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Q: Another topic. Operation TAILWIND. Can you just tell us if the Pentagon has made any progress in finding any key evidence that would either confirm or refute CNN's report of last Sunday night?
A: Several days ago, the Secretary of Defense -- in fact, on Tuesday, just two days ago -- the Secretary of Defense formally asked the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of the Army and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to conduct investigations into the report and to get back to him in 30 days. So they have now had two out of 30 days to do this.
I am not aware that there is any new information that has come out on this. Well, certainly, I am not aware of any information that has come out to support the charges that -- or the assertion that -- sarin gas was used by U.S. forces on U.S. forces in Laos in September of 1970.
But I think we need to let the process work. The investigation was requested. The review was requested by the Secretary so we could get to the bottom of this quickly and efficiently, and we've got 28 days to go.
Q: Will you at any point release the -- some sort of -- give us some sort of idea of how many people are working on this and how many hours they're spending so that we've got some of confidence that this was, in fact, a thorough investigation and review?
A: I think that it's premature to make that -- at the end we will tell you, yes. Our goal here is to produce reports in which everyone can have confidence, and we will do what we need to do to make sure that the public does have confidence in our findings.
Q: Now, you said that they were supposed to get back in about 30 days. Do you anticipate that the declassification process for some of the documents will be done by then, or will that be a process that takes longer than 30 days?
A: I think the declassification process is largely complete, and I would hope that documents will be available soon. Some may be available as early as today. But there will be certainly other documents available before the end of the 30-day review period.