At the Pentagon, where a week ago officials were deflecting questions about a conflict that seemed bogged down, there were smiles and looks of satisfaction Tuesday as each hour brought new reports of gains by the U.S.-backed opposition forces in Afghanistan.
However, the officials cautioned reporters, and seemed at times to be reminding themselves, that the hard work of rooting out Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, lies ahead.
“We are clearly in this for the long haul,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. “We’re still such a good distance from where we have to go.”
The Pentagon is also dwelling more on the inevitable migration of the war on terrorism to other countries. Rumsfeld said Al Qaeda operatives may already be seeking refuge in neighboring Iran or Pakistan, where they could disappear into the population and eventually make their way to havens in Somalia or Sudan.
Relentless attacks
With Taliban forces fleeing from cities across the northern half of Afghanistan, including Kabul, the capital, the Pentagon hopes to exploit the chaos by relentlessly attacking before the Taliban and Al Qaeda can disappear into mountain hideouts.
A limited number of U.S. Special Forces–dozens, Rumsfeld said–is on the ground in southern Afghanistan, seeking information about the whereabouts of the terrorist leadership.
The Americans are also trying to get into position to help U.S. warplanes distinguish Taliban military convoys from caravans of fleeing civilians.
Reporters were shown gun-camera videos of Taliban convoys under attack by U.S. fighter-bombers. One showed a vehicle in what appeared to be a military convoy disappearing in a fiery plume.
Rumsfeld made no apology for attacking retreating forces.
“They’re not throwing down their weapons, they’re moving their vehicles and it’s a perfectly legitimate and attractive target, and we intend to take every opportunity to do that,” Rumsfeld said.
The video images were impressive but hardly brought to mind the “highway of death” wrought by U.S. warplanes on retreating Iraqi forces at the end of the Persian Gulf war a decade ago.
Because of the intermingling of civilians and fighters, U.S. combat pilots have to make difficult judgments from the air about whether a convoy presents a legitimate military target.
Taliban disorganized
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the Taliban rout as a combination of retreat, defection and “just trying to blend into the landscape.”
“It appears to be more disorganized than organized,” Myers said. “The trick is trying to differentiate between Taliban and other forces and other peoples that may be leaving those locations, and that’s very difficult.”
Myers said Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the battlefield commander in charge of the Afghan campaign, “is putting a premium on being able to do just that differentiation.”
Rumsfeld described three options for the Taliban and Al Qaeda: reorganizing to fight in southern Afghanistan, a move he said would bring about their swift defeat; fleeing to caves, or fleeing the country.
“If they go to ground, we will, as the president said, root them out,” Rumsfeld said. “And if they decide to flee, I doubt that they’ll find peace wherever they select.”
The shift in fortunes in the Afghan war came with startling speed. Less than a week ago, the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, a loose coalition of anti-Taliban forces from several ethnic groups, controlled less than 15 percent of the country, Myers said.
Today, the Northern Alliance controls about half of Afghanistan and sits astride the two main approaches to Kandahar, the Taliban’s southern stronghold.
Myers credited increased cooperation and coordination between Northern Alliance factions as a key to the recent victories.
That improved coordination was due in no small part to U.S. liaison officers who helped put the action on the ground in sync with U.S. air attacks.
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The problem now facing the Pentagon is that defeating the Taliban–the main objective of the Northern Alliance–is not the primary U.S. objective but the means to destroying Al Qaeda.
“Our interest is in rooting out those terrorists and stopping them from killing Americans and killing other people,” Rumsfeld said. “The Northern Alliance has an interest because they live there, that’s their country.”
The stunning advances by the Northern Alliance, while representing a military gain for the United States, also pose a political and diplomatic problem.
Pakistan, which is supporting the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, distrusts the Northern Alliance and is pushing to ensure that ethnic Pashtuns, who make up 38 percent of the Afghan population, have a role in whatever new government emerges from the war. The Taliban is made up of Pashtuns.
Delicate task
The United States and the United Nations face the delicate task of helping Afghanistan’s warring factions patch together some sort of coalition government without re-empowering the very people who welcomed Al Qaeda terrorists into Afghanistan in the first place.
At the UN on Tuesday, diplomats discussed options for a peacekeeping force, possibly made up of soldiers from Muslim countries such as Turkey and Jordan, and began to plan for an Afghan political conclave to form a new government.
As the hunt for bin Laden unfolds in southern Afghanistan, another immediate task will be opening roads and airfields in the north, some of them damaged by U.S. bombing, so that a large international relief effort can make headway before the worst winter weather sets in. The drought-stricken and war-ravaged country faces famine.
Opening the roads and airfields could involve conventional U.S. forces, local teams, crews provided by other countries or some combination.
A conventional military force will be needed to provide perimeter security for the airfields, particularly if they become bases for U.S. military operations.
“It’ll take people,” Rumsfeld said. “Whether they’ll be U.S. or some other country’s is one of the questions that’s open.”