‘The President Has Turned to Force’

Following is the text of a statement made Sunday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on U.S. military action in Afghanistan.

Today the president has turned to direct, overt military force to complement the economic, humanitarian, financial and diplomatic activities which are already well underway.

The effect we hope to achieve through these raids, which together with our coalition partners we have initiated today, is to create conditions for sustained anti-terrorist and humanitarian relief operations in Afghanistan.

That requires that, among other things, we first remove the threat from air defenses and from Taliban aircraft. We also seek to raise the cost of doing business for foreign terrorists who have chosen Afghanistan from which to organize their activities, and for the oppressive Taliban regime that continues to tolerate terrorist presence in those portions of Afghanistan which they control.

The current military operations are focused on achieving several outcomes:

* To make clear to the Taliban leaders and their supporters that harboring terrorists is unacceptable and carries a price.

* To acquire intelligence to facilitate future operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime that harbors the terrorists.

* To develop relationships with groups in Afghanistan that oppose the Taliban regime and the foreign terrorists that they support.

* To make it increasingly difficult to use Afghanistan freely as a base of operation.

* And to alter the military balance over time by denying to the Taliban the offensive systems that hamper the progress of the various opposition forces.

* And to provide humanitarian relief to Afghans suffering truly oppressive living conditions under the Taliban regime.

I want to reiterate a point that President Bush has made often and that he made again today in his remarks. The United States has organized armed coalitions on several occasions since the Cold War for the purpose of denying hostile regimes the opportunity to oppress their own people and other people.

In Kuwait, in northern Iraq, in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, the United States took action on behalf of Muslim populations against outside invaders and oppressive regimes. The same is true today.

We stand with those Afghans who are being repressed by a regime that abuses the very people it purports to lead, and that harbors terrorists who have attacked and killed thousands of innocents around the world of all religions, of all races and of all nationalities.

While our raids today focus on the Taliban and the foreign terrorists in Afghanistan, our aim remains much broader. Our objective is to defeat those who use terrorism and those who house or support them.

The world stands united in this effort. It is not about a religion or an individual terrorist or a country. Our partners in this effort represent nations and peoples of all cultures, all religions and all races. We share the belief that terrorism is a cancer on the human condition, and we intend to oppose it wherever it is.

The operation today involved a variety of weapon systems, and it originated from a number of separate locations. We used land- and sea-based aircraft, surface ships and submarines, and we employed a variety of weapons to achieve our objectives.

As President Bush mentioned in his statement, dozens of countries contributed in specific ways to this mission, including transit and landing rights, basing opportunities and intelligence support.

In this mission, we are particularly grateful for the direct military involvement of the forces of Great Britain.

To achieve the outcomes we seek, it is important to go after air defense and Taliban aircraft. We need the freedom to operate on the ground and in the air. And the target selected, if successfully destroyed, should permit an increasing degree of freedom over time.

We have also targeted command facilities for those forces that we know support terrorist elements within Afghanistan and critical terrorist sites.

President Bush has repeatedly emphasized that we will hold accountable any who help terrorists, as well as the terrorists themselves.

Before I take your questions, let me say that to say that these attacks are in any way against Afghanistan or the Afghan people is flat wrong.

We support the Afghan people against the Al Qaeda, a foreign presence on their land, and against the Taliban regime that supports them.

What took place today and what will be taking place in the period ahead is a part of the measured and broad and sustained effort that the president announced shortly after the attacks on Sept. 11.