01 April 1998
Pentagon Spokesman Ken Bacon briefed. ................ Q: Statements out of Saudi Arabia yesterday didn't seem to (be) very clear. They suggest possibly investigation of the Khobar Towers bombing was at an end or nearing an end. Do you know or does the Pentagon know whether the Saudis have completed this investigation? And are you all frustrated that you don't seem to be getting the results out of this? A: Well, first of all, as you know, it's the FBI that is working directly with the Saudis on the investigation of the terrorist attack against the Khobar Towers barracks in 1996. That investigation, from all our knowledge, is continuing on the Saudi side as well as the U.S. side. We have been working cooperatively with the Saudis on that, and we continue to do so. We've received no official word, and I checked this with the FBI yesterday; no official word from the Saudis that they have completed their investigation. Q: Do you feel any frustration at that? A: We're frustrated that we haven't been able to answer this very complex question, but it's not always easy to, as the German journalists in this room know from their own experience at investigating terrorist acts in Germany. Sometimes it takes a very long while to sort out who's responsible for a terrorist act. This is one of those frustrating cases where it's taking a long time. Everybody would like to be able to bring this case to closure. Everybody would like to bring the culprits to justice, and we'll continue to work to be able to do that. Q: Do you have any confidence that this thing will be settled, that culprits will be identified and punished? A: I am always hopeful that justice will be done. ................ Q: On another topic, what is the status of your revision of the report, which according to the Miami Herald, stated that Cuba does not represent a significant threat to U.S. national security? A: I don't know why you used the term "revision." There was, I think, an inaccurate newspaper report today suggesting that Secretary Cohen is delaying this report in order to revise it. Secretary Cohen has not seen the report yet. He's seen it when it's been held up like this, but he has not had a chance to read the report, and I don't even think he's received a final version of the report yet. Many reports are sent to Congress under the Secretary's signature. On a report dealing with a politically supercharged issue like Cuba, he wanted to read the report before it went to Congress, and he will have a chance to do that, but he hasn't had a chance to do that yet. When he does read the report, one of the things he's going to look at carefully is whether enough of the classified report has made its way into the unclassified report that can be made public. In other words, to make sure that the unclassified report is a true mirror of what's in the classified report. I suspect that will take a couple more days for him to complete. Q: So there will be an unclassified version that he'll release and make copies of? A: Yes. Yes, there will be an unclassified version that will be released. Q: And no assessment until he finishes? A: Well, there's not that assessment. There have been assessments in the past of the strength of the Cuban military. There was a fairly detailed assessment that was made public by the DIA a couple of years ago. It's available on the Internet. It was presented to Congress and you can go read that report, and you can make a decision whether the strength of the Cuban military has changed dramatically in the last two or three years. But we know that the Cuban military is small. We know that it only has about 60,000 people in it. We know it's primarily a defensive force. We know that it spends, that members of the military spend a lot of time, maybe up to 50 percent of their time, on self-maintenance, self-sustenance. Growing their own food, repairing their vehicles, etc. So we know a lot about the Cuban military, and a lot of this has been published before, and I invite you all to go back and look at it. Q: In general, what would you say has happened in the last two years since the last DIA report was done? A: Well, we all know that the Cuban economy has been in the tank, and usually you have to have a strong economy to sustain a strong military. And I'd say that's probably been the greatest pressure that the Cuban military has had to deal with over the last couple of years. Q: What does the Secretary think of General Sheehan's suggestion that there should be some sort of military contacts with the Cuban military? A: I don't know. I haven't discussed that with him. ................ ............. (end transcript)