I've been doing this business for more than 35 years. In my personal experience, this is the first time where I've seen those constellations lined up in a way that I think we see them now. The decision by our government with respect to a global approach to a war on terrorism - the will of the American people - is beyond anything most of us younger people have seen. And military capacity led by this incredible aerospace team, beyond anything that I've ever experienced.

Secretary Roche, General Jumper, my buddies Ed Eberhart, CINC Trans and Hal Hornburg and Speedy Martin. And those of you with whom I've served off-and-on for a long time. It is an honor to be here with this great association.

There are a great many heroes in this audience, a great many patriots. And anyone who would stand before you ought to be in awe. I am. And I don't make apology for that. You are very special. This organization has been supporting the Armed Forces of the United States of America for a long, long time. To those of us who are not stationed in the continental United States, it is terribly important to have associations like this, because you represent us so well. You represent the men and women who wear the uniform, in this case, our Air Force. And you do it so well. And all the alums, the people who have worn the uniform so proudly and served so courageously for this nation, who are part of this association, I am really honored to be here.

As I stand here this morning, I am very proud of the fact that Operation Enduring Freedom, associated with our efforts in the Central Command region, a bit more than 79,000 men and women in uniform, more than 60 war ships, some 600 aircraft from 15 nations participating in what we continue to do. More than 50 nations supporting these efforts. I think that we have started on a long journey. The global war on terrorism means what the name implies-global. Our assets - your assets - have been employed with great effect in our theater and so my congratulations, not only to you as the sponsors, owners and lovers of those young people who are doing the work, but also to them for what they do.

I want to acknowledge also at this point a contribution by some great airmen. First, our first CFAC as we started this operation, General Chuck Wald. What a magnificent airmen, friend, contributor beyond anything I suspect most will ever know. Lieutenant General Chuck Wald is absolutely tremendous. [Applause]

And the one who stepped into his shoes and does an equally remarkable job today over in the area as our CFAC, Buzz Mosley, another tremendous airman, doing you a hell of a job.

My personal confidant and friend, and I can't see because of the way the lights are, is Gene Renuart in the audience. This is probably the best J3 we have serving anywhere on active duty today. Remarkable for the fact that I believe today is probably, or sometimes this week was probably, the first day off Gene has had since the 11th of September. [Applause]

Success is achieved by our forces in this operation. Remarkable and let the record reflect, more than 250…people tell me 267 bases around this planet have been points of origin for assets that have been delivered. Oh, by the way, all by air, into the Afghanistan theater of war. [Applause]

More than 30 countries represented as we look at those 250 or 260 plus bases. And on the 7th of October, I think history will reflect that we started operations over Afghanistan. And on that day, more than 80 percent of the country was controlled by the Taliban. In fact, Al Qaeda and more terrorist networks were in existence in that country. The anti-Taliban or opposition forces were on the defensive and that is the 7th September. Al Qaeda was entrenched in camps all over that country. We have talked for a long time about state-sponsored terrorism and we have talked about trans-national terrorism. It occurs to me that Afghanistan, on that day, was a terrorist-sponsored state, which is a bit of a different thing. But then again, the efforts that we have all seen inside Afghanistan have been different than anything that we have seen before.

Well, by the 20th of October, virtually all of the air defenses and early warning systems in Afghanistan had been destroyed by airpower. And so, perhaps at that point, conditions were set for us to move in to conduct some special operations work that was done on the ground - the introduction of our Special Forces. I think it was about the 20th of October that we put the first high-end direction action raid into the very home of Mullah Omar in downtown Khandahar. What a remarkable feat! Well done and very successful. [Applause]

And at that same time, Special Forces were linking up with opposition leaders in Northern Afghanistan so that they could do a couple of things. One was leverage the incredible operational fires provided by you and yours. And the second was to provide for the logistics support and sustainment of those forces, which as it would turn out, would be the conventional forces or what we would call Operational Maneuver, which was introduced in the theater.

Twenty days later, Mazzar E Sharref fell and the land bridge to Central Asia from Afghanistan was opened for the first time in years. In rapid succession we saw Heurat, Jalalabad, and Kabul fall by the middle of December. Our magnificent Marine Corps troopers had in fact taken the airport in Khandahar. And the Taliban capital was in the hands of anti-Taliban forces. Within weeks, the Taliban had been destroyed as a cohesive entity and what remained were pockets of isolated fighters. That war continues today. There is work to be done as these puddles and pockets are routed out.

The Taliban has certainly been removed from power and, for the first time in years, a government was introduced in downtown Kabul on the 22th of December. I had an opportunity to be there at the inauguration of Hamid Karzai. What a remarkable day. Someone asked me at one point, "you know with all the problems, does Afghanistan have a future?" And I said, "hopefully."
One thing I can tell you for sure is they do have a chance. And that had not been the case before the introduction of work by the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition, lead during each stage by you and yours, airpower. [Applause]

As we undertook this operation, there were several lines of thought, lines of continuity, lines of operation that were introduced in the theater simultaneously, not sequentially. These had to do with operational fires. Airpower. It had to be with direct action operations. It had to do with humanitarian aid. It had to do with the leverage of conventional ground forces. These opposition forces that in fact took their country back from the Taliban.
Precision engagement. Oh well, precision engagement, the lynchpin of this operation. And I suspect we have seen the first glimpse of precision engagement as it was described in Joint Vision 2020. It is also about information superiority. It is about our Space Command and the leadership of Ed Eberhart, the team which since day one has been a part of our organization, setting the pace and leading the way for those activities as we have worked with everyone in Washington to get that done in competent fashion. Incredible.

The application of this force in time and space, as I guess we have all envisioned it for a long time, permitted us to select courses of action to execute those courses of action, to take advantage of effect, to re-engage as necessary, and all the while to minimize collateral damage, which is a center of gravity for support of the people, more than 26,000,000 of them who live in Afghanistan, was certainly not to be forgotten.

But it seems to me that the business of information, as it has played in this work, can't be over stated. Information, up to this point, is something that we had labored with and worried with and 2500 years ago, Sun Tzu, who some say was a great Chinese philosopher, others say general, said it only takes a couple things to be successful on a battlefield. The first is a competent knowledge of yourself and [the second is] competent knowledge of the threat. It occurs to me that, while far from perfect, we have seen glimpses of what the future may hold.

At the same time, high-end special operating force activity, non-stop - irrespective of the views of many - started probably in early October and continues to this day on the ground. Today more than nine nations contribute special operating forces to this activity. It was active yesterday, you know, the day before, and it will be active tomorrow as well. Much to be appreciated, but not singled out for appreciation because in fact it has been the combination of the air-ground-space capability which have brought us to the point where we stand today, with much to be done.

Also, much of which to be proud. Operational fires, precision engagement across the full-spectrum of our capabilities. What we wanted to do was take advantage of multiple lines of operation because one doesn't know at the outset of a fight which particular line may produce the desired result. What was the desired result? The desired result, as President Bush has said, was to destroy terrorist networks inside Afghanistan and the illegitimate state that sponsored them. So we should feel very good about that at this particular point in time.

Also, having been well-said, much remains to be done. More than 60 countries on the record as places where active terrorist networks exist. Much remains to be done, but that doesn't mean that we or America should not recognize the incredible job that these young people have done. Hunter-killer operations, the leverage of a good deal of high technology - heretofore untested technology - strikes and re-strikes, direct action and the employment of sensor-shooter grids, unlike we have seen in the past. Our ability to both plan for and count on ISR intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, space-based and air breathing. Incredible. [Applause]

Humanitarian operations, seeking to give a future to people who were in numbers of more than 7,000,000, doubtful of the future on the 7th of October. Multi-national, inter-agency efforts that I think history will reflect as truly remarkable. The ability to coordinate, collaborate, cooperate in ways that we may not have seen before. The most precise war in America's history, to be sure beyond question. The most precise war in our history. It has been oft-said, more than I think 18,000 munitions delivered into this particular war fight, 10,000 of those precision. Incredible. [Applause]

And so what you have is, you have some people on the ground, working with opposition forces, conventional forces, leveraging incredibly precise airpower at places and times of our choosing.

Initiative-our initiative. Much to be learned from that, I think. The combination of assets with global reach. The work by incredibly devoted people in B-2 bombers from Whitman, B-1Bs, also. We are flying halfway around the world, we are on 44-hour missions and we are delivering close air support. From 35,000 feet and doing a helluva job. [Applause]

The U.S. Air Force and how about some firsts? Being sort of late in the program, you probably have already heard a good deal about firsts. I'll by no means capture all of them, but there are some that pop up on my scope and I think they are much to be respected. The longest combat fighter mission in history, more than 15 hours. Incredible job by people who were on-again, off-again targets, waiting and waiting and then doing the job precisely, as you would like to see it done.

Surveillance mission. More than 26 hours on one particular surveillance mission with which I am familiar. The largest and most complex use ever of unmanned aerial vehicles, of multiple varieties in this particular effort. A sortie rate that approaches 100 percent. If you are a CINC, you count on everything to be where you need to have it at the time that you need to have it there. Incredible work when you can sort of receive about 100 percent of what you count on thanks to great young people on the ground and great young people in the air, some of them coming out of Europe, some coming out of Central Asia, some coming out of places in the Middle East.

There is much to be proud of. [Applause]

Every infiltration and exfiltration and every supply sortie done by air. With all respect to those who accomplished something incredible during the Berlin Airlift; it seems to me, that the duration, size, intensity and the result of these aviation efforts into and out of Afghanistan are beyond what we may have ever planned for.

First opening of U.S. air bases in Central Asia. An incredible thing, not often mentioned. Largest Red Horse construction effort, I think, since Vietnam. The Red Horse poured more than 190,000 square yards of ramp space at nine different airfields over in our AOR. If that doesn't sound like something special, go out and look at a cubic yard of concrete. I mean, man, right now more than 90 individual projects going on. Red Horse work and over in our area.

First JDAM, all-weather CAS. I was looking through some numbers the other day and I saw where on one occasion more than 100 JDAMs were delivered in a 20-minute period. Unbelievable. The good news is, that they did exactly what we needed to have them do. The bad news, we need a lot of JDAMs. What an incredible capability. [Applause]

Delivery of more than 50,000,000 leaflets, one of which sold on Ebay for $147.80. Oh God, I'm glad I've got a Xerox machine. [Laughter]
Psychological operations, influence operations, for a very sophisticated purpose. For example, to tell the people of Afghanistan where to tune their radio so that they can get some news, other than that which has been broadcast for years by the Taliban. Leaflets telling people what mines look like and to stay away fro them. Leaflets that today provide the content of remarks by Harmad Karzai, the interim authority in Afghanistan.

More than 2,500,000 humanitarian daily rations delivered, all by air-giving people a chance. Eight hundred and fifteen tons of wheat. Fifty thousand blankets, all by air. And if you roll in the work that was done to support combatant forces over there, those numbers jump to 1,700 tons of wheat and 328,000 blankets. It reminds me of a time at Ramstein Air Base, two and a half months ago, when I had a chance to crawl around in some C-17s with airmen and ground crews who were incredibly proud of what they were doing on the humanitarian side to help the people of Afghanistan. It is not reported nearly enough, the contribution by these people and the thousands of hours put into that work. [Applause]

Well, a lot of people did some good things. You know the U.S. Navy steamed the Kitty Hawk more than 6,000 miles at flank speed so that she could serve as a forward-operating base for Special Operation Forces. I think everywhere you look, everyone was working with pure motive and pure heart to try to do the nation's work and I think we all should be very proud of that. We should be very proud of some of the experimental linkages that people in this very room, Mr. Secretary, have been responsible for. Things that had to do with end-to-end linkage of sensor platforms from JSTARS, Global Hawk, Predator, U2 and on and on so that we can do what Sun Tzu described 2,500 years ago, but until this particular fight we never had quite been able to put together.

Let's be informed by what we have seen. Revolutionary fusion of not only information but energy, of functional commands, the CFAC, the CFLC, the Joint Force Maritime Component commander, combined special operations task force operating in this theater, and the ability they have seemed to find to put their act together along with guys, much reported, riding on horseback. My God. Unbelievable.

Close air support and interdiction fires, in support of people riding around on horses. I think Secretary Rumsfeld said the other day something about the 19th century cavalry and the 21st century airpower. It occurred to me while we were talking about that, that all of that seems to me to have been fused by James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Unbelievable. Horse-mounted fax. And those of us who were sitting over here a minute ago thinking about forward-air control and forward observation and stuff from the Vietnam era are frequently referred to as "old folks."

Well, I remember from Desert Storm times. I hope you are not needing to go to the head or anything because they told me that lunch followed this and I can talk damn near long as I want to. Thank you.

Somebody asked President Bush how long was this war was going to take and he said, "as long as it takes." I am hopeful to finish my remarks before that time comes. [Laughter]

As a matter of fact, I remember when I was nine years old and in fourth grade. I was reading a rather remarkable book about Julius Ceasar. It said Julius Ceasar was a general. Julius Ceasar made long speeches. They killed him. [Laughter]

It won't be that long. It won't be that long. I was thinking about Desert Storm and I was thinking about an observation that my namesake, General Freddy Franks, who was the VII Corps commander during Desert Storm, made at one point during that battle. He said, "damn." That's what he said, "tourists have better pictures of the Iraqis than I have."

That was the case in Desert Storm and I cannot stand here and tell you that the same applied to us because of the work done by these ISR platforms. I think we have had a pretty fair look at what was going on on the ground and I think at some point the world will know just how incredibly competent the whole ISR thing, the whole space-management system, operated as a part of all of this.

We ought to be proud of it. During this piece of Enduring Freedom, wow, only about 200 sorties a day. But the hell of it is that the 200 sorties today have hit roughly the same number of targets that we hit with 3,000 a day during Desert Storm. And I don't know what other people have told you, but I'll tell you the truth. It has its own virtue.

During Desert Storm, it took an average of about 10 airframes to strike a target. We used about 10 airframes per target. In Enduring Freedom, we struck two targets per aircraft.

So what have we learned about this operation so far? Well, the answer is, not nearly enough. We need to learn what is to be learned, and what is to be learned from this that we ought to keep are the truths that have enduring value. The things that we ought to quickly forget are the things that were situationally dependent as to not need to be carried forward so that we prepare ourselves to fight the last fight. And Mr. Secretary, we will not do that.

What we'll do is we'll try to take the right lessons as we move forward. There are some things that I think we are going to want to continue to think about and that is the incredible flexibility of the use of bombers to do things like close air support. There is power in being able to carry lots of this ordinance. I think we are going to have to continue to wrap our arms around this business of the flexibility we gain by having a balance of multiple types of platforms because what served well in Afghanistan may not be the precise trick that we need in the next fight. I think the balance that this department exercises is incredibly important.

I think we have made vast improvements in linking sensors and shooters, to include new things like unmanned aerial vehicles and old things like AC-130s and the power of being able to mix and match in accordance with the requirements of the mission, the enemy we happen to be facing, and the forces we have available. It will remain a power for us. I think we have learned of the necessity of things like the C-17, and so much work goes into that.

We've learned an awful lot about tanker refueling platforms, KC-10s, KC-135s, how many it takes to do what we need to do, and I think those are lessons that will probably serve us well in the future.

We are going to have to continue to link people, human to human, recognizing the dynamics of everything from personality to character. All positive here. But these relationships are something that will be an enduring truth for the future. I think about time spent with Hal Hornburg and times with airmen with whom I've worked for a long, long time. I think that, in this particular case, those relationships paid dividends that we ought to carry in the future and we ought to think about every way we can to have things like war-fighter talks and those kinds of things that bring service to service because they have powerful, powerful results.

We've learned a lot about how much we can count on precision engagement. I have told a great many people in my own service as well as the U.S. Marine Corps. Frequently in the past we have talked from a ground-force perspective, about the power of air, but we have actually been willing to count on it. And what I've told all my friends and neighbors, is "by God, you can count on it." [Applause]

That is a powerful thing. That is a lesson that we ought to carry forward with us. Neither Desert Storm nor Operation Enduring Freedom or any of the other operations that we have conducted tell us precisely about the future. We are pretty sure that the future is going to have certain characteristics and we ought to pay attention to them so that, while we may be tactically surprised, we do not permit ourselves to be strategically surprised. General Billy Mitchell, once upon a time, said airpower has the power of offense always with it. We choose the time, the place and the method of attack. If we carry anything forward with us out of Enduring Freedom, that probably ought to be it. He said that a long time ago, that defensive operations never win. Offensive operations do.
One of the characteristics of aerospace power is the ability around this planet to do what we choose to do at points and times of our choosing; the global war on terrorism, with much remaining to be done.

Afghanistan is just the beginning of what will be, as described, what will be long and hard and dangerous and difficult. Isn't it a great thing that we can all work this together? This is not going to stop with the Taliban. It is not going to stop with Al Qaeda cells inside Afghanistan. No, it is not going to stop with the killing or capturing of bin Laden. No. we have a lot of work to be done and so we are going to be about it for a time.

Where is the real success story in all of this? The success story has to do with the human spirit. The success story has to do with airmen and sailors and Marines and soldiers and some very brave civilians. It has to do with special operation troopers who, despite the fog and the friction, can start ugly and finish hard and finish strong. It is about success, up to this point, a long ways away from our own shores in a way of which America should be proud, has every right to be proud.

I am hopeful that, as we continue to do what we will surely do in the weeks, months, years ahead, everyone will remember that, at the end of the day, this is about young people serving half a world away from everything they treasure. Many people will ask, from time to time, "is the prize worth the price?" Indeed it is, because the prize that all of this is about has to do with your and my children and grand-children. Great work up to this point, much remains to be done. The prize is something we cannot afford to forfeit, will not forfeit. We need to recognize where we are and be proud of ourselves, be proud of our people, as I truly am honored to be with you and terribly proud of what this Air Force does for our country.

God bless you and God bless America. [Applause]

Q. Which of the experimental technologies or procedures tried over the last four and a half months has most impressed you and what would you suggest be accelerated into full capability?

General Franks: That is a great question. What has impressed me most is our ability to gain information, lash that information together, and use it. What the future holds is exploitation of information. What the future holds is a move from industrial thought processes and industrial ways of doing our business to the management of information. It is about know yourself and know the enemy. We could talk specifically about everything from streaming video to the linkages of various airborne platforms that provide that information, but what it is all about for the future is our ability to leverage information.

Q. Comment on the role of Special Forces and their contribution to precision strike and defeat of the Taliban?

General Franks: There is a phenomenon that associates itself with the precision of weapons-the precision only serves us when it relates to enemy targets and one of the things that is very, very difficult is to keep a target stationary for long enough for us to, in every case, be able to leverage precision.

What happens is, in this business of knowing the enemy and knowing self, knowing the enemy is very simply facilitated by having someone on the ground who has the ability to see the target and maintain contact with the target so that the coordinates we use for that target, as we achieve that incredible precision in terms of circular error probable, happens to wrap itself around what we want to kill. The Secretary [Rumsfeld] was chiding me not long ago in his office about being hard on Title X guys. I am because CINCs, operators, don't really do a whole lot with man, equip, train and sustain forces and so forth.

The thing that is overpowering to me is the jointness of the team when it comes together, the ability to not have a land campaign and a special operations campaign and an air campaign. The business is about having a war fight. And what overwhelms me and makes me proud and humble at the same time is the ability to put all of those could-be, would-be campaigns together in a war fight that talks about where we have come from, from where we have come. It takes us into where want to go in the future-the ability to deliver precision, that is a check in the "yes" block. The ability to have the precision not only precise, but precisely in the right place, is helped by people on the ground.

The future says sometimes we will find ground power supported by airpower. Oh well. The future also says that we will, in some cases, have airpower leveraged by ground forces. The trick is to put pieces and parts, whether they represent our own services or whether they represent coalition offerings, together in a way that will plug and play so that we get to where we are trying to go, which is the objective that we start out to get to in the first place. It takes, in my view, all of the above. Not one more than the other. Because it will be more than the other for one this time and it will be more of the other than it is for the one the next time. I hope that makes sense. Look, I'm from Texas for God's sake. [Applause]

Q. Do you believe that bin Laden is alive and if so, when are we going to get him?

General Franks: That is a good question. It really isn't a hard question. I believe he is alive until I see him dead. Ok? I haven't seen him dead so that much means he is alive. Where he is beats the hell out of me. I don't know where he is. But that answer is not nearly as instructive as the rest of the answer, which is, "it doesn't make any difference where he is."

The fact of the matter is that our president said right from the beginning of this, "it will take as long as it takes." What we are going to do is we are going to destroy this network, we are going to destroy this illegitimate government. We are going to pay attention to the places all over this planet where we have this problem that threatens our way of our life, threatens the way of life of people with values and of value all over the world. Bin Laden is a leader of this. There are other leaders. And so what we will do is we will simply continue until that particular problem is solved. It remains a matter of time. And by the way, my four and a half year-old grand daughter asked me the same question.

Q. Do you see us sustaining bases in the former Soviet Union and in the 'Stans over a long period of time?

General Franks: Same answer sort of as the bin Laden answer-as long as it takes. America makes very willful decisions about where we will permanently base and stage forces around the world. Decisions on permanency have not been made with respect to Central Asia. So, what we want to do is maintain the relationships and the cooperation that we have in Central Asia, for example, for as long as it takes us to accomplish this mission. And I think the conditions are set for us to do just that.

Q. Folks from all over America are in this audience. What message would you have take to them and share with our friends and neighbors?

General Franks: Tell them how magnificent and remarkable these airmen are. It is always easy for people in ground services-Army and Marine Corps-to talk about how hard life is in the foxhole and all of that. And we are proud of that. We make a lifestyle of it. What I think is not well known is the incredible hardship that these young airmen are putting up with all over this planet in order to be able to successfully wage this war on terrorism. [Applause]

As we have representatives here probably from all 50 states, go home and tell your families and tell your friends that these airmen are much to be respected and much to be counted upon and they are a major reason why the United States of America is what the United States of America is. [Applause]

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