Author: Christine Spolar
Publication: Chicago Tribune
Date: January 28, 2004
Sources say military is mapping
operation to strike inside Pakistan
The Bush administration, deeply
concerned about recent assassination attempts against Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf and a resurgence of Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan,
is preparing a U.S. military offensive that would reach inside Pakistan
with the goal of destroying Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, military
sources said.
U.S. Central Command is assembling
a team of military intelligence officers that would be posted in Pakistan
ahead of the operation, according to sources familiar with details of the
plan and internal military communications. The sources spoke on the condition
they not be identified.
As now envisioned, the offensive
would involve Special Operations forces, Army Rangers and Army ground troops,
sources said. A Navy aircraft carrier would be deployed in the Arabian
Sea.
Referred to in internal Pentagon
messages as the "spring offensive," the operation would be driven by certain
undisclosed events in Pakistan and across the region, sources said. A source
familiar with details of the plan said this is "not like a contingency
plan for North Korea, something that sits on a shelf. This planning is
like planning for Iraq. They want this plan to be executable, now."
The Defense Department declined
to comment on the planned offensive or its details.
Such an operation almost certainly
would demand the cooperation of Musharraf, who previously has allowed only
a small number of U.S. Special Operations forces to work alongside Pakistani
troops in the semi-autonomous tribal areas. A military source in Washington
said last week, "We are told we're going into Pakistan with Musharraf's
help."
Yet a large-scale offensive by U.S.
forces within the nuclear-armed Islamic republic could be political dynamite
for Musharraf.
The army general, who took power
in a bloodless coup in 1999, has come under growing political pressure
from Islamic parties, and his cooperation with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts
is widely unpopular among average Pakistanis. Nor can Musharraf count on
the loyalty of all of Pakistan's armed forces or its intelligence agency,
members of which helped set up and maintain the Taliban in Afghanistan
and are suspected of ties to militant Islamic groups.
Speaking on Friday at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Musharraf again rejected the need
for U.S. forces to enter Pakistan to search for bin Laden.
"That is not a possibility at all,"
Musharraf said. "It's a very sensitive issue."
The U.S. military is operating under
the belief that, despite his recent statements, Musharraf's thinking has
changed, sources said. Musharraf said last week that bin Laden and his
followers likely were hiding in the mountains along the Afghan border.
He also said "we are reasonably sure that it is Al Qaeda" who was behind
the two attempts on his life.
An offensive into Pakistan to pursue
Al Qaeda would be in keeping with President Bush's vow to strike wherever
and whenever the United States feels threatened and to pursue terrorist
elements to the end.
"The best way to defend America
. . . is to stay on the offensive and find these killers, one by one,"
Bush said last week. "We're going to stay on the hunt, which requires good
intelligence, good cooperation, good participation with friends and allies
around the world."
Musharraf's vulnerability is of
deep concern to U.S. officials. If he were killed, Bush administration
officials say, it is unlikely that any successor would be as willing to
work toward U.S. goals to eliminate Islamic extremists.
The U.S. military plan is characterized
within the Pentagon as "a big effort" in the next year. Military analysts
had previously judged that a bold move against Islamic extremists and bin
Laden, in particular, was more likely to happen in spring 2005.
A series of planning orders--referred
to in military jargon as warning orders--for the offensive were issued
in recent weeks. The deadline for key planning factors to be detailed by
the U.S. military was Jan. 21.
Sources said the plan against Al
Qaeda would be driven by events in the region rather than set deadlines
and that delays could occur. But military sources said the push for this
spring appeared to be triggered by the assassination attempts on Musharraf,
both of which came in December, and, to some extent, the capture of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq.
Hussein was captured after eight
months of an intense military and intelligence effort on the ground in
Iraq. Pentagon and administration officials, buoyed by that success, believe
a similar determined effort could work in Pakistan and lead to the capture
or killing of bin Laden, said sources familiar with the planning.
Thousands of U.S. forces would be
involved, as well as Pakistani troops, planners said. Some of the 10,600
U.S. troops now in Afghanistan would be shifted to the border region as
part of regular troop movements; some would be deployed within Pakistan.
"Before we were constrained by the
border. Musharraf did not want that. Now we are told we're going into Pakistan
with Musharraf's help," a well-placed military source said.
Internal Pentagon communications
indicate the U.S. offensive would rely on several areas of operation, including
Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries in the region.
The U.S. also is weighing how and
if Iran can be persuaded, through direct or indirect channels, to lend
help, according to internal Pentagon communications. The U.S. is eager
to avoid a repeat of the Afghan war in 2001, when some Al Qaeda fighters
were believed to have escaped into Iran.
Military planners said the offensive
would not require a significant increase in U.S. troops in South Asia.
But Special Operations forces that shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq in
2003 will return.
"We don't have enough forces but
we can rely on proxy forces in that area," said a military source, referring
to Pakistani troops. "This is designed to go after the Taliban and everybody
connected with it."