Military

DATE=November 6, 2001

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-35535

TITLE=Are We Winning?

BYLINE=Anna Zalewksi

TELEPHONE=619-1287

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

HOST: With daily bombings, ground troops deployed, the international coalition still supportive of American actions and polls showing continued approval for the war in Afghanistan, why is the press suddenly criticizing the administration's efforts? Neal Lavon looks at what the United States is doing right and wrong in the war against the Taleban and the al-Qaida terror network in this Dateline report.

NL: According to an October 30th New York Times/CBS News poll, eighty-eight percent of Americans back the military attacks in Afghanistan. Yet for the first time since the beginning of the war on terrorism, the paper raised this question on its front page: "Can we accomplish our national objectives in fighting terrorism at home and abroad, including capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, saving the international alliance from unraveling and protecting people from future attacks?"

Even though President Bush enjoys overwhelming support from the American people, some experts wonder if the course of action undertaken by the administration is appropriate or sufficient to win the war. James Steinberg of the Brookings Institution, who served as a deputy national security advisor to President Clinton, echoed the rhetorical question about the current war: "Are We Winning?"

TAPE: CUT#1, STEINBERG, :12

"I think it's important as we discuss this to remember what our objective is. Our objective here is to disrupt the attacks on the U.S. and our interests."

NL: To James Steinberg, the war in Afghanistan is part of an overall effort to rid the world of terrorists. It is more a battle than a war, he says and he maintains that the reason the United States is involved in Afghanistan is because that country has been harboring bin Laden for so long.

TAPE: CUT#2, STEINBERG, :17

"But while we have enormous disagreements with the Taleban, they're a rotten bunch who run what doesn't even pass for a government, but our concern is not overthrowing the Taleban for the sake of overthrowing the Taleban but rather to prevent them from offering a sanctuary to bin Laden."

NL: But to Richard Perle, former Defense Department official and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the objective of the war in Afghanistan should be overthrowing the Tale ban.

TAPE: CUT#3, PERLE, :36

"The idea that the destruction of the Taleban regime is not a principle objective seems to me quite wrong. And the reason for destroying the Taleban regime is not simply to deny sanctuary in Afghanistan to Osama bin Laden and his terror network, It is to demonstrate to other nations that there is a price attached to assisting organized terror in its campaign to destroy Americans."

NL: Mr. Perle says that until we fully understand that this war will be fought on the territory of the terrorists, we will be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Failing to understand that, he said, led to the events of September 11th.

TAPE: CUT#4, PERLE, :16

"The situation we find ourselves today is in my view the product of past failures. And by this I mean simply that repeated acts of terror against the United States went largely unanswered."

NL: Richard Perle added that what went unanswered were such previous acts of terror against the United States as the assassination plot against former President Bush, the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa and the attempt against the World Trade Center in 1993. When the United States did respond, it was by launching, in his words, ineffective, symbolic weapons. The responses, he noted, encouraged the terrorists and the countries that supported them to believe that they could engage in acts of terror against the United States with little retribution. So Richard Perle said it was hardly surprising that the terrorists were emboldened by each of their successes. After achieving its goals in Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, he said, should expand to other countries.

TAPE: CUT#5, PERLE, :35

"But if we are going to reduce the number of terrorists who can get within striking range of this country and its manifestations abroad, in the form of our embassies and our citizens working abroad, we have first to deny the sanctuary and another support that comes with a state sponsorship and behind Afghanistan there is a long list of states that have made their territory home to terrorists and have providing them with the means of terrorist acts."

NL: Most analysts have mixed views on the effectiveness of the first fifty days of the war. Robert Kagan, Carnegie Senior Associate and Contributing Editor to the Weekly Standard and the New Republic, believes the U-S is losing the first round of this war because of a lack of will and the commitment of resources.

TAPE: CUT#6, KAGAN, :23

"Why are we losing the first round? I would argue that there, I find, are eerie similarities with the early stages of the Vietnam War as we're trying to fight this war and to put it most bluntly and perhaps objectionably, it is that we're trying to win this war on the cheap. On a diplomatic cheap, on a military cheap, on a political cheap."

NL: Robert Kagan argues that U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has been hampered by several constraints. Among them are maintaining the international coalition against terrorism with its Islamic members, and trying to keep Pakistan happy with the outcome of the war. Also frustrating the U-S, he says, is the reluctance to engage more ground troops in Afghanistan, and the wish to confine the conflict to Afghanistan. In addition, he concludes, the U-S and its coalition may be hampered by concerning itself now with the makeup of the future government of Afghanistan.

James Steinberg expressed the view that the U-S and its coalition needs to work out the makeup of the new government and pay attention to political and well as military details in Afghanistan.

TAPE: CUT#7, STEINBERG, :33

"So if we think in terms of what we want to accomplish in terms of military objectives, in the first best instance, it would be better to have a different government in Afghanistan, one that would cooperate with us on getting rid of the terrorist organizations and denying them the facilities used for training and the like. But in order to do that, we need to have a strategy that has a political component, that is, putting in place a government that can have control over the territory that can work with us as well as the military strategy to get rid of the Taleban."

NL: Robert Kagan disagreed.

TAPE: CUT#8, KAGAN, :15

"I don't really agree with Jim that the military has been outpacing the political. I would argue that the political has been moving forward without sufficient military progress and that's one reason why the political objectives are not going to be achieved, it seems to me."

NL: Robert Kagan continued by saying that the United States is operating right now on two mistaken assumptions.

TAPE: CUT#9, KAGAN, :35

"One, which also reminds me of Vietnam which is the underestimation of our opponent. You recall in the early years of Vietnam that we had great contempt for the Viet Cong, they were, 'little men in black pajamas' I think one official once said. We were very confident of our own military and technological superiority. We could certainly use our advanced weapons and know how to eradicate the 'little men in black pajamas,' and then we discovered what one of our generals said about the Taleban, 'they proved rather more tenacious than we expected. And the other assumption that we have all the time in the world."

NL: James Steinberg, Richard Perle and Robert Kagan agreed the global coalition against terrorism would help the U.S. in the short term. At the same time, questions arise whether the coalition will continue to exist beyond the war in Afghanistan.

In recent days, European leaders reaffirmed their support for the United States and the head of the Arab League dismissed an appeal by Osama bin Laden for Muslims to join a holy war against the West. Despite press criticism about the pace of the war, there is still widespread and in some cases, growing, support for it. That support, in the long run, if used properly by the administration, could serve as a reason for optimism that the United States and its allies will emerge victorious.

This edition of Dateline was written by Anna Zalewski in Washington. I'm Neal Lavon.