The folks at TB are getting so antsy. What in the world is their hurry?

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/26/attack_strategy.htm

Signs point to U.S. strike within two weeks-analysts

By Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, 09/26/01

WASHINGTON - Official lips are sealed, but U.S. analysts say the signs -- military buildup, coalition formation, and weather forecasts -- point to U.S. strikes on Afghanistan in the next two weeks.

Since the Sept. 11 attack on New York and Washington that left nearly 7,000 dead or missing, the United States has taken steps to build a global coalition in pursuit of extremist networks and to cut off financial flows to suspects.

But the piece of U.S. strategy to fight terrorism that many are watching for, a military strike, has not yet materialized.

Despite strong public sentiment in an angry America to bomb something in retaliation, the United States has steadily deployed forces overseas but held its fire for more than two weeks.

Prime targets for a military strike are believed to be Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, his organization al Qaeda, and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan who have sheltered bin Laden and refused to turn him over to the United States.

The United States, which had accused bin Laden of masterminding the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, now suspects him in this month's hijacked plane assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Initial expectations for an immediate military strike rose from history, given that in 1998 the United States fired cruise missiles at Afghanistan 13 days after the embassy bombings.

CALLS FOR QUICK STRIKE

But analysts say President Bush has managed to stave off calls for immediate retaliation because his Cabinet is seen as stocked with conservative military types.

"If you didn't have such a hard-line group of people in there, would you be able to keep the American people and the politicians at bay this long?" Lawrence Korb, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.

Bush and his Cabinet have vowed to take action to root out terrorism and repeatedly said it would not be a quick fix, but rather a long-term mission that could mean U.S. casualties.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. military action would not be a massive D-Day style invasion, but a long and deadly fight.

Analysts say the first wave of strikes would likely be within a roughly two-week time frame to avoid weakening the resolve of the more fragile coalition ties, and also for more practical reasons -- snowfalls in October in Afghanistan.

"How long can you sustain a coalition behind our war on terrorism, how long can you sustain American consensus behind this war on terrorism until they see something happen beyond talk?" Bill Taylor, senior adviser on international security affairs at The Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.

The United States has gathered at least some pledges of support for its war on terrorism from some unlikely partners in the Middle East, and also from Russia and China.

"We've got a head of steam, can we maintain it?" Taylor said, estimating the first strikes in less than two weeks.

Analysts expect the initial wave to include air strikes on Afghanistan, perhaps as cover for inserting U.S. special operations forces into the mountainous terrain which is pockmarked with caves.

TALIBAN HEADQUARTERS

"We'll wait for the right intelligence, we'll go for targets which are both militarily significant and symbolically significant," Taylor said. Symbolic targets could include the Taliban's headquarters in Kabul, even though it is largely evacuated, to prevent them from returning, he said.

The United States is still maneuvering its forces into the region near Afghanistan, a landlocked country smaller than the U.S. state of Texas and bordered by Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and China.

"This is the hardest place in the world to get to so you've got to cut down the distance," Korb, a former assistant defense secretary, said.

The United States is getting facilities in surrounding countries from which to launch military forces and focusing on finding targets that can be hit successfully, he said.

"Because the worst thing that could happen is you go in, bomb the place, kill civilians and then bin Laden shows up on television the next day," Korb said.

"We have to look at this as going after a nest of snakes," said Ted Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at Cato Institute.

"If his (bin Laden's) reservoir of followers has been substantially diminished, he is going to be far less effective than he has been to this point," he said. "So even if we don't get bin Laden, that kind of military action can be valuable."

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001