All Things Considered September 25, 2001 Tuesday
Pentagon strategy for waging this war against terrorism
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
NOAH ADAMS: And I'm Noah Adams.
President Bush gave leaders of Congress a classified briefing this morning on military plans for what he calls the war on terrorism. A second set of closed-door meetings was held later today for the entire memberships of the House and Senate. They heard from the secretaries of Defense and State. Few details have emerged about what was said; that's in line with the current Pentagon policy of keeping a tight lid on news of force movements and missions. NPR's David Molpus reports now on what some military analysts have been piecing together. DAVID MOLPUS reporting:
On one thing nearly all independent military analysts agree: There's a huge disproportion between the number of worthwhile targets to hit in Afghanistan and the abundance of US firepower that's being assembled nearby, including B-1 and B-52 bombers plus all the warplanes and missiles on four aircraft carrier battle groups.
Mr. MICHAEL O'HANLON (The Brookings Institution): I think of those carrier battle groups partly as a show of force for intimidation's sake. As for what targets they will attack, frankly I think those carrier battle groups will run out of targets within two or three days.
MOLPUS: That's Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington. Like other experts, he says Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime does have a reasonable inventory, at least on paper, of aging tanks, armored personnel carriers, a few combat aircraft, communications stations, ammo dumps and some government ministry buildings worth striking. But the Taliban's military has few barracks. Soldiers live in village houses, and training centers are usually no more than open fields. So, O'Hanlon says, even if all these targets of the Afghan government were destroyed, that wouldn't necessarily break the core strength of the Afghan militia, which, he says, has always been highly motivated warriors with rifles using skillful ambush tactics in mountain passes.
Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to rule out a massive air strike against Afghanistan. But he did say the main strategy involves a series of incremental steps, some visible, some not.
Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD (Defense Department): Needless to say, there's not going to be a D-Day, as such, and I'm sure there will not be a signing ceremony on the Missouri, as such. This is not something that begins with a significant event or ends with a significant event. It is something that will involve a sustained effort over a good period of time.
MOLPUS: Given these signals, military analysts expect commando-style forces to carry out the bulk of military operations, raiding suspected terrorist hideouts, killing or capturing members of the bin Laden network.
One question is how much resistance they'll encounter. John Pike, who runs a think tank called GlobalSecurity.org, says missiles and mines may pose less of a threat than they did during the Soviet war with Afghanistan.
Mr. JOHN PIKE (GlobalSecurity.org): American forces are going to be flying helicopters that have substantially improved countermeasures against small surface-to-air missiles. It's not clear how many of these Stinger and similar missiles the Afghan militias have. Certainly land mines are going to be a significant hazard. But that would mainly be a hazard if you had American troops walking around all over the place. I think with the special forces you're going to see them mainly dropping down from helicopters and not spending that much time on hostile territory.
MOLPUS: Edward Lutwak, a consultant to several administrations on strategy, says in the past the military's top brass has been overly cautious about turning special ops troops loose to do their dirty work.
Mr. EDWARD LUTWAK (Defense Consultant): The Joint Chiefs have made many demands on the planning process, extended it over periods of months, and finally said no and refused authorization because of the risk to the soldiers themselves and to the civilians around or whatever.
MOLPUS: Other Defense sources say the department has learned from its past mistakes in places like Somalia and Bosnia, and that the scale of the September 11th terrorist attack has changed everything. David Molpus, NPR News, Washington.
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