Defense chief talks to troops at Scott Air Force Base

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld discussed the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the possibility of U.S. military actions beyond Afghanistan at a town hall meeting with military and civilian workers here Thursday.

But Rumsfeld had little to say about the deadly accident in Afghanistan that left four Canadian soldiers dead and eight others wounded by a U.S. laser-guided bomb.

"My instinct is to wait for the investigation to be complete," Rumsfeld said during an appearance before about 300 people at this base 20 miles east of St. Louis.

"What we do know is that some very fine coalition partners of ours ... were killed by one or more bombs ... dropped by one or more F-16s," he said.

The 500-pound bomb was mistakenly dropped on the soldiers during a live-fire training exercise Thursday near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Two F-16s had been sent out on patrol, and the pilots apparently weren't aware they were flying over an area restricted for training, according to Pentagon reports.

Rumsfeld toured the U.S. Transportation Command, which moves the military's troops and equipment to deployments worldwide. Some 6,500 military and 3,500 civilian employees work at this base in southwestern Illinois.

He downplayed, as he has before, the importance of capturing bin Laden, saying the al-Qaida leader could easily be replaced by others in his network if he were dead.

"The armed forces are not in the needle-in-a-haystack business," he said. "We deal with armies, navies, air forces and large activities. Finding single individuals is not easy."

"If (bin Laden) is alive, he's hiding," Rumsfeld said. "And he's having a more difficult time today than a month back. We intend to keep the pressure on and make life still more complicated."

Rumsfeld's comments came a day after the defense secretary said the U.S. military did not have and has never had good enough information on bin Laden's whereabouts to mount a mission to go after him.

One soldier asked Rumsfeld if the United States will leave Afghanistan before engaging another country in military activity.

"I don't know," Rumsfeld said. With 4,500-5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, plus the same number of coalition forces, the nation's mission "is not so manpower-intensive we're not capable of doing something else," he said.