- The Bush administration is growing increasingly alarmed
by the direction of the military campaign in Afghanistan after a week of
almost continuous bombing has failed to dislodge either Osama bin Laden
or the Taliban leadership.
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- In the absence of new intelligence on the whereabouts
of the Saudi-born extremist accused of masterminding the September 11 terrorist
attacks, US generals are under pressure from civilian defence officials
to send greater numbers of special forces into Afghanistan to try to accomplish
what the bombing failed to do - flush out a target.
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- But the Pentagon's top brass are reluctant to deploy
their best troops in the absence of good intelligence about Bin Laden's
whereabouts, and before further bombing has softened expected resistance
on the ground.
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- The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is reported to
be increasingly frustrated by the caution of the generals and their inability
to come up with a creative battle plan. One of his aides was quoted in
today's edition of Newsweek as comparing the attitude of today's Pentagon
to the conventional thinking familiar in the Gulf war - a thinking now
considered to be out of date and inappropriate for the delicate nature
of the war against terrorism. "The media are preparing to cover a
second Gulf war," the aide said, "and the military are preparing
to fight one."
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- It was always assumed that the second phase of the military
campaign in Afghanistan would involve the deployment of significant numbers
of special forces, but as the moment drew closer yesterday differences
were becoming more visible over how many should be used and in what manner.
Mr Rumsfeld had taken office planning a radical shake-up of the military
hierarchy, but did not have time to do so before the US came under attack
on September 11. After the suicide attacks on New York and Washington were
traced to Bin Laden and his camps in Afghanistan, Mr Rumsfeld gave his
top generals the task of drawing up a radical and innovative battle plan.
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- His aides predicted that apart from a few opening air
strikes to destroy the Taliban's air defences, the war would be a largely
covert conflict. Instead the first week of the campaign has involved wave
after wave of Gulf war-style strikes, and a rising toll of claimed civilian
casualties.
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- The traditionalist generals believe that there are more
military targets in Afghanistan which can be hit from the air, and have
backed the renewed use of heavy bombers this week, after a weekend in which
most strikes were carried out by smaller, tactical strikers launched from
carriers in the Arabian sea.
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- One potential target is the Taliban's 55th Brigade, made
up principally of Arab fighters who are thought to constitute the regime's
Praetorian guard.
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- The first week of bombing has not "smoked out"
Bin Laden or the Taliban leadership from their strongholds, as President
Bush had hoped, and the Pentagon's military planners are said to be still
operating in an intelligence vacuum. Some feel the job of finding these
elusive targets belongs to the diplomats and the spies. "I hope the
military isn't given this to solve," General Anthony Zinni, the former
head of the Pentagon's central command, is reported to have grumbled to
other officers.
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- British defence officials were yesterday giving the clear
impression that military planners are deeply frustrated by the lack of
intelligence about the impact of the air campaign and what next they should
do to attack such elusive targets.
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- They say they are continuing to look at all the options
for the deployment of ground troops, including "small units"
- a reference to special forces - or "larger numbers" - the prospect
of airborne troops gaining a bridgehead inside Afghanistan as a base for
raids against Taliban forces.
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- But sources describe the plans as "paper talk"
and say no decision has been made.
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- Top officers in the Pentagon are leaning away from setting
up a base inside Afghanistan on the grounds that it would be vulnerable.
Instead the most likely option is that helicopter-borne special forces
units will launch their missions from the deck of the Kitty Hawk aircraft
carrier in the Arabian sea.
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- Military planners are concerned about the approaching
winter and the pressures on the Pakistani leader, General Pervez Musharraf,
as well as the immediate tactical problem of knowing where to strike against
the forces of an unconventional enemy.
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- While most of the Taliban's air defences have been destroyed,
their light forces and the small open-backed lorries they use to move about
the country were reported yesterday to be mostly intact.
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- The Afghan militia's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul
Kabir, yesterday offered to hand Bin Laden over to a neutral country if
the US provided evidence of his guilt. But the offer, a reiteration of
previous Taliban proposals, was immediately rejected by President Bush.
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- A White House spokeswoman said: "The president has
been very clear: there will be no negotiations."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2001 http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,574258,00.html
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