All-Out US Assault Hawks Forced To Retreat By Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian - London 9-27-1

A day after the terrorist attacks on the US, senior defence sources were predicting a massive attack on Afghanistan, including missile strikes and ground troops. A contingency plan had been dusted off, they said, involving "the cooperation of surrounding countries to the north of Afghanistan". A few days later, the sources were not so sure. There was an argument in Washington, they said, between the hawks and the doves, between those pressing for an immediate assault on Afghanistan - and possibly Iraq as well - and those urging caution, proposing a careful, "intelligence-led" military operation. As the days passed with no military action, it became clear that the hawks - led by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz - had been convinced by the doves, led by Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, supported by Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser. Their strongest argument was the need to build as broad an international coalition as possible in what Mr Bush's advisers and Washington spokesmen increasingly described as a long-term "war on terrorism". Mr Powell, a former chief of the US armed forces, was also well aware of the dangers of sending in ground troops and the ineffectiveness of ill-considered air strikes. "We were bouncing rubble with billion-dollar missiles," he said after the 1991 Gulf war. He was also well aware of the futility of firing a few cruise missiles at a number of Bin Laden training camps in south-east Afghanistan - the tactic adopted by President Clinton following the attacks on US embassies in east Africa in 1998. The military options are reflecting political and diplomatic priorities - in London as well as Washington - and what defence sources call the need to achieve "outcomes". The first is to try to find Bin Laden and his circle in Afghanistan. That relies on good intelligence, from spy satellites but also from the ground. The only people who can do this - apart from the unlikely presence of spies in Bin Laden's camp - are special forces. The SAS and US special forces, notably its Delta Force, will play a potentially crucial role in the forthcoming military campaign. Good intelligence is also the key to avoiding civilian casualties. Special forces can guide pilots to fixed targets and report the movement of people. The SAS - which in the 1980s was heavily involved with the mojahedin of what is now the Northern Alliance, may well be benefiting from its help now. However, the alliance, supported by Russia, is strongly opposed by Pakistan, whose discreet intelligence help US and British forces need and are almost certainly already getting. Military planners, as well as diplomats, are extremely sensitive to the need to avoid exacerbating relations between Russia and Pakistan. There is little doubt that military operations in Afghanistan will involve air strikes against Bin Laden camps and the Taliban's military bases. They are also likely to precede the deployment of hundreds of US - and possibly British - airborne troops whose job could be to hold such bases as Bagram airport north of Kabul.