TALIBAN COMPOUND FOUND, RAIDED, CAPTIVES TAKEN

United States special operations forces attacked a Taliban compound in a mountainous area north of Kandahar on January 23, according to a Pentagon official.

Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the operation at a January 24 Pentagon briefing as a raid, and said Taliban fighters were killed, one U.S. Special Forces soldier was wounded, and 27 Taliban were captured. Those captured are now among the 455 detainees in U.S. custody -- 297 in Afghanistan and 158 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 27 new detainees were being assessed to determine possible leadership elements among them, Myers said.

In response to questions, Myers said the compound consisted mostly of above-ground structures. He said the U.S. soldier's wound was from live fire, not a sprain or bone break. He also declined to specify the number of Taliban fighters killed, but said it "would never be described as 'a walk in the park.'"

IRAQI ANTI-AIRCRAFT, SURFACE-TO-AIR SITES ATTACKED

U.S. and coalition aircraft attacked Iraqi anti-aircraft and surface-to-air missile sites while enforcing Operation Southern Watch, the southern no-fly zone over Iraq, Myers said. The three strikes occurred January 21, 23 and 24, in response to coalition aircraft being fired upon by Iraqi forces, he said. Precision-guided munitions were used, and the results of the strikes were still being assessed, Myers said.

FISCAL '03 DEFENSE BUDGET TO REVERSE LONG "PROCUREMENT HOLIDAY"

Drawn into a preview of the fiscal year 2003 defense budget, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who briefed along with Myers, said it will address a "procurement holiday" which began as an understandable result of the Cold War ending, but which continued for too long.

"The funds for infrastructure, for hangars and housing for the men and women in the armed services, and roads and sewers and all the things that you have to have, they were under funded, and not a little bit ... but a lot. And it wasn't for a year or two, but many years," Rumsfeld said.

"And as a result, instead of having infrastructure recycled and refurbished on a regular basis of something like 40- ... 50 years, which is normal in the private sector, it's up at 190 years. And that's unacceptable," Rumsfeld added.