Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me add to the chorus of those who have congratulated you both for your outstanding service, and Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers, especially for your moving and fitting tribute last week at the Pentagon, as well.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you.

Mr. LARSON. My question, I think as Mo Udall said, most of what needs to be said has been said; it is just another one that has said it. But moving forward, we distinguish ourselves from other nations by the rule of law, and obviously the case that has been made by the President from in front of the United Nations I think warrants us taking Saddam Hussein to the court of law and trying him as a war criminal. I would like to know your feelings about that. Second, General Myers, I am recently back from the Middle East as well, and having been to Incirlik and Prince Sultan and to Doha in Qatar, again, the men and women who were in the uniform in this country are outstanding, well equipped, well trained, a credit to this Nation. But one thing that came up in our discussions was the need for us to get out the humanitarian story about this Nation and all the things that we have been doing, and particularly, we talked about maybe even the need to embrace al-Jazeera and those in terms of the ongoing things that we are doing in a very positive nature. If you could comment on that.

And my third and probably most poignant and salient question from my standpoint is this whole idea of the war on terrorism. We have been saying from the outset that we have got to dry up resources. And when you look at Saddam Hussein, it becomes clear to me that the great enabler for Saddam Hussein is oil. It becomes clear to, I think, many of us, some from different perspectives than others, that in order for us to ultimately be tactically successful, when you look at the very nations and those who have gotten around sanctions from what I have read and from what we have heard in committee, it has been that they have end-run the sanctions in their desire to get control of oil. And whether that is France, whether that is Russia, whether that is China, whether that is multinational corporations, at the end of the day it is all about oil.

My question, then, is if in fact the President deems that with the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head and creating this regime change that has been sought in 1998 and is being pressed forward today, who will and what strategies-who will once we take over Iraq, who will control oil in Iraq?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I will take a couple here real quickly. The subject of war crimes of course is something that has been discussed. I don't know that there has been a resolution within the administration. With respect to the situation in Iraq and the fact that sanctions haven't worked well, I think historically they tend not to work over time. They get relaxed. The borders are quite porous. There is an awful lot of military equipment that flows back and forth across Iraq's borders. And you are quite right, the money comes from oil. They have that capability.

The answer is that, with respect to the last part, the President has obviously not made a decision. Those issues are not fully resolved, but there is no question but that the circumstance of Iraq

were the regime to be changed would be that they do have revenues from oils, and it would be managed by whatever government, temporary in the first instance and permanent thereafter, would exist. And

Mr. LARSON. Could those revenues be used to pay for the humanitarian effort in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and actually getting the money directed at the people that have been denied that money from the outset?

Secretary RUMSFELD. You would certainly think so and

Mr. LARSON. And that is the kind of thing that I think should be clarified.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Absolutely, and needless to say, they wouldn't be being spent on weapons of mass destruction and conventional capabilities to threaten their neighbors. That is where that revenue is going right now, the oil revenues. It is going for things that are in direct violation of the U.N. resolutions.

With respect to the humanitarian assistance, you might just want to comment.

General MYERS. You bet. I think first, we can do a better job of talking about what we have done in the humanitarian area. If you take Afghanistan, it was just after we started the conflict there that we had C-17s flying over the country dropping humanitarian rations. Now, these were not routine missions. We had F-15s and F-16s with them to protect them against the potential ground threat. They would slow down to a very slow air speed, making them very vulnerable to ground fire if they were to be engaged. So, I mean, it was not done without some risk, but it was thought to be so important to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe that we did that. And that is always part of any planning of any military operations. That continues in Afghanistan today, as you are well aware, with humanitarian, civil affairs projects, trying to make the life better for the Afghan people.

Have we communicated that perfectly? Probably not, and we need to do a lot better job of that. I totally agree with you.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank the gentleman, and the gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs. Davis.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Mr. Secretary, I think we all know the war on Afghanistan, we couldn't have done it without the carriers out there, and that is—I have two questions. One is when can we expect to see the public release of the Defense Science Board study on the CVNX? I think it was due last March, and as of yet I don't have any information that it has been released, and I would like the opportunity to review that.

My biggest question to you is at the beginning of your statement you said, "Iraq is part of the war on terror." Then later on you said, "Our job is to connect the dots before the fact." I have heard a lot of testimony about Iraq being somehow involved as terrorists or in the war on terror. Could you give me any specifics to tie them to the war on terror right now so that I can connect the dots back home?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, I don't know what you can do back home.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. With my constituents.

Secretary RUMSFELD. It is not clear to me what is public. There is no question but that there are that Iraq has been listed as a terrorist state for many years. Iraq has engaged in terrorist acts. Iraq has-is currently offering rewards to the families of children who do the suicide bombings. I think it is 20-$25,000 per family. There are currently al Qaeda in Iraq. There are other terrorist groups in Iraq.

The connection it seems to me, however, ought to be looked at slightly differently. There is no question but the Intelligence Community can give you a good deal of detail if one is looking for it, and they would be happy to do so.

But I don't know that. It seems to me the critical point is the one that Mr. Andrews raised, and it is that nexus between a country that is actively developing weapons of mass destruction that is known as a terrorist state and the use of those weapons, whether by them or through a proxy terrorist network, and it is that that has changed the equation in the world in this 21st century. So even if they did not have terrorist connections, which indeed they do, the potential they have to use terrorist networks to dispense weapons of mass destruction is what is qualitatively different in our current circumstance.

General MYERS. Could I add one thing? It is probably obvious, but I think it bears repeating, and that is, as you know, in Afghanistan as we would recover documents from al Qaeda and equipment, it left no doubt of their quest for weapons of mass destruction. I mean, there is absolutely no doubt that they have tried to make them. They have manuals on how to use them, how to disperse them, and it goes back to that nexus again. And I would say for one of the threats we are facing, al Qaeda, that they clearly— there is no doubt in anybody's mind that they want weapons of mass destruction and would use them.

Secretary RUMSFELD. I will look into the Defense Science Board for you.

Mrs. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, gentlemen.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Chairman, may I just make one comment to Congressman Kirk?

Mr. HUNTER. Absolutely.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Someone checked, and the answer is that today is September 18th, and this says that on September 17th, Operation Northern Watch aircraft reported receiving fire on three occasions at: 3:14, at 3:20 and at 3:30 a.m. eastern standard time on the 17th.

Mr. KIRK. So after the arrival of letter, Iraqi armed forces fired on coalition aircraft implementing a U.N. resolution?

Secretary RUMSFELD. I don't know what time the letter was delivered. I do know what time we were fired on.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentlemen, gentlewoman. Maybe the air defense folks in Iraq were at the Dairy Queen when the letter was sent out. They never got the word.

The gentlelady from California, Mrs. Davis.

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, General Myers, for being here and for spending so much time. I appreciate it.

I think the issue that you raised at the beginning of your testimony and my colleague has just mentioned it as well, I think the public is having difficulty connecting the dots with the war against terrorism, and in fact, what I hear in my district is that we haven't completed that war yet. And knowing the effort that still has to be made in Afghanistan, I guess I would ask, you know, does it surprise you that people are concerned about that, and how do you expect that we can continue to make that case if in fact you think that that is an important case to be made?

And the other issue that I wanted to raise was the question that is being asked of me is basically what will this war look like? I think that the American people are used to fairly antiseptic wars, and yet we know that given the situation that you have talked about, if in fact the weapon of mass destruction and biological and chemical weapons are mobile, that they are underground, that we have even said that the inspectors would never find them, you know, then how do we address them in a war against the weapons of mass destruction rather than the people of Iraq? Can you speak to this without obviously speaking in a classified fashion?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Thank you.

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. How can I answer my constituents on those issues?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Sure. It is interesting. I noted that the Iraqi Liberation Act passed the House in 1998 by a vote of 360 to 38, I am told, just overwhelming; you know, 10 times the support. What has taken place since that act has passed has been nothing good and all bad. My guess is that these first of all, it is-it ought not to be surprising it is not surprising to me and I don't think it ought to be surprising that these are tough issues, that we are in a new security environment as a country, that it is important that the public engage these issues and think about them and discuss them and analyze them, because they are enormously important questions, and we have seen a shift in how one defends one's self and it is just plain different today. And the American people will understand that as they think about it, and I think they have understood it, and increasingly.

What would war look like? You are right. You are not going to deal from the air with weapons of mass destruction. That is to say, if the President and the Congress and the country and the world decided that something needed to be done and Iraq was uncooperative, continued to be uncooperative, the idea that you could address their weapon of mass destruction capability from the air is just factually not true. It would take deep penetrators, and it would require capabilities that would not be pleasant to have to use.

That means you would have to address the problem from the ground, and what it would look like and how long it would last is not knowable, but it is a country that has probably got military capabilities, something like 40 percent of what it had 10 years ago, and ours are much more lethal. And it has got a population that is held hostage and is not enamored of the government, and it has a military that has a pattern of recognizing that it is better off not

fighting for terribly long. And yet, nonetheless, anyone who thinks it is easy or clean or antiseptic is wrong. It is a terribly difficult, dangerous business.

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Can you conceive of a situation where we really would not necessarily need to dismantle the underground network of weapons that they may have? Because I think the issue has been raised whether it is regime change or whether it is the disarmament, and in fact we may never be able to get to all the weapons of mass destruction.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Oh, it is doable if the regime wanted to cooperate, it is imminently doable. I mean, there are people there who know where they are. There are people who are if the regime said, look, enough of this nonsense, invading our neighbors and developing nuclear and chemical and biological weapons and threatening the regimes of neighboring states, threatening public officials of other governments, we are not going to do that anymore. We are going to cooperate. We are going to change. It is perfectly possible to go in there and get rid of all that stuff. It takes time. It takesyou have to do it from the ground, but it can be done.

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And Mr. Chairman, one more quick second, just whether or not we can conduct effective operations against Iraq with the help of-without the help of allies in the Middle East. Could we do it without their help?

General MYERS. I think we have I mean, we have addressed that in a couple previous questions, that we expect to have some help, and I think our reluctance to talk about exactly how to characterize that is probably for good and sufficient reason, but we would expect to have some help, matter of fact.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, General Myers, thank you very much for being here today. I think the testimony that you have provided has been very convincing, the facts that you have presented which have been in the American media over and over again, but thank you for reiterating that. But also, I really enjoyed the logic that you presented today in answering many of the questions and concerns, and I have a unique perspective. I, personally, am a very proud member of the Army National Guard currently, the only one serving in Congress. Additionally, I have three sons who are in the military in uniform, and so I have a concern and interest as a parent, but I also have faith in both of you. And I know of your devotion to those of us and our children who are in the military, and I just feel so confident with both of you in charge. It means a lot.

I also want to thank you, too, for your recognition of the role of the National Guard and Reserves. We are trained. We are committed. There will be no need for a national draft. Our personnel are very enthusiastic. I had the privilege of serving annual training at Fort Stewart in May and Fort Jackson in August, and I saw firsthand the active Guard and Reserve. There is a deep commitment. I also appreciated the testimony about the economic consequences of September the 11th, the murder of over 3,000 American citizens in New York, in Pennsylvania, at the Pentagon, but then the economic consequence that was itemized, Mr. Secretary,