 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Strategy debate: patience vs. speed
©New York Times, WASHINGTON -- Four weeks after the United States began its military campaign to unseat the Taliban in Afghanistan and to destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, there is an increasingly vigorous debate about whether substantial numbers of American combat troops will be needed to seal the victory. In Congress, some lawmakers say the Pentagon's strategy of relying on the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, bombing around the clock and mounting sporadic raids by American, and eventually British, commandos is well and good but unlikely to guarantee a decisive win. "I am glad that the Pentagon has not thrown U.S. troops in willy-nilly," said Sen. Max Cleland, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We have been extremely cautious in hoarding our precious personnel resources, and that is wise and good. But ultimately to obtain our objectives we will have to use ground forces." It is not a view encouraged by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or the military officers who brief reporters. But it is a refrain that can be heard from some senior Army officials. The debate over strategy and tactics is being carried out not only on the op-ed pages but also in the Pentagon. These are early days for the complex American campaign, and there is no need to rush to a decision on ground troops. The steady and patient application of force that Rumsfeld has touted might pay off, particularly if bin Laden or Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, slip up and are caught by allied special forces or in the cross hairs of an American gunship. "Friction," the inevitable mistakes or complications of war identified by Karl von Clausewitz, the celebrated Prussian military strategist, affects both sides. But just as the NATO nations during their 1999 war with Yugoslavia began arguing about the need for ground troops as the alliance sought to deliver a knockout blow from the air, the ground troops debate about Afghanistan is intensifying. The debate turns, in part, on the potential of the Pentagon's three-part strategy, and on the time the United States is allocating to carry it out. The American military is beginning to work with the rebels to put pressure on the Taliban from the north. It is also using small groups of commandos to take the fight to the Taliban and terrorist leaders, and it is carrying out day and night bombing raids. None of these elements is decisive alone. The Northern Alliance is a loose coalition that has yet to demonstrate it is capable of fighting as a disciplined and well-coordinated force. Its operations might be hampered by the winter, which is harsher in the northern part of Afghanistan. Because the alliance is dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, it will not be embraced by the Pashtun, Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group. American and British special forces can be pivotal, providing the United States gets good intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden and the Taliban leadership, which is a big if. As for bombing, it was Rumsfeld who proclaimed that Afghanistan lacks a large number of "high-value" targets. The Pentagon's calculation is that the combination of these elements will fracture the Taliban, assuming the United States is prepared to keep up the campaign for many months and even years. Last week, Rumsfeld gave a hint of just how much time might be required, invoking comparisons from World War II. "Consider some historical perspectives," he said. "After the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, it took four months before the United States responded to that attack with the Doolittle Raid in April of '42. It took eight months after Pearl Harbor before the U.S. began a land campaign against the Japanese, with the invasion of Guadalcanal in August of 1942. The U.S. bombed Japan for 31/2 years, until August 1945, before they accomplished their objectives." But critics say the United States cannot drag out the campaign for that long, especially since there are protests by Muslim leaders in Pakistan and other Islamic states that are cooperating with the U.S. military effort. "I do not think we have years," Cleland said. "We can't put those countries on the ropes for that long."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
