News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Bob Necci & Carol Hrdlicka, Andi Wolos
(POW-MIA FaxNetwork)

Re: Defense Briefing on Cambodia

Date: July 08, 1997

DoD News Briefing Transcript

Tuesday, July 8, 1997 - 1:30 p.m. (EDT)
Captain Mike Doubleday, USN, DASD(PA)

Q: Do you have any information on troop movements or precautionary preparations for possible evacuation of the embassy in Cambodia?

A: First of all, I'll be glad to give you a rundown on what I know on that subject, but I want to point out that as you might imagine, people over at the State Department and in the embassy in Phnom Penh are focused very much on the safety of American citizens who are in Cambodia. This is, of course, a constant process of assessing what the situation is.

At this point, the ambassador has not made a decision regarding any kind of assistance from the U.S. military. Having said that, however, I can tell you that the military, always anxious to be prepared for any eventuality, has taken some steps. At this point the most obvious of those has to do with three ships of the U.S. 7th Fleet that are forward deployed and operate out of Sasebo. They are the ships of the Belleau Wood Amphibious Ready Group. Those ships were previously scheduled to participate in an exercise along with the embarked Marines, and plans to have the exercise are going to continue, but the ships will be in a position to move down into the South China Sea on very short notice once the Marines are embarked, so that they could be responsive in the event some decision is made that there is assistance required.

The three ships of that Amphibious Ready Group are the USS Belleau Wood, which is an LHA, the USS Fort McHenry, and the USS Dubuque. Right now the only one of those ships that is underway is Dubuque. The others are still alongside the pier at Sasebo; but my expectation is that sometime later today, which will be Wednesday in Japan, the ships will actually get underway and head toward Okinawa to embark the Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The numbers there are just over 2,000 Marines.

Again, I want to stress that number one, the State Department and the embassy in Phnom Penh have the lead in any kind of request for military assistance. No request has been made, no decision has been made. At present, the plan is for the ships to continue on with the exercise that they previously had planned to conduct, which is in the vicinity of Okinawa.

Q: Two thousand Marines across the three ships total?

A: Yes, that's right.

Q: How soon could they get to Cambodia...

A: It would probably take four days or so to get there.

Q: From the exercise site?

A: From the exercise site.

Q: Is that just a U.S. exercise?

A: Yes, it's U.S. Right.

Q: Secretary of Defense Cohen traveling with reporters to the NATO Summit in Madrid indicated that the United States was not ruling out the use of troops for possible capture of war crime suspects. He said he wasn't ruling anything in, wasn't ruling anything out. I'm wondering if you could provide us any clarification about whether he was referring to troops of the NATO stabilization force, or whether he was referring to other troops that aren't part of the NATO force?

A: I think, at this point, we can provide you the transcript of what the Secretary actually said. To me, the real thrust of what he told reporters en route to Madrid was the fact that the Administration has taken a position that we should do whatever we can to strengthen the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. He went on to say that while he would rule nothing in or out, publicly he had nothing more to say on the subject. As I say, we can provide you a transcript on that one if you want to see exactly the context in which he was speaking.