Remarks welcoming general Tommy R. Franks and an exchange with reporters in Crawford, Texas

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 31, 2001

The President. Good morning. As you can see, I've invited a guest to come to the ranch. Tommy Franks is no stranger to Texas. After all, he was raised in Midland, Texas. And I'm looking forward to taking him over to the house here in a minute to say hello to Laura. Both of them went to Midland Lee High School, at about the same time.

But Tommy has just come back from the Afghan theater. He gave me a full briefing on what he saw and what he heard. We just got off of a teleconference with the national security team to discuss his trip and to discuss what's taking place in Afghanistan.

I want to thank you for coming, Tommy. I am real proud of the military, and I'm proud of the commander. Tommy has done everything we've asked. He is fulfilling the mission with patience and discipline and success. He's a down-to-earth, no-nonsense guy, precisely the kind of man we need to lead a complex mission such as this.

You know, a couple of months ago, a lot of people said that this administration and our military really weren't sure what we were doing. But I had confidence all along, and the reason why I did-confidence in the success of what we set out to do-was because I had a chance to be briefed by Tommy Franks on the strategy and on the plan and on how we were going to use our United States military. And he hasn't let us down. The country needs to be proud of the military, and one reason that I'm so pleased to welcome Tommy is to be able to say that out loud in Tommy's presence.

So I'm going to have Tommy say a few words, and then we'll be glad to answer a couple of questions.

General Franks. Thank you, Mr. President. As the President said, my wife and I recently have had an opportunity to be with a bunch of great young people, soldiers and sailors, airmen, marines, in the frontline states around Afghanistan and in Afghanistan, in Kandahar and at Camp Rhino and up in Kabul. We had a chance to meet with these young people who are doing the work for the Nation.

We also had a chance to attend the installation ceremony in Afghanistan, where we saw Mr. Karzai and members of that team form an interim government in Afghanistan, where for the first time in decades, more than 26 million people will have an opportunity to have their way represented in that government.

And the combination of seeing these great young people and seeing this momentous event just filled me with a desire to be able to brief the President on what's going on over there in the theater, on what our people are doing, how they feel about what they're doing.

And so, Mr. President, thanks very much for having me out here in Crawford.

The President. You bet.

Scott [Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press].

Videotape of Usama bin Laden/Military Tribunals

Q. Mr. President, what's your reaction to the new bin Laden tape this week? And do you fear he's now eluded the manhunt? Also, are you concerned that if military tribunals require a unanimous verdict for the death penalty, some terrorists could avoid execution?

The President. Let me start with the first of your three questions, which was what? I've already forgotten.

Q. What's your reaction to the bin Laden tape? Are you afraid he's eluded the manhunt?

The President. Oh, the tape, yes. I didn't watch it all; I saw snippets of it on TV. You know, it's-who knows when it was made. Secondly, he is not escaping us. I mean, this is a guy who 3 months ago was in control of a country; now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run.

Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden, but one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all.

So we don't know whether he's in a cave with the door shut or a cave with the door open; we just don't know. There's all kinds of reports and all kinds of speculation, but one thing we know is that he's not in charge of Afghanistan anymore. He's not in charge of the--he's not the parasite that had invaded the host, the Taliban; we know that for certain. And we also know that we're on the hunt, and he knows that we're on the hunt. And I like our position better than his.

In terms of whether or not the tribunals will be able to render the justice necessary, that--I spoke to the Secretary of Defense today about the story in the newspaper. Evidently, somebody in our Government wanted to show off to his family or her family in between Christmas and New Year's by leaking information in the press that he or she thought would be helpful to the Government. The truth of the matter is the Secretary of Defense hadn't even seen the report that was on the front page of America's newspapers. So my answer to your question, Scott, is I know that the leaked report is preliminary, that they're still in discussions about how best to bring justice. But one thing is for certain, that whatever the procedures are for the military tribunals, our system will be more fair than the system of bin Laden and the Taliban. That is for certain. The prisoners that we capture will be given a heck of a lot better chance in court than those citizens of ours who were in the World Trade Center or in the Pentagon w ere given by Mr. bin Laden.