Joint Chiefs Leader Says More U.S. Troops Sent Into Afghanistan

The U.S. has put more troops on the ground in Afghanistan in recent days and is “settling in for the long haul,” Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday.

“Just last night and the night before, we put in a couple of more teams,” Myers said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And the more teams we get on the ground, the more effectively we’ll bring their power to bear on the Taliban lines.”

Asked about a recent taped message in which Osama bin Laden criticized not only the United States but the United Nations and Arab nations as well, Myers said, “He’s taking on everybody. They are the comments of somebody that is quite sick, mentally.”

Noting that he had only read excerpts of the Bin Laden message, Myers said the suspected terrorist leader is “trying to use Islam as his shield, and we know this is not a war on Islam or Muslims. This is a war against terrorism. He is a terrorist. And so what I would say [is] ‘You better move frequently because . . . we’re going to be on your tail.’ ”

Myers also said the U.S. has no intention of stopping military action because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in the middle of this month.

Saying that the Bin Laden-linked Al Qaeda terrorist network began the war with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, he added, “They chose the time this war was going to start, and so we’re going to proceed on this global war on terrorism.”

And he said the U.S. was preparing the Northern Alliance and other opposition Afghan forces to fight through the winter.

“The winter is not going to stop us from doing what we have to do,” he said. “We are resupplying the opposition with ammunition, with food, with blankets [and], we hope in the not-too-distant future, with cold-weather gear. The fighting forces . . . on our side will be much better prepared for winter than will the Taliban.”

Myers was also asked about an article in the New Yorker magazine by journalist Seymour Hersh claiming that U.S. forces encountered significant opposition from Taliban soldiers in a commando raid Oct. 20, and that 12 Americans were injured, three seriously.

“That’s simply not true. There was no resistance. The Taliban were in complete disarray,” said Myers, who suggested that all the soldiers involved in the raid were back on duty.

Also Sunday, the Taliban reported that an American relief worker named John Bolton died in Afghanistan. A State Department official said, “We have nothing on that.”

The U.S. official added that two weeks ago, there were reports that a citizen was arrested, but that was not confirmed.

The Taliban report said that the man was from California and that he died of natural causes in a hospital. The Taliban has alerted the International Committee of the Red Cross to the death, said ICRC spokesman Vincent Lusser, but he said the aid group had yet to receive the body or determine the man’s identity, according to the Associated Press.