or director of communications, commander and control on the Joint Staff. I don't think Keith thinks of himself as an Army officer. He's trying to do what's best for the country.

MODERATOR: General, two very quick questions, please. We're running out of time here. We have specific questions about potential roles for Japanese forces, for Japan, and for German forces in a potential Iraq crisis.

MYERS: Well, I'm not going to get into talking about what other countries ought to do. That'll be their decision. And of course Japan has very unique circumstances that I know reasonably well.

Let me just tell you, though, that they have been terrific in supporting this global war on terrorism. They have provided I think it's 48 million gallons of fuel, and that's about a week old, to our Navy ships that are transiting the Pacific. And they've also participated in helping with security with their ships, originally around Diego Garcia and in other places. So of course Germany's involved in training police in Afghanistan.

There are lots of things to do. We have a lot of work left to do in Afghanistan in terms of security and in terms of reconstruction. There's lots of ways countries can contribute. And as I said, we have a coalition helping our military of about 90. The coalition is even bigger than that if you think about other contributions. And I'll let other-we'll just let other countries decide how they can best contribute.

MODERATOR: General Myers, on behalf of the National Press Club, allow me to present to you this certificate of appreciation for your being our guest today.

And the coveted National Press Club mug, appropriate for individual service or joint services coffee.

MYERS: It looks like a joint service thing. I'll hold this very close to my heart. Thank you.