Bush's Team Agrees America Must Do Something--Only What?

September 18, 2001

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON--As President Bush and his highly experienced national security team Monday pondered a way for America to fight the war against terrorism, there was agreement on only one point: something must--and will--be done very soon.

Otherwise, there was sharp disagreement between the State and Defense departments. State would like to isolate Afghanistan as the source of the terrorist contagion. Defense contends that the real hubs of terrorism are spread out across the entire Middle East.

For the short term, if Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime does not surrender terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, a punitive bombing attack against Afghanistan is likely. But there are strategists at the Pentagon who feel this will not be any more effective than President Clinton's one-day bombing on Aug. 20, 1998 of a factory in Sudan (reported to manufacture chemical weapons but actually producing pharmaceuticals) and terrorist camps in Afghanistan (which turned out to be empty).

Almost all administration policy makers Monday appeared to be drawing away from the notion spread over several days that getting rid of bin Laden is the key to fighting terrorism. Led by Powell, they made clear that getting the Saudi millionaire is not the entire answer. Only George W. Bush himself got carried away during an emotional visit to the Pentagon and delivered a ''dead or alive'' message about bin Laden.

As Vice President Dick Cheney candidly admitted on Sunday, U.S. intelligence is not even sure bin Laden is in Afghanistan, much less able to pinpoint his exact whereabouts. On Monday, Powell denied published reports that the 72-hour ultimatum carried by Pakistani officials was a message dictated by Washington.

U.S. government intelligence experts regard bin Laden as the primary spiritual and political leader of the terrorists who is one of the most admired men in the Arab world but does not actually run the complex, sophisticated terrorist network that planned the Sept. 11 attack. Thus, Defense Department strategists argue against a bin Laden manhunt on two grounds: it is unlikely to be successful, and it would not effectively throttle terrorism if it did succeed.

Afghanistan, one well-placed Pentagon official told me, does not offer very interesting targets for aerial bombardment. U.S. bombers or cruise missiles might be demolishing deserted terrorist camps, as was the case in 1998.

Even if some terrorists were still on hand in Afghanistan, their connection with the Sept. 11 attack is obscure. Steven Emerson, an expert on intelligence, has identified more than 5,000 men trained in the Afghan camps. Not one of the 19 skyjackers identified by the FBI is found on Emerson's list.

Anti-terrorism experts believe the heart and soul of Arab terrorism is not found in dusty Afghan camps, but in modern office buildings in Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran and Beirut. These are the more interesting targets in the opinion of key Pentagon officials, and U.S. intelligence is capable of precisely identifying them and cruise missiles can accurately attack them.

But attacks on any of these countries would entail greater diplomatic fallout than smashing the Taliban, arousing State Department fears of the Arab street undermining moderate Arab governments. That is why the necessary early response against terrorism is likely to hit Afghanistan.

One week after the terrorist attack, all of official Washington agrees that there should be no U.S. expeditionary force sent to Afghanistan--a Delta Force commando team perhaps, but no army approaching the scale of Desert Storm.

Rep. Porter Goss (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been carrying with him photographs he had taken of the brutal mountainous Afghan topography. His message: this is no place for a Western conventional army. Sending American troops there clearly will not be the American response.

Misinformation? Truth? So many contradictory things in the press these days.

The U.S. has to decide if it wants to wage a PR war against terrorism, or a real one. A PR war would target Afghanistan and leave Iraq alone. A real war against terrorism will also target Iraq, and if it does not topple Saddam's regime, it will at the very least target his above-ground and under-ground facilities building WMD.

Did anyone watch FNC this morning when they interviewed the kid that got an interview with bin laden. He said he went to the fbi and cia and they gave him the info he needed to contact laden.this was in 1999.I bet our intel is better than most think.I bet we know exactly where he is.

An information vacuum WILL be filled with speculation. The longer it drags out without anything happening (as perceived from the outside), the "blanks" will be filled in by a media that seems incapable of living with short-term uncertainty.

The Taliban is the official GOVERNMENT of one country...Afganistan. This is the first obvious target of state-sponsored terrorism. Because of this, Afganistan must be hit and hit hard.

Not to say that other states such as Iraq and Syria should be ignored. Rather, they should be the NEXT targets slated for American action.

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