Comments of General Cladwell to the press Corp via sat video link.
GEN. CALDWELL: Okay. Well thanks, Bryan.
Listen, to everybody there, I'm glad to be here today to help clarify and further elaborate on anything that's gone on in the last 48 hours here in Iraq.
As we stated the other day, and it's very, very important for everybody to understand, the elimination of Zarqawi is not going to stop the violence here in Iraq. I mean clearly, as General Casey stated -- and he's correct -- it is an important step forward, it's a big one, but at the same time, we still have some tough times ahead of us. The Iraqi people are going to assume a great responsibility here. The prime minister himself has stated, those who elected and put them into power are the same ones now that have to rid Iraq of the violence, of the violence like Zarqawi. And so the people have a big part to play. But there's a government in place, duly elected; they appointed the minister of Defense, Interior and National Security. The prime minister now has a full Cabinet. He's got a plan for Baghdad he's announced, Baghdad security plan. And we're actually very optimistic as we move forward here, having set a lot of conditions that give them that opportunity to take greater control of their country, with us working in support of them.
Q General, Jeff Schogol with Stars and Stripes. Two quick questions. How can you be sure that he died -- that Zarqawi died as a result of the wounds he received from the explosion without a formal autopsy? And secondly, when you were cleaning him up, did you have to Photoshop his face or anything to make him more recognizable for the picture?
GEN. CALDWELL: To take the second question first, yes, Jeff, his face was very, very bloodied. And we made a conscious decision that if we were going to take photographs of him and make them available publicly, like we did in the press conference, that we were going to clean him up. Despite the fact that this person actually had no regard for human life, we were not going to treat him in the same manner, and so they did clean his face up for the shots that were shown publicly.
As far as the autopsy goes, there was -- I know -- quote -- was an "autopsy" done, but I'm going to go back to make sure that it was performed by whatever the certified kind of person that we're supposed to have so we can call it an autopsy, and make sure I'm exactly correct before I tell you that.
Q Follow-up. Did you have to digitally enhance the photos at all to clean them up to show them to the world?
GEN. CALDWELL: No. The photographs there are the straight photographs. We did no digital enhancement from this end.
Q General, Jonathan Karl with ABC News. You mentioned yesterday that there were 17 raids conducted simultaneously in and around Baghdad after Zarqawi was confirmed dead. Can you give us any more information on this treasure trove of documents and information you got? And how many people were detained as a result of those raids?
GEN. CALDWELL: We obviously did conduct those 17 raids. And then last night we conducted an additional 39 operations across Iraq, some directly related to the information we had received, others have not direct relationship.
I can show you some pictures from one of the raids. We did get some digital photos back from one site where they went in and they found a cache of things.
GEN. CALDWELL: I'll have to get that location for you. It's in and around the Baghdad area. I looked at the 17 sites today. All of them either inside Baghdad or within about a 15-mile radius right around Baghdad, but centered -- all 17 around the Baghdad area.
Q (Off mike) -- how many people you detained as a result of these raids?
GEN. CALDWELL: I will get you that exact number. I was going through the figures today. I saw two different numbers; one showed a detention of 25 personnel with one killed, another one had a different number. But I'll give you that number. That's the lower of the two until I can confirm it -- 25 detained, one KIA. That's not a friendly, that's an enemy.
Q It's Pam Hess again. Would you tell us a little bit more about these 17 raids? You hinted yesterday in your opening statement that you'd been watching people in order to lead you to Zarqawi. So did the 17 raids go back and focus on the people that you'd been watching to lead you to Zarqawi?
And would you tell us more about al-Masri, who you identified yesterday as being the guy you expect to take over?
GEN. CALDWELL: Yeah, the 17 raids -- there was obviously more operations that occurred in and around Iraq yesterday than just -- or the day before -- than the 17.
Those were 17 focused ones that were directly related to the intense intelligence effort that had been going on in tracking Zarqawi.
There are certain personnel that we have been watching, that we have been monitoring, that the coalition forces had made the decision not to take down at that time because they were giving us key indicators at different points in time as to where Zarqawi might be. So they were just monitored, watched and tracked.
But once Zarqawi went down, then that enabled us to go in and conduct those operations, the 17 focused operations directly related to targeting Zarqawi.
Al-Masri -- does he, do your knowledge, have any relationship at this point for communication with Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri?
GEN. CALDWELL: We know he had communications with Zawahiri. Anything else beyond that would be in operational channels and probably not something that we should talk about. But it's very clear that, you know, he had very close contacts with Zarqawi.
Some interesting points there. The 17 raids were done on suspects and sites that had been under obseration in hopes of spotting Zarqawi. Since he ws now dad they were free to move in on those locations,which I am sure was a relief to some. We will have to wait and ee what happens to the numbeof attcks and such. Will be interesting to see.
