Posted on 09/18/2001 5:29:07 PM PDT by Rome2000
BY WARREN P. STROBEL
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- As he weighs retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks, President Bush is receiving conflicting advice from his top aides, some of whom want to go beyond a military strike on terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan and topple states that have long threatened the United States, particularly Iraq.
The split between civilian officials at the Pentagon and Secretary of State Colin Powell, confirmed Monday by current and former U.S. officials, goes to the heart of Bush's proposed new war on international terrorism.
Powell, seeking to build and hold an international coalition against terrorism that includes many Muslim nations, is urging caution, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wants to limit military strikes to bin Laden's Afghan redoubts and to use other means -- diplomacy, law enforcement and financial pressure -- to shut down terrorist networks elsewhere.
That view is not shared by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and others have argued strenuously in inter-agency meetings for a far more sweeping U.S. response, including a strategic bombing campaign and aid for Iraqi opposition groups to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the officials said.
The retaliatory campaign should include ``ending states who sponsor terrorism,'' Wolfowitz said at a news conference last week.
Wolfowitz's rhetoric -- which has not been repeated by other members of Bush's foreign policy team -- appeared to be a reference to Iraq.
The deputy defense secretary and other aides to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have been calling for an aggressive U.S. effort to oust Hussein since before they took office.
There is no evidence that Iraq helped plan or execute last Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to U.S. intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. But proponents of ousting Hussein cite his longtime support of terrorist movements and the hotly debated theory that Iraq played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
``This is just an added reason for making life as difficult as we can for Saddam,'' said Richard Perle, an advisor to the Pentagon and leading proponent of increased aid to the opposition Iraqi National Congress.
``If all we do is go after bin Laden, it'll make a mockery of all the president had to say about waging a war on terrorism,'' Perle said.
But a response that goes beyond bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban leaders, who host the terrorist mastermind, poses potentially grave problems for Bush and his diplomacy.
During the Persian Gulf War, Bush's father held together a fractious international coalition that included many Arab states by sticking to the narrow goal of ousting Hussein's troops from Kuwait rather than occupying Iraq and removing its leader.
Bush and Powell have rallied many world leaders to their side over the last week. But there is virtually no support in this new international coalition, particularly among its Muslim members, for attacks on Iraq or other Middle Eastern nations that give succor to terrorists.
``We're trying to build a coalition and people are lining up to join us, and they [Pentagon officials] want to blow it all to hell by bombing Iraq tomorrow,'' said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon proposals are ``exactly the kind of thing that would just alienate a lot of people,'' said Kenneth Pollack, a Persian Gulf specialist at the White House National Security Council until earlier this year.
Also in the back of officials' minds is then-President Bill Clinton's response to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, also traced to bin Laden's network.
Many people worldwide did not begrudge the United States the right to retaliate for the bombings.
But Washington was widely seen to lose the moral high ground when, in addition to sending cruise missiles to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, it targeted a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan whose links to bin Laden remain in dispute to this day.
If Bush's retaliation goes beyond bin Laden, ``there's a real possibility that we're going to start losing support left and right,'' said Pollack, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Yeah, right!! Sounds like the liberals to me.
You cannot shut these people down - you have to cut the head off and bury the body! Anything less is wasted effort!!!!!!
Unfortunately too many people in our government are in love with the idea of having a "coalition". All a coalition does is tie your hands much like it did during the Gulf War. We are the only superpower in the world and it is time we started acting like it.
You know, for all of my life, people have been trying to lay down the gauntlet of the jittery effects of what happens if there is a "war" in the middle east. I went to high school in the 70's, and I remember the mock "UN conventions" we had then that set up the fear of what would happen if we had a "big" war in the middle east. I've now seen something that I thought my eyes would never see, I've seen my own cities bombed by suicide terrorists in civilian planes. I've seen an attack on the city, on the government, and on the financial system that is absolutely unfathomable.
There has been nothing in the history of our country that in any way measures this. Yes, the middle east in unstable, it has been for thousands of years. BUT THIS WILL NOT STAND.
"The commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time."
President George W. Bush, National Cathedral, September 14, 2001
And how do you know what you are "illustrating" is true?
You don't. But are perfectly willing to trust an questionable source.
Which suggests to me that you merely want this delusion to be true. Or wish to convince others that it is true.
In either event, you are aiding and abetting what is probable leftist propaganda.
And you've been very persistent about it...
That, as I recall, was the Vietnam problem.......
Back when the tax cut was being negotiated, the New York Times ran a piece which said that Bush was caving on the tax cut, according to an anonymous administration source. Fred Barnes talked to everyone he could find at the White House, and not one thought that was even a remote possibility. The inescapable conclusion is that the New York Times made it up out of whole cloth.
A more recent example is this flapdoodle about Italy's participation. The BBC was the culprit on that one, and much mockery was made of the Italians, who are of course, sending troops if they are needed. Another lie from the press was exposed.
Now, this paper is not known for its admiration and support of President Bush. In fact, they have actively sought to discredit his presidency. Would anyone who served the president talk to these people? No.
Who WOULD talk to them? Clintonistas.
Why? Because Clinton does not want this war to be successful. Hence also all the Clitnonistas on the talk shows tonight. Successful wging of war and a successful presidency causes Clinton to shrink even more than he already has.
People who refuse to understand what is going on here, when presented with clear logical reasons for why this story is not true, are simply interested in disruption, undermining morale, and hurting the war effort. Rather like Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, the pushing of this article is meant to create doubt in our minds.
The commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time.
These Taliban jackoffs probably don't even know where Geneva is.
And jihad has nothing to do with military conventions or the Geneva Convention.
The Bush Administration is probably loving the "jihad" talk from the Taliban.
It's playing right into the strategy that Common Tator laid out. Or is it possible you still don't get it?
While your analysis is quite plausible and interesting, I believe all hell has already broken loose.
There are close to 6000 Americans dead in one day on US soil at the hands of islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
All nations whose governmnents are or have been sympathetic to, aided, abetted, or are unable to control these types of organizations within their borders are our enemy and must be dealt with accordingly.
And one other very important thing.
All these countries together haven't been able to take out tiny Israel.
That should speak for itself.
He has no problem with getting differing opinions and then deciding on the way he wants to go - that is the way he set his administration up.
He also will be under no pressure to act before they are ready to act. In fact, I expect him to string Bin Laden along. Nothing worse than waiting knowing something is coming.
If bombing the guys who bombed us going to alienate someone, then we don't want that someone in our "coalition."
The same so-called allies who today are urging caution and moderation will someday produce the Islamic bomb that will kill 10,000,000+ Americans.
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