Official sees a new war at MacDill

TAMPA -- Ten years ago, Paul Wolfowitz was the undersecretary of defense for policy when he visited Central Command's war room, where Operation Desert Storm was being run.

On Tuesday, Wolfowitz returned to MacDill Air Force Base as the deputy secretary of defense for a lesson on America's fight against terrorism.

He found a much different war and a much different place.

"We're now in an even more complex problem," Wolfowitz said in a MacDill hangar. "We are just really at the beginning of what is going to be a long and sustained operation."

Wolfowitz, who has emerged an an outspoken hawk in the war on terrorism, commended MacDill's Gen. Tommy Franks, who has been running the military campaign since Sept. 11.

While some initially criticized the pace of military action as too slow, Wolfowitz said Franks and his commanders have "done some absolutely extraordinary things."

"The smaller our footprints are, the less we intrude on the Afghans themselves, the most successful we'll be," he said. "We're in this for the long haul."

Wolfowitz, in town for just a few hours, also met with members of the "coalition village," a collection of more than 240 military personnel from 20 countries who have been assisting in the war from a cluster of trailers at the base.

The village, known officially as the Coalition Coordination Center, is something new for the military, just like this war.

With terrorist networks rooted in more than 60 countries, including the United States, nations around the world have gradually signed up to help.

They offer assistance in the form of money, air space and intelligence.

"The coalition partners are beginning to learn it's a campaign that develops over time," Wolfowitz said.

He lauded the troops overseas, calling it "astonishing" that such a campaign could be put together so quickly.

"To (conduct a war) halfway around the world, a place we never expected to be fighting, is a real testimony to our armed forces," he said.

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