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With little to bomb, U.S. rethinks strategy
©New York Times, WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bluntly acknowledged Tuesday that the difficulty in identifying bombing targets in Afghanistan was leading the Pentagon to develop a broader, more unconventional type of campaign -- leaving the door open to ground troops, including commando units. "Several countries have exhausted themselves pounding that country," said Rumsfeld, referring to Afghanistan. "There are not great things of value that are easy to deal with. And what we'll have to do is exactly what I said: Use the full spectrum of our capabilities." Rumsfeld did not explicitly commit the United States to sending ground forces into Afghanistan, but he has talked in recent days about the importance of using special operations forces in the broader fight against international terrorism. On Sunday, Rumsfeld said that the fight against terrorism would require a broad effort and that "a lot of it will be special operations." The administration's consideration of military action beyond a classic air campaign like the ones the United States mounted in Iraq and Serbia reflects a recognition that the terrorists themselves are elusive and that Afghanistan, which shelters them, is so impoverished that it offers a scarce set of targets. Critical to the administration's planning, therefore, are economic, political, diplomatic and intelligence measures, as well as ground forces, all of which would deprive Osama bin Laden, the Islamic militant suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, of his sanctuary -- or as Rumsfeld put it Tuesday, "drain the swamp they live in." President Bush met Tuesday with top national security advisers to review military options and diplomatic overtures, as Pentagon officials said the first of 35,000 reservists could be officially mobilized as early as today. Bush and his top advisers have raised expectations of killing or capturing terrorists. The president went so far as to indicate he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." While the administration's stated goals, including going after all terrorist networks are ambitious, the mission presents a whole new range of military challenges. Bombing alone is unlikely to work for several reasons. Terrorists in Afghanistan have abandoned their training camps since last week's attacks in New York and Washington, making them hard to find. Intelligence officials also say that in recent years bin Laden and his operatives have relied more on couriers and face-to-face meetings than on cell phones that can be intercepted by spy satellites and ground sensors. In a private Oval Office meeting with four senators Thursday, even Bush belittled the idea of eliminating his nemesis, bin Laden, with Tomahawk cruise missiles alone, the military's weapon of choice in most operations since the Persian Gulf War. "What's the sense of sending $2-million missiles to hit a $10 tent that's empty?" Bush told the senators. And, as Rumsfeld indicated Tuesday, the Taliban government's fixed targets are not all of great value, and smashing its interior or defense ministries or disrupting its energy grid might do little to force the government in Kabul, which hardly relies on modern command and control systems, to deliver bin Laden as Bush has demanded. The United States could stage commando raids in Afghanistan from Pakistan or perhaps from valleys held by the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban force that still controls about 10 percent of Afghan territory. The administration could also reach unprecedented agreements with former Soviet republics in Central Asia, such as Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, to mount operations from their territory. The military has two missions: getting the terrorists and punishing any regime that shelters or sponsors them. The goal of ground troops presumably would not be a full-scale invasion and occupation, but raids by special forces to kidnap or kill suspected terrorists or to disrupt the ability of the Taliban to control Afghanistan. But getting terrorists requires timely, accurate intelligence -- and luck. Before this crisis, the Clinton administration had classified plans to use missile strikes or to dispatch commandos to snatch bin Laden. Those special forces have been stationed in the Middle East ready to move on a moment's notice. Even with hard intelligence, the window for action is frustratingly brief, as the Clinton administration learned in August 1998 when it fired more than 70 cruise missiles at terrorist training centers -- the Zhawar Kili Al-Badr training camp and its support complex. The strike took place on a day that U.S. intelligence knew bin Laden was meeting with his chief operatives and the leadership of other terror organizations. But the meeting broke up several hours before the missiles smashed into the camps. "If you took every terrorist in Afghanistan, you could not make a light brigade," said Gen. Anthony Zinni, who until last fall headed the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. "They are spread all over. They hide in mountains and caves. They do not lend themselves to being targeted." There are other military options, but they are complicated and entail risk to U.S. fighters and could well result in casualties. The United States could use the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance as a proxy ground force, but the group is not widely supported throughout Afghanistan, and has no more than 12,000 fighters under a command that is in flux. Its leader, Ahmad Shah Masood, was gravely wounded by suicide assassins just days before the attacks in America and died Saturday. It is not clear whether this killing had any link to the attacks on the United States that followed. Faced with such difficulties, attacks on the terrorists and the Taliban themselves would have to be accompanied by efforts to cut off financing to the terrorists, including any revenue they derive from the sale of drugs. "You need to go after the network that is collecting money, his investments in legitimate companies, the laundering of money, and the banks that look the other way," Zinni said. Afghanistan is unlikely to be the only target in the war against those nations who support terrorism. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that Al-Qaida terrorist network that bin Laden heads may have activities in 50 to 60 countries, and Al-Qaida is just one of the networks that President Bush has vowed to vanquish. In Afghanistan, one hope is that the movement of U.S. forces into the region could force bin Laden to come out of hiding and seek another haven -- creating a target. Punishing the Afghan regime that harbors the terrorists presents a completely different challenge from the one planners faced during the Persian Gulf War. In that conflict, the first Bush administration picked hundreds of bombing targets in Iraq that successfully carved away at what Air Force planners dubbed Saddam Hussein's "centers of gravity." Military planners already have coordinates for a large number of targets across Afghanistan and in the capital, Kabul. They know the exact location of government ministries, of its police posts and army base and airfields, of its power grids and communications lines. The Taliban clearly has an organizational structure and leadership, but it is not like a nation. As one Pentagon official said: "It is not like going after Baghdad or Belgrade."
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