Background Briefing

MR. BACON: Okay. This briefing is on background attributed to a senior defense official. And here is the briefer for your own purposes. Because you will see the briefer on the trip, you should know who she is. So --

It's all yours.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Good afternoon. The secretary is going to leave on Thursday to go to the 36th Munich Conference on Security Policy. The conference will start on Saturday, the 5th of February. There will be three sessions to the conference. The first session will cover Kosovo Lessons Learned. The second session will cover European Security and Defense Identity and Transatlantic Relations. And then the third session, which will be on Sunday morning, will cover Rising World Powers in Asia. And then the secretary will return on Sunday.

There will be approximately 200-215 people attending the conference. As has been the case in the last 10, 20 years, there will be various members of European parliaments, European press, European think tanks. There will be members of Congress who will be there as well.

Q (Off mike.)

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yeah. I can tell you that there should be 13 members of Congress. What I have is a preliminary list. We expect that Senator Biden, Doug Bereuter --

QI'm sorry, what --

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: -- Doug Bereuter, Howard Berman, Susan Collins, Norman Dicks, Julian Dixon, Porter Goss, Chuck Hagel will lead the delegation, John Kyl, Joseph Lieberman, Jack Reed, Norman Sisisky, Fred Thompson. And both Lieberman and Hagel will be making presentations at the conference.

The major issues that will be covered will follow the terms of the outline of the schedules I gave you: Kosovo Lessons Learned, some emphasis on defense capabilities, an initiative launched by the secretary back in '98 and then followed through in the Washington summit. We also expect there to be some discussion of TMD and NMD as well.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

QThe secretary's making a speech on Saturday, right?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yes.

QWhat's that going to -

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: The secretary's speech will be during the ESDI section. And it will generally focus on ESDI.

QThe "Rising Powers in Asia" might refer to China, or -- what's the -- ?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: You know, I'm not really sure. I expect that that would be one of the topics, but I'm not sure.

QWill there be Asian officials or -- ?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I looked at the list. I didn't see a large number of Asian officials there.

QWhat about Russian?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I did not see any Russians on the list, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some there.

QJust two, three, I think, from each, approximately?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yeah. That's the usual format.

QThe European security piece of it on Saturday, you said that a large part of that will be devoted to NMD and some of the concerns, for instance, that the British have been voicing the last couple of days, or do you think it'll be more about the European security force, or -- what direction do you think it might take?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I think it will be a mix. Just given the currency of the topics, NMD is on a number of Europeans' minds, so it will be discussed. But ESDI is also very much on European minds, so they're going to want to focus on that as well.

QThere will be bilateral talks? Particularly with French and -- ?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: The secretary is scheduled right now to meet with the German foreign minister and the German minister of defense. There may be other bilateral meetings. But we will schedule as we go along.

QIs he doing anything other than Munich? Any troop visits or anything?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: No. No. Just to Munich.

QIs there nothing on Friday?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: No. He'll spend Friday flying and working on his presentation.

QYou mean Thursday. Thursday flying.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Thursday. Thursday we're flying.

QBut Friday will --

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Right. Friday he'll spend as preparation time.

Any other questions?

QTMD, what is it? Can you be a little more precise on what's going to be discussed on TMD? I mean, the NMD part is obvious. TMD and the Europeans? TMD vis-a-vis NATO, vis-a-vis the EU?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: It's really hard to know what the various participants will raise.

QCohen will speak on that?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: He will probably touch on it as part of the capabilities part. TMD has long been a part of the Defense Capabilities Initiative, and that's an area where we have wanted the allies to improve their capabilities, and they agreed to improve their capabilities back in the Washington summit.

QSpeaking of Kosovo, does the final version of the "Lessons Learned" report coincide with the -- is it ready yet, or is it going to be available --

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: I just don't know the answer to that question.

QKen?

MR. BACON: I know the answer. It will be released -- there is a classified version and an unclassified version. They will be released the day the secretary testifies on the Hill, which -- and I believe is Tuesday the 8th, is when he testifies. And that's when we're planning to release it, the unclassified version as well as the classified version.

QSo that's next Tuesday.

MR. BACON: That's a week from today, right. Yeah.

QIs the secretary-general going to be there?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: The preliminary list indicates he will. Also expect Javier Solana to be there in his new capacity.

QAny bilaterals between Cohen and Solana?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: None have been scheduled.

QThanks.

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Thank you.

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