The Boston Herald September 4, 2002
War on terrorism nearing next phase
By ANDREW MIGA
One year after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush's global war against terrorism remains a work in progress - rapidly evolving as America eyes potential strikes against Iraq.
With the initial combat phase of the war winding down in Afghanistan, the president and his Pentagon planners are weighing battle plans for toppling Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
"Do we wait for another attack before we act with force?" asked Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recently. "Or do we use our inherent right of self-defense to keep this from happening?" It's a sobering question that Bush and his national security team are still wrestling with behind closed doors in the Oval Office.
The president must convince a skeptical Congress and American public that attacking Saddam is vital to winning the broader terror war.
The broad international coalition Bush cobbled together to support the opening phase of the war in Afghanistan is beginning to unravel. Canada, Russia and Germany have balked so far at an Iraqi offensive.
European and Arab support is vital for any U.S.-led Iraqi offensive, both in military and diplomatic terms.
Even the president's senior advisers are divided on the wisdom of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, which has refused to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back inside its borders.
Some Bush aides favor further diplomacy or limited tactical strikes to punish Saddam. Others are pushing for an all-out war.
So far, nothing about the war on terrorism has been simple or easy.
It's often been called the shadow war - the intensive hunt for Osama bin Laden's elusive terror network that spans all corners of the globe.
"In a conventional war, you know who the enemy is," said defense policy expert John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. "You know their uniforms and they kinda-sorta follow the generally accepted rules of war. That's not the case with this war against terrorism."
Pike said that one year after Sept. 11, no one really knows how many al-Qaeda terrorists are still operating across the globe. In his State of the Union speech earlier this year, Bush said there were some 100,000 trained al-Qaeda agents across the globe targeting American interests. Pike said Bush may be overestimating the threat.
"What are the rest of them waiting for?" he asked. "Are we dealing with 100,000 carbon copies of the guys who crashed into the World Trade Center, or are we dealing with a few hundred guys who just fell off the turnip truck? I don't know that we have a better sense today of the magnitude of the threat than we did a year ago."
The ambitious crusade Bush launched last fall was a dramatic departure from past wars, particularly on the homefront.
The Pentagon and World Trade Center suicide airliner attacks shattered America's long-cherished sense of security. They were the most brutal foreign attacks ever on U.S. soil.
The President scrambled to create a new office of Homeland Security to secure airports, harbors and public buildings.
Given the secretive nature of terrorism, reliable intelligence has become more critical than ever.
"We must recognize that this war is different than any in history and that our most important weapon is intelligence - and it's also our greatest vulnerability," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
For Bush and his Pentagon planners, the terror war broke dramatic new strategic ground.
Some of the fighting is behind the scenes. One of Bush's first moves against al-Qaeda was to freeze their financial assets across the globe.
Special forces - able to deploy quickly and secretly - played a critical role in Afghanistan, where most of the large-scale fighting was done by the Northern Alliance and other locals.
The globe has become a battleground without boundaries. America has shifted massive numbers of troops and material out of Europe into Asia in the hunt for al-Qaeda. No one in the administration is willing to predict how long the war will last.
"The war against terrorism is an amorphous and open-ended thing," said Professor John Norton of Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. "What is terrorism, exactly? Who is a terrorist? It's kind of like the war on drugs - is there ever any end?"
Kerry added that amid the tumult and soul-searching the Sept. 11 attacks provoked, America still enjoys the upper hand as it pursues al-Qaeda in a radically different kind of warfare.
"Some people have suggested that everything has changed in America since September 11, but I beg to differ," said Kerry. "Not everything has changed. We are still the richest nation on this planet, still the most powerful . . . and to the surprise of those who hate us, still one of the most spiritual."
Copyright 2002 Boston Herald Inc.
