MR. BACON: Good afternoon.
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QCan we return just a moment to the Egypt Air crash?
MR. BACON: Sure.
QJust so we have it on the public record, were there any military aircraft, ships, operations of any kind, operating anywhere near this area? Did any of the military systems pick up any aspect of this plane going down; communications, radar, heat signatures, anything else?
MR. BACON: I cannot answer that question. But I believe -- I cannot answer it definitely. I believe the answer is no.
QTo all the above?
MR. BACON: Yes. But I will check again on the picking-up SIGINT, IMINT, radar, anything else. But I will double-check on that.
QAnd on the same subject, you have a list -- you have the manifest of the passengers. You are not aware of any of these people or any schools they have attended recently, any programs they have participated in recently? Or are you waiting for a complete list of all the officers?
MR. BACON: I am waiting for the Egyptian government to make a decision that the appropriate time has come to release the manifest and information about people on the manifest. The last we checked with them, which was this morning, they asked us not to release any details because they have not notified all the next of kin. And I think they are in the process of doing that now.
When they have completed that, then I assume that the manifest will be released and we can discuss who these people were and what they were doing. But they have asked us not to talk about what they were doing at this stage, because that would identify some of the people. So that's where we stand.
QSo you have some awareness at this point, but you are just not at liberty to discuss it?
MR. BACON: That is correct. And I don't know how accurate my awareness is. We have reports on what some of the people were doing over here but not on what all of the people were doing here.
QIs there any reason to believe -- there was some speculation yesterday that these people may have constituted targets.
MR. BACON: I would urge you away from all speculation. I'm going to stick with what the head of the National Transportation Safety Board has said, which is it's too early to rule in anything or to rule out anything. We just simply do not know enough to make any conclusions about what might have happened or what could have been the cause of it.
QBut you have no reason to believe that these people would have been targeted in any --
MR. BACON: I have no reason to believe that, based on what I know, that there was any targeting or any terrorist involvement. But it's -- frankly, it's too early to make a statement that's definitive. We just don't know enough, as the head of the NTSB has said, to rule in anything or rule out anything right now.
QThe Bright Star was last month. Every two years American forces and, I gather, a lot of other countries join with the Egyptian Army maneuvers in Egypt. Has there been any fundamentalist protest about the Bright Star exercises in the past?
MR. BACON: Not that I'm aware of. I'm not aware that there were this time, either. I didn't read about them. But I haven't asked the question if there were any fundamentalist protest. These are very huge exercises. I think there were 73,000 people in the last Bright Star exercise. The main complaints came from Iraq, as I understand it.
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QOne more question on Egypt Air. Does the U.S. government have a policy of not allowing large numbers of military officers to fly together on a commercial flight? And are you aware of whether Egypt has a policy like that?MR. BACON: No, I don't know what the Egyptian flight policies are.
Egypt has a huge military. And they have very large FMS Program, Foreign Military Sales Program, with the United States. They spend about $1.3 billion a year over here on a variety of weapons.
We co-produce Abrams tanks in Egypt with the Egyptians. They have bought a variety of aircraft, F-16s, a variety of helicopters. And of course, when they buy these weapons, they have to buy spare parts; they have to train people. They have reasons to come over and talk to contractors. And some of the people over here were talking to contractors. So there are people coming in and out of the United States from Egypt all the time, military officers.
Currently, we reckon there are about 73 Egyptians in various courses in the United States, IMET courses primarily. These obviously -- they're still here, so they weren't on the airplane. But they're in a whole variety of courses, involving contract management or medical care, et cetera. And they are coming and going all the time. Having said all that, I don't know what their rule is or our rule in terms of putting people on commercial aircraft.
Okay.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov1999/t11021999_t1102asd.html