If Americans thought they had a hard time rooting the enemy from hooches in Vietnam, they have only begun to grapple with the problem of wiping out terrorist “cells” in the “first war of the 21st century,” as Bush called it. The president’s deputy Defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, spoke of a “broad and sustained campaign” of “ending” state regimes that sponsor terrorism. The first regime on the list? Afghanistan, the nation that so haunted Kipling and whose radical Muslim ruling mullahs, the Taliban, are known to be harboring America’s most-wanted man, Osama bin Laden, in their mountains.
Bush clearly needs to retaliate forcefully for what may be the single deadliest day in American history. A NEWSWEEK Poll showed that 71 percent of Americans favored an attack on terrorist bases, even if that meant a high likelihood of civilian casualties. The mass slaughter in New York and Washington also gained unprecedented world support for a president who only two weeks ago was criticized for highhanded unilateralism; even Fidel Castro’s Cuba held a supportive rally for America on Saturday.
As Americans’ numbness turned to rage, the drumbeat for war grew louder, and Bush continued to answer the call rhetorically. Speaking on Saturday before a strategy session at Camp David, he told the U.S. armed forces to “get ready.” Bush also called bin Laden a “prime suspect,” adding, “If he thinks he can hide from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.” Yet that’s exactly what bin Laden has done in Afghanistan for the past five years. And now, having sown the rhetoric of war, Bush must reap it–especially after the Senate on Friday authorized him 98-0 to use “all necessary and appropriate force.”
Though the president has more high-tech military options than the hapless British and Russians did in Afghanistan, Bush lacks a few basic advantages that previous wartime presidents have had: a clear target, even a clear enemy, despite the fleeting images of bin Laden hiding in Afghan caves that we have all seen on videotape. Intelligence officials believe bin Laden has operatives in more than 50 countries. The biggest concentration is in about 30 camps scattered throughout Afghanistan. A Russian intelligence report from last spring says that bin Laden’s command center is actually in the far northeast corner of Afghanistan, “in caves near the border with Tajikistan” in the province of Kunduz. After the catastrophe last week, bin Laden issued a statement denying any connection with the attacks, then reportedly moved to a new hiding place within minutes. Even his friends in the Taliban may not know where he is now. Bin Laden also sent some of his band across the border to the Indian side of Kashmir to lie low, according to Indian intelligence sources. “This is a different enemy,” says a senior administration official, laying out possible strategies in the vaguest terms. “It doesn’t have a capital. It doesn’t have marching troops.”
For the moment, the administration’s strategy is to move deliberately: put together an international coalition and present evidence of bin Laden’s complicity to the U.N. Security Council. The aim is to obtain a U.N. resolution demanding that bin Laden be turned over, and then to authorize force against him if he is not. Luckily, the administration has three old hands at doing this: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and Wolfowitz, all of whom helped do the same for Bush’s father during the gulf crisis. Cheney, the Defense secretary in the first Bush administration, was holed up at Camp David working out the strategy late last week. Security Council approval is important not least because getting the cooperation of neighboring Pakistan–long a sympathetic Muslim lifeline to bin Laden–is essential. First, Pakistani intelligence has a unique ability to learn of bin Laden’s whereabouts in real time, the key obstacle in previous efforts to grab or kill him. Second, Pakistan’s airspace is the best strike route into Afghanistan.
For Bush, the best news in a week of grim tidings came when Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acceded to a slew of American demands for cooperation. “They agreed to all [our] items,” Powell said. He wouldn’t give details, but NEWSWEEK has learned that, in return for a lifting of U.S. sanctions imposed after Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests, Islamabad would share intelligence on bin Laden and the Taliban and provide assistance to American forces, including passage through the country. The price is that it must be done through the United Nations. In Islamabad, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said Pakistan would comply with all U.N. Security Council resolutions to combat terrorism and “discharge its responsibilities under international law.”
The Taliban, it is expected, will refuse any demand to turn over bin Laden to the Americans. (On Friday, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, reiterated an offer the Americans have already refused–to send bin Laden to an Islamic country.) The administration then has a number of available military options, all of them problematic:
Whether the objective is to get bin Laden or to coerce the Taliban into handing him over, administration officials do not believe the military options are particularly attractive. “There’s a great deal that we’re improvising here as we go,” says Wolfowitz. Powell, who only weeks ago was seen as a marginal figure in the administration, is now a key player on both the diplomatic and military fronts. The argument of the former Joint Chiefs chairman, which is largely accepted by Bush’s team, is that just killing foot soldiers in the camps–which could be done by air–isn’t enough. And any more ambitious operation involving ground troops would be high risk with little return. Yes, the Sept. 11 horror has “raised the propensity” for risk among politicians and commanders, as former Special Forces commander Gen. Wayne Downing says. Americans will be willing to see more U.S. soldiers die in an attack. Bush, however, is already encountering some resistance to any ground option on Capitol Hill. “I’m not ready to be supporting the Marines going into Afghanistan,” Sen. Pat Roberts, a member of the Armed Services committee, told NEWSWEEK.
Broadening the hot war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan raises even more complicated questions. The administration is seeking to target other “state sponsors,” including Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan and, more tangentially, Iraq and Iran. No one in the Bush administration is talking seriously–not yet, at any rate–about bombing these countries. And the more nations it adds to its list of culprits, the thinner its supporting coalition could get. A good example is Iran. “Iran is the single largest source of finance and material for terrorism,” says one intelligence source in Washington. “Their legislature actually appropriates money for this thing.” Yet few nations, especially most NATO countries and Russia, would sanction a bombardment or invasion of Iran (though militarily it would be easier than in Afghanistan).
It’s not just Iran. Previous efforts to trace bin Laden’s funds have also led to countries that are nominally American allies, especially in the case of a tangle of bank accounts in Saudi Arabia and the gulf states. The Boston Globe reported last week that there is evidence at least five of the Boston hijackers–one or more with a Saudi passport–“exploited the good reputation” of Saudi Arabia in the United States to gain entry and access to flight training in Florida. At the same time, private funding of violent Islamic groups has poured out of Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. “If you’re going to bomb, you may wind up bombing some very good friends,” says retired Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency.
In surveying this tricky terrain, Bush faces a political dilemma with global implications. Delivering the attack many Americans hunger for and failing to get many of the culprits might only demonstrate anew the United States’ impotence against terrorism. Killing many innocent Muslims in the process would also enrage the Arab world, possibly even toppling friendly Arab regimes and creating just the sort of “clash of civilizations” that bin Laden and his fellow zealots want.
Behind his warlike rhetoric, Bush understands this. That is why he is resisting political demands for a swift strike and focusing on what may be the most effective option in the long run: working for months and years to build consensus among the nations of the world to stamp out terror networks where they have spread, country by country, mainly by applying constant diplomatic pressure on host nations. The new Bush mantra to the world: “You’re either with us or against us.” (It should be noted that this, while it may be the least bad choice, has its pitfalls, too. If Bush moves too slowly and diplomatically, he could anger his own vengeful countrymen. His 82 percent approval rating will melt away–much as his father’s did after the gulf war.)
Whichever way he goes, Bush has lost no time in laying the groundwork for both a strike and a longer-term campaign. He knows that a coalition is critical for a military response and for America to win cooperation in tracking and seizing terrorist bank accounts, safe houses and so forth. First the president must present solid evidence in the court of world opinion that the 19 hijackers are directly connected to bin Laden.
Washington won support last week from NATO countries for a retaliatory strike. NATO said it would invoke, for the first time, its Article 5, which defines an attack on one as an attack on all its 19 members. That was, however, as much an attempt to restrain the Americans as it was a show of support. “We do not face a war,” German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping said Thursday. “To fight and break international terror in a lasting way, you must do more than act militarily.” Even Tony Blair, publicly the most stalwart ally, will give “no blank check” for strikes, says a source close to the British prime minister. “Right now, what we’re talking about is Afghanistan. Nobody’s talking about nuking Sudan, Iran or Iraq.” Russia and China both backed a U.N. resolution opening the door to the use of force, though both resisted endorsing a U.S. unilateral response.
With focus and money, a long-term campaign of tightening the diplomatic screws could work in the end. The Pan Am Flight 103 case is a model; coordinated international pressure on Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi isolated his regime, reduced the Libyan threat and ultimately forced him to turn over the key Libyan suspects for trial, says Yoram Schweitzer, a former Israeli Army officer. “You had a military, political and diplomatic boycott that was highly effective–it castrated Libya,” the leading state responsible for terrorism in the 1980s. Another long-term model may be, oddly enough, cold-war-era containment. “Strategically, it’s the same general approach,” says a former Pentagon planner. “Contain the damage from jihad and its expansion, don’t allow it to take over more territory, but rather keep it where it is and hold it at bay. Don’t get it all riled up, and slowly draw away its young with promises of freedom. What used to be containment strategy against ideology would also be solid against religion.” Could the new war against terrorism become another cold war? At this point it may be as smart a strategy as any.
