At war with an unseen enemy

The US is braced for battle, but how can it fight an invisible foe without armies or borders? ANDREW LAXON and agencies report on the hard choices ahead.


After a weekend of revving his people up for war, President George W. Bush suddenly changed his tone yesterday.

"This is a new kind of evil, and the American people are beginning to understand," he told reporters back at the White House after his council of war retreat at Camp David. "This crusade - this war on terrorism - is going to take a while, and the American people must be patient."

Patient. It was not the sort of word which normally precedes air strikes or the deployment of cruise missiles. For Mr Bush and his advisers, the dilemma now is how to respond to last week's terrorist attacks without making things worse.

Public opinion demands a tough, immediate response to the suicide strikes on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, which killed about 5000. But every military option is fraught with difficulties, as it is hard to fight a "war" against a hidden and well-organised group of terrorists.

If there is a conventional military response - and expert opinion is still divided over the wisdom of this - it will probably be aimed at Afghanistan, where the Taleban regime shelters Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the attacks.

The alternative is a mixture of diplomacy, espionage and "special operations", possibly including the assassination of bin Laden. US officials were increasingly hinting at this longer-term approach yesterday, but it is unlikely to satisfy the growing public appetite for revenge.

Here are some of the options Mr Bush and his advisers are known to be considering, and the pros and cons of each one.

Cruise missile strikes

This was the route taken by President Bill Clinton in response to the 1998 bombings by bin Laden supporters of American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The US could launch the missiles from cruisers and submarines in the Gulf. They could target bin Laden's command centre, which Russian intelligence says lies in the far northeast of Afghanistan "in caves near the border with Tajikistan".

For: It would have immediate political impact, probably with no American deaths.

Against: It would do nothing to hurt bin Laden or his followers, who have almost certainly abandoned any camps they were using before the hijackings.

On a political level, Bush aides feel it smacks of Clintonism and have ruled out "demonstration strikes" like this.

"That's what gets you the news coverage but doesn't solve the problem," an official told Newsweek.

Air strikes

The same approach, but using either Navy planes flying from carriers in the Arabian Sea or B-52s and B-2s based in the continental United States. The big bombers might be the favoured option, since carrier strikes would take several nights and lose the element of surprise. The bombs could be aimed at bin Laden and his operations or at Taleban military targets.

For: The combination of precision and heavyweight explosives. JDAMs, the bombs that guide themselves to designated geographical coordinates through GPS signals, could take out clusters of buildings and minimise innocent casualties.

Against: If the attack concentrates on bin Laden, he would probably escape. As he does not depend on sophisticated military installations, the real impact on his operations would be minimal.

Bombs aimed at Taleban military targets might hit civilians by mistake. The US would probably face Taleban claims that this had happened anyway - similar to Saddam Hussein's claims that American forces destroyed a baby milk powder factory in the 1990 Gulf War. It could unite Afghanistan's divided population behind its leaders and against the US and alienate moderate Muslims around the world.

Ground invasion with air support

Some officials and military leaders regard "boots on the ground" as the only credible response.

Former State Department counter-terrorism chief Paul Bremner has predicted that the goals set by Mr Bush "will almost certainly require an expeditionary force on the ground in Afghanistan. It's going to be a hell of an operation."

And a US Army general told Time magazine: "I think we'll end up paralysing a big chunk of Afghanistan with air strikes, and then move rapidly to do a decisive takedown."

The operation would probably involve a night-time blizzard of cruise missiles and bombs, followed by US commandos, probably including elements of the 82nd Airborne, backed by elite Army Rangers and Delta Force members all trying to capture or kill bin Laden.

Invasion is thought to be favoured by defence leaders in the Pentagon but opposed by Secretary of State (and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff) Colin Powell.

For: It offers the best chance of killing the largest number of terrorists in the camps.

Against: It would require thousands of American troops to cover the main bin Laden camps. Inserting, supplying and extracting those troops from the mountains of Afghanistan would be nightmarish, almost certainly requiring a US base inside the border.

Scattered American units could find themselves regularly ambushed and killed by guerrillas who know the harsh territory - just as Soviet troops were eventually defeated in the 1980s and 16,500 British soldiers and civilians were killed in 1842.

The Afghans still have highly effective hand-held Stinger missiles which the United States supplied them to shoot down Soviet helicopters. US casualties could be horrendous and politically unthinkable, despite CNN opinion polls yesterday showing majority support for war even if 1000 Americans died.

Covert operations

US Army Special Forces could slip into Afghanistan and capture or kill bin Laden.

For: This offers the best chance of getting at bin Laden himself and, perhaps even more importantly, the computer disks which would reveal the operations of his networks and their financing.

Against: It would be close to a suicide mission. The secret insertion of forces would be hard. Extraction from the Afghan wilderness after a gunbattle would be next to impossible. It demands continued intelligence in real time about bin Laden's whereabouts, which even the Pakistanis, now cooperating with the US, do not have.

Killing bin Laden could also create more problems than it would solve. Several European politicians warned yesterday of the danger of creating "10,000 bin Ladens" by turning him into a martyr.

Faced with so many unpalatable choices, Mr Bush is also considering a range of non-military options, either as an alternative or as a backup to those above. They can be summed up as:

A global crackdown on terrorists and the countries supporting them

This is the main diplomatic solution, which comes in two slightly contradictory parts. The first is to step up pressure on seven countries (in addition to the Taleban) which the US officially considers sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.

The second is to build a global coalition against terrorism. This is based on the political lessons of the Gulf War, when George Bush sen depended on the support of other Western nations and Arab states to act against Saddam. It also requires the active cooperation of several countries on the anti-terrorism hitlist.

So far the US is concentrating on the second, more pragmatic approach, encouraged by messages of support from some traditional enemies. Russia has given its tacit support and even Libya, Cuba and Iran have made supportive noises.

Most important, Pakistan, one of the Taleban's main supporters, has lined up with the US. In return for the lifting of sanctions imposed after its 1998 nuclear tests, Pakistan will share potentially valuable intelligence, allow a multinational force within its borders and let US planes fly over its airspace into Afghanistan.

A Pakistani delegation was due to visit the Taleban last night, asking for the handover of bin Laden.

Supporting America is a gamble by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who risks offending the many Islamic militant groups in his country. But US officials say he could do even more to strangle the Taleban by cutting off vital fuel, food and black market goods.

Best of all, Pakistan could help to destroy bin Laden's financial network. The terrorist leader started with $300 million from a family fortune and continues to receive hundreds of millions from wealthy supporters, including Saudis. US intelligence says much of the money is channelled through Pakistan.

Local defence experts are as divided as those overseas on what should be done.

Peter Couzens, of the Centre for Strategic Studies, said America's military options were limited and Mr Bush's talk of war was designed for a domestic audience.

"For Uncle Sam it's like boxing shadows. You can land heavy hits on the shadow but it's not going to make much difference."

The only answer was "the craftiest, deadliest method of meeting the terrorists on their terms" through improved intelligence and espionage in the long term.

But the director of defence and strategic studies at Waikato University, Ron Smith, said the US had to make a military response, probably through air strikes aimed directly at the Taleban.

Western countries had to overcome their sensitivity to the deaths of innocent civilians as the terrorists they were fighting had no such scruples, he said.

There was little point in holding back for fear of alienating moderate Muslims - "The dominant reaction in the Muslim world is the Americans got what they deserved. The polarisation is already there."

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