unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/12/89)
DOD NEWS BRIEFING BY ASD/PA PETE WILLIAMS
TUES. SEPT 5, 1989
Good afternoon. First of all, a couple of housekeeping matters,
I guess you could say.
We will not have a regular briefing in here on Thursday.
Thursday at noon will be the briefing on the IOWA report. So if
we have anything that we need to tell you that's urgent, I
suppose we could do that very briefly at the beginning,
otherwise we'll get it to you in writing. We have no illusions
that anything we say here would compete with the IOWA story.
Q: Who will be there?
A: My understanding is it will be Admiral Milligan who conducted
the investigation; it'll be the Vice Chief of Naval Operations
and there'll be other Navy personnel there to assist.
Q: Will there be an NIS person?
A: My understanding is that there will be some NIS person there,
but I'm not sure who it is.
Q: Will we get advance copies to read?
A: You'll have to ask the Navy about that. I don't believe that
is their plan.
Q: Will it be a televised briefing?
A: It'll be a regular briefing here in our briefing room, right
here in the PA studio. It'll for cameras; it'll be totally on
the record.
The briefing itself will take 30 to 40 minutes something like
that. It's a very thorough briefing.
A couple of other announcemnts.
The aircraft carrier USS AMERICA will transit the Suez Canal
today, on its way to the Mediterranean for a previously
scheduled replacement of the carrier USS CORAL SEA. Three ships
of the AMERICA battlegroup will go with the AMERICA today
through the canal, and the other three will follow tomorrow. As
you know, the CORAL SEA is returning to the United States as
previously announced to prepare for decommissioning.
Three ships of the AMERICA battlegroup, including a
guided-missile cruiser, a guided-missile destroyer, and a combat
support ship will come with the CORAL SEA back to the United
States. The other three ships, which are members of the USS
AMERICA battlegroup, a guided missile cruiser, a destroyer, and
a frigate, are joining the U.S. Sixth Fleet, as previously
scheduled, for the rest of their deployments.
If you need any further details, I refer you to the Navy. We'll
have a memorandum for correspondents on the turnover.
Now Colombia, let me give you the latest that we have on that and
after that, I'd be happy to take any questions that you might
have.
The list of equipment to be provided to assist the government of
Colombia in its counter-narcotics effort is final. The list has
been worked out. The schedule for shipment of the equipment,
and for sending DoD personnel who will provide training as
required, that is still being worked out. The goal is to send
the equipment on a schedule that allows the Colombian military
and police to immediately use the material as it arrives.
Two C-130s arrived as scheduled on Sunday and eight OA-37s
arrived on Monday as scheduled. And just a short while ago, a
C-5 cargo plane arrived in Colombia as scheduled, carrying five
UH-1 utiliity helicopters and some bulletproof vests for the
judicial protection program. Those helicopters are part of the
counter-narcotics program. Now, I said Friday that the
helicopter were part of a foreign military sales package, but
the final decision was to make them available to Colombia under
the President's emergency plan.
As for the rest of the equipment, other items on the list are
being con- solidated from DoD stocks and will be shipped as soon
as possible. The Colombian government has given priority to
meeting law enforcement needs, followed by the needs of the
Colombian military in meeting their counter- narcotics mission.
Subsequent shipments will include trucks, jeeps, ambu- lances,
communications equipment, medical supplies and small arms -- such
as machine guns, grenade launchers, and pistols.
So far, about a dozen U.S. personnel have been sent to Colombia
from the Southern Command to help unload, reassemble, and
distribute equipment.
That's all I have and I'd be happy to answer your questions.
Q: In light of the attack on the State Department airplane, are
they sending additional security personnel to guard our aircraft
while they're on the ground?
A: I've seen no discussion of that.
Q: Are they going to send any helicopters aside from the five?
Does tha list include any helicopters -- are you going to give
us that list?
A: The list remains classified now. I don't know the reasons
that it's classified. I've asked for those and they were
provided to me just before I walked in here and I didn't have a
chance to read the explanation. The list itself remains
classified, whether it's at the request of the Colombians or
what, I don't know. We'll take the question on whether there are
further helicopters on the list. It's a good question, I just
don't know.
Q: You can't tell us how many machine guns, how many grande
launchers?
A: Oh heavens, I can't remember all that stuff.
Q: I mean you can't provide us that list at all?
A: We'll see. I just don't know the answer yet on how much
detail we can provide you about that list. As I say, it remains
classified and anything that we've discussed here in the
briefing room about numbers of aircraft and helicopters has been
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