Editor’s note: This is the second of three commentaries by Paul Sperry on Washington’s inability to protect its citizens.
WASHINGTON – In those three long weeks before we finally bombed Afghanistan, my Bush administration sources kept reassuring me that the guys at the top knew what they were doing.
“Take a deep breath,” they said (this was before the anthrax scare). “There’s a method to their madness.”
For one, they explained, we were buying time for the FBI to hunt down and lock up accomplices of the hijackers, so they couldn’t carry out additional attacks on the U.S. after we retaliated.
The delay also allowed time for:
- Innocent Afghan civilians to flee.
- Special forces to find good targets.
- Psyops to rattle the ruling Taliban militia and cause defections.
- U.S. intelligence to gather hard evidence against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
- The Taliban to turn over bin Laden.
Maybe so.
But the delay also bought the Taliban time to harden defenses, and bin Laden and his henchmen time to find better hiding places under the aegis of the Taliban.
More, it gave bin Laden, known fondly as “the sheik” by his loyalists, time to cut a video and rally his foot soldiers across not only the Middle East and Central Asia, but America, where Allah-praising terrorists are mailing deadly anthrax bombs and allegedly preparing to outdo the Sept. 11 attacks. Thousands of Pakistanis, who revere bin Laden as much as they revile America, have crossed into Afghanistan to take up arms with the Taliban.
Pentagon brass now concede that, after five weeks of shelling, the Taliban shows no signs of giving up. In fact, its troops have retrenched.
And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has lowered expectations of ever finding bin Laden.
Clearly frustrated, the Pentagon is soliciting defense contractors for help in “defeating difficult targets.”
In those first three weeks, we could have at least started high-altitude bombing of Kabul and Kandahar. We didn’t need human intelligence to target runways and power grids. They were always there, in plain view of our birds in space. If we had, ground troops might already be penetrating those strongholds.
But now winter is fast-approaching in Afghanistan, and our forces will more than likely have to dig in like the Soviets (who also tried fuel-air bombs, by the way, and didn’t have much luck), when they should be moving on to other terrorist states like Iraq – even though we’ll probably never hit Baghdad while President Bush is in office. Oust Saddam Hussein and finish the job his father never finished? Not this loyal son. He wouldn’t dare show up daddy and spoil the ongoing pretense of his stunning Gulf war “victory.”
If you think the Pentagon’s Afghan timetable is months, think again. My sources tell me that it’s shipping over defense contractors specializing in inventory management. That’s no sign of a short campaign.
Waiting to strike back also gave anti-war protesters and America-haters – many of them Muslim – time to gain a louder voice in the media, where they’ve long had a sympathetic ear.
Caving to media pressure, the Bush administration changed the very name of the war to avoid offending adherents of a religion under whose banner our enemies are slaughtering us.
Then, to appease the peaceniks, it dropped food and humanitarian leaflets over Afghanistan, further delaying the dropping of bombs.
But enough nonsense about military strategy delaying the war. The Pentagon was never in charge. The State Department has muzzled hawks from Day One.
The real reason we put off the bombing is so “Coalition” Colin Powell could strut his diplomatic stuff, hopscotching across the Persian Gulf and Arab Peninsula to curry favor with nations who will continue to hate us whether we throw a smoke bomb or a tactical nuke in bin Laden’s caves.
Between Bush and Powell, more than 80 nations were courted in those first three weeks, most of them friends and allies who didn’t need any coaxing. It was a replay of the diplomatic run-up to the Gulf war, yet, unlike that war, this one was born of necessity, not choice.
Turns out it was all a big waste of time anyway.
Saudi Arabia is already reneging on its promise to let us use a new command center on a Saudi military base in our air war against terrorists. And Pakistan is selling us out.
Given the pressure both governments face from militant Islamic theocrats, did Powell really think they would help us?
In fact, Pakistan – our supposed key partner – is compromising our military operation in Afghanistan.
Pakistani military intelligence, which has been in bed with the Taliban since 1996, has been secretly arming the Taliban, and may have even tipped it off to the whereabouts of Northern Alliance leader Abdul Haq, who was recently executed by the Taliban.
Pakistan clearly can’t be trusted.
Yet Powell has now offered to take Pakistani scientists on field trips to our nuclear weapons labs. That’s on top of the sanctions he lifted on the terrorist-harboring country to get them to agree to overflight rights.
What other Faustian deals has Powell cut behind closed doors to get Arab nations to pay lip service to our cause and form this egg-shell-like coalition? What promises has he made that will only entangle us deeper in Arab politics?
Direct money aid? Canceling of debts? Military know-how? Arms sales? Trade benefits?
We already know that he promised to cut trade tariffs and barriers for Jordan, and to lift sanctions on Sudan, because they pledged their cooperation in our war against terrorist-sponsoring states such as, well, Sudan.
How did Powell hijack this war?
In a leadership vacuum, which I’ll address tomorrow, there is no one authoritative voice, so many voices fill it. The loudest voice is Powell’s, second only to that of Condi Rice, his ally in the White House. (Even the voice of Britain’s leader has been stronger than that of our commander in chief.)
Hawks and doves in the administration have been working at cross purposes throughout the war.
One day, Rumsfeld growls about “starving” al-Qaida soldiers in their caves until they “collapse from within.” The next, we’re airlifting more food provisions, which just fall into their hands.
Then our fighter pilots draw a bead on Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar only to be called off by administration lawyers, who veto the hit on anti-assassination legal grounds, sending Rummie into a door-kicking rage.
And, we’re so worried about offending Islam that we have become hidebound to the inept Northern Alliance.
We’re waiting on them to topple Kabul, so we can report back to Powell’s precious Arab coalition that Afghans, not Americans, ultimately defeated the Taliban.
Now we’re being told we also need the Northern Alliance for nation-building purposes.
Huh? I’m confused. Are we defending America, or liberating Afghanistan? I could have sworn the goal was to go in, eradicate the terrorist regime and get the hell out so we could move on to the next group of thugs.
How about we worry about rebuilding their country after we level it.
And who says the Northern Alliance is our friend? What form of government would its leaders install? A democracy? Pshaw. Before we targeted their enemy, the Taliban, did they like America any more than their enemy? Do they denounce anti-American terrorism? Or are we just propping up and arming another Taliban regime?
I fear the “vision thing” is becoming an issue with this Bush administration, as well.
No wonder we’re constantly asked for our “patience.” Officials can’t keep things in focus.
Bush is also demanding our “respect” – for our Islamic enemy! He even initially halted bombing on Fridays, the Muslim day of worship. And it was Powell’s idea to “temper” strikes during Ramadan, when the enemy would be weaker from fasting and easier to kill (don’t cringe; that’s what war is all about – killing the enemy). Thankfully, the hawks appear to have won that debate and we won’t be easing up.
But meanwhile, our enemy has taken advantage of the administration’s well-telegraphed sensitivity to their religion by turning mosques into command-and-control centers. They know we’d never dare bomb a mosque – even if we knew that bin Laden and Omar were handcuffed and locked inside.
Can we be more stupid? Yes.
The Taliban also has moved troops out of barracks and into Afghan homes, alongside women and children, so we won’t target them.
None other than the top gun prosecuting this so-called war gave them the idea.
“We will never stoop to the level of our enemy” and target women and children, proclaimed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Meyers on Oct. 25 in a press conference televised around the world. (Recall that President Clinton promoted Meyers to vice chairman before Bush elevated him to chairman.)
Of course not. That would be fighting terror with terror. That would be doing what they didn’t count on us doing. That would be showing no mercy.
That would be winning.
They aren’t kidding about asymmetrical warfare: They can kill us, but we can’t kill them. All we can do is freeze their bank accounts and bomb their refugees with care packages.
The Bush administration is trying to fight a compassionate war, but there’s no such thing. It’s an oxymoron if there ever was one, and they are laughing at us.
Look, there is nothing noble or decent or romantic about this war. It will be a bloody, brutal knife fight. To fight it as if it were anything else, is to lose.
And, please, let’s not fool ourselves about our enemy: This isn’t a war against terrorism. It’s a war against Islamism. Anti-American terror is Islam, and Islam is anti-American terror.
The sooner we face that reality, the sooner we will win this war. And the sooner we will honor the brave men and women in uniform whom we’ve shipped off to fight this awful knife fight for us.
Postscript: Do you know who hires the airport security contractors now? Not the airports, but the airlines, which have an inherent conflict: tighter security or
fewer delays? They often pick the latter, and the FAA, in bed with the airlines, looks the other way.
Few are canned, as it stands now, for security breaches. Make the ultimate employer of these screeners the Justice
Department (you could even create a new directorate – Airport Security – and put the air marshals under it, as well), which doesn’t have that conflict, so the focus can be on security. And hire ex-military/law enforcement personnel as screeners and pay them GS-11/GS-12 grade.
That way, all screeners would report
to one employer who evaluates their performance against one standard – and has the resources and power to instantly investigate their citizenship and criminal record. If continued private employment of
these screeners is the answer to safe air travel in the Terror Era, why are we even having this debate? Hint: because the current way isn’t working. Time to try something totally different, and not just tinker at the margins to satisfy partisan hobbyhorses.
By the way, Israel is not a good comparison as a nation that uses “private” security contractors effectively. It has how many airports to manage compared with the U.S.? Right – you get my point.
Tomorrow: Is Bush a sentimental fool?
Related columns:
Washington can’t protect you – Part 1
Please, Mr. Bush, no Basrah this time
