Rumsfeld doubts value of more force

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended his decision Tuesday not to send a large U.S. ground force to hunt down Osama bin Laden as al Qaeda fighters made a final stand in eastern Afghanistan last month. \nThat would only have hastened a bin Laden escape, Rumsfeld said in an interview with AP Radio and a small group of other radio networks. \n"It's unambiguous that we had the right approach," he said. \nMeanwhile, U.S. troops in Afghanistan are discovering more caves and tunnels that will be searched for clues to bin Laden's whereabouts and information that could pre-empt future terrorist attacks, Rumsfeld said. \nCritics have questioned the wisdom of relying on local Afghan forces to chase bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters in the mountainous Tora Bora area. Even some in the Pentagon favored sending several hundred Marines there in mid-December in hopes of getting bin Laden before his trail went cold. \nBut Rumsfeld said such a move "would not have been helpful" because no U.S. force could have occupied all of Afghanistan, which is roughly the size of Texas.\n"The larger number of Americans on the ground might very well have hastened (bin Laden's) departure as opposed to delayed it," he said. \nSome al Qaeda fighters who fled Tora Bora were captured by Pakistani forces and turned over to the U.S. Rumsfeld said more al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners have been turned over this week; some detained earlier have been sent back to Pakistan, while others have been sent to the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. \nOther U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday, said American troops are holding seven new prisoners in Afghanistan. They were caught during one of several ongoing operations, one official said. He declined to give details, saying the efforts continue. \nRumsfeld said he continues to receive conflicting intelligence reports on whether bin Laden is alive or dead, inside Afghanistan or outside. \n"I expect we'll find all or most of them," he said, referring to top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. \nThe manhunt has been hurt by leaks of classified intelligence information to the news media, he said. \n"We know that as these things occur, our sources of information tend to dry up, and that is notably unhelpful -- as well as illegal," he said. \nA few dozen U.S. Army Special Forces troops were sent to the Tora Bora area in December to direct U.S. airstrikes at al Qaeda bases and later to help search caves the terrorists had abandoned. They found evidence that bin Laden had been there but no signs of where he went next. \nA larger U.S. ground presence ran the risk of suggesting a U.S. intent to occupy and control Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said. \n"Had we had a lot of people on the ground…you would have gotten everyone in Afghanistan against you, as opposed to just the Taliban and al Qaeda," he said. \nThere now are about 4,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, mostly in and around Kandahar, the southern city that had been the spiritual stronghold of the Taliban militia. During the interview in his Pentagon office, Rumsfeld showed reporters a white silk Taliban flag that American forces had captured. It was smudged with reddish dirt and featured a Taliban seal with the Arabic words for "God is great." \nRumsfeld said most of the more than 40 sites in Afghanistan where U.S. officials suspected al Qaeda members were attempting to develop or produce chemical, biological or radiological weapons have been searched. \nSome of the sites turned out to be drug processing facilities, he said, but provided no details. \n"It would be a terrible thing for the world if Afghanistan returned to drug production in a large way," he said. \nFifty al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners are in U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Rumsfeld said more will be transferred there from Afghanistan every two or three days. \n"It's not going to be a country club, but it is going to be humane," he said. "Our goal isn't to hold these prisoners, or to have prisoners. It's a big expense for us. It's a big pain in the neck"