The Wall Street Journal December 24, 2001
U.S. Weighs How to Best Redeploy Troops To Search for al Qaeda, Identify Prisoners
By Chip Cummins
As a new government assumes power in Afghanistan and the U.S. continues a massive manhunt across the country, American commanders are considering how best to redeploy the thousands of American troops stationed there.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he is ready to order hundreds of additional troops into the mountains around Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan to assist in cave-to-cave searches for Osama bin Laden and other members of his al Qaeda terrorist network. Hundreds more U.S. special-operations and intelligence personnel are fanning out across the country, helping Afghans sift through thousands of prisoners of war in an attempt to identify people whom American officials wish to prosecute or interrogate further.
U.S. ground commanders -- who recently set up headquarters in Kuwait -- are juggling several missions after American-backed Afghan forces overran the last significant Taliban and al Qaeda resistance in the country last week. As many as 3,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, including about 1,500 Marines stationed at two bases near the southwestern city of Kandahar, several hundred special-operations troops and hundreds more regular Army soldiers, engineers and support personnel across the Texas-size country.
Some of the Marines could be moved to help several dozen U.S. and British commandos now engaged in the hunt for Mr. bin Laden near Tora Bora. Hundreds of regular Army soldiers guarding air bases in Pakistan and Uzbekistan used by the U.S. also could be redeployed there. It wasn't clear whether fresh troops already were arriving in Tora Bora, and a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said he couldn't comment on current operations or troop movements.
Outside observers say the boost in forces around Tora Bora likely wouldn't require a new infusion of U.S. troops into the region. "As long as they're talking about hundreds, not thousands [going to Tora Bora], I think they have plenty of people already there," said John Pike, who runs GlobalSecurity.org (globalsecurity.org), an independent defense-analysis group.
Meanwhile, the head of Afghanistan's new interim government said he welcomes a continued American military presence in the country as long as al Qaeda and Taliban leaders remained at large. "As long as we think there are remnants of terrorists in Afghanistan, [U.S.] forces can stay and fight terrorism," Hamid Karzai told CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday, after presiding over his first cabinet meeting in Kabul.
Underscoring the difficulty such an American presence may continue to encounter, however, local leaders denounced a U.S. air strike that they said killed dozens of tribal elders allied with Mr. Karzai.
A Central Command spokesman said AC-130 gun ships and carrier-based warplanes attacked the convoy late last week near the southeastern town of Khost after being called in by U.S.-backed Afghans who said the convoy included senior Taliban leaders.
The Pentagon said it still believes the convoy was a valid target, but Navy Cmdr. Dave Culler, the Central Command spokesman, said Sunday the U.S. is investigating the incident after receiving subsequent intelligence that the convoy may have included tribal elders friendly to Mr. Karzai, not Taliban leaders.
As American commanders weigh sending more troops to Tora Bora, they say they still don't know where Mr. bin Laden, his top lieutenants and former Taliban leader Mohammed Omar are hiding. Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf said during a visit to China during the weekend that he was reasonably sure that Mr. bin Laden hadn't escaped into his country and that "there was a great possibility" that the Saudi exile is dead.
But the U.S. has no reason to believe that, Cmdr. Culler said: "Nothing has changed with our posture" toward Mr. bin Laden. "We're still looking for him."
Should Marines be shifted eastward, a sizeable presence still will be needed to watch over the growing number of detainees being held and questioned at a makeshift prison camp at Kandahar's airport. Engineers worked to expand the camp during the weekend in expectation of receiving dozens more detainees in the days ahead. Marine officers have previously been told to be ready to receive 100 to 300 prisoners.
So far, 24 people have been turned over to U.S. forces. Eight of those, including the American John Walker, are being held aboard a Navy ship in the Arabian Sea. The other 16 are being held at the Marine base at Kandahar.
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