Posted on: Tuesday, September 18, 2001
The September 11th attack
Terrorism war doesn't hold clear end
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — From the Oval Office, President Bush says America will ``whip terrorism'' and defeat an enemy that ``hides in shadows, and has no regard for human life.'' Even from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral he vows revenge.
Similar words were heard across the capital in the last week: ``Make no mistake about it, we will win,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Tough talk, yes. Yet, can a war on terrorism really be won?
Members of Congress, scholars and national security analysts said that while terrorism will never be eradicated, some battles can be won. Military action is expected, but this war won't resemble those of the past.
``It's a little like a war against certain kinds of disease — like the plague,'' said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA officer. ``I think you can stamp out most of it, but from time to time you'll get isolated incidents and then you'll have to gear up to stamp that out.''
America can't tackle terrorism by itself, said Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Squelching well-organized and well-funded terrorist groups can only be done internationally, he said.
``This is not a struggle over religion,'' Biden said after four hijacked planes on suicide missions toppled the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York City, smashed into the Pentagon and dived into the Pennsylvania countryside.
In his weekly radio address Saturday, Bush warned Americans: ``You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short. You will be asked for resolve, for the conflict will not be easy. You will be asked for your strength, because the course to victory may be long.''
At what point could the president claim victory in a war on terrorism?
If Bush is talking about eradicating several cells of terrorists around the world, he can succeed, said Clifford Egan, professor of history at the University of Houston.
Going against states that sponsor terrorism, he said, poses a string of other questions: Does the United States go to war against those countries? Does it lose allies? Does it want to become a global policeman? Will the American people grow weary of this? Will they tolerate casualties?
``Ideally, the administration needs to eliminate these individuals, bring them to justice and be done with it,'' Egan said. ``Then they can take other steps to mitigate terrorism.''
``This is a conflict without battlefields or beachheads, a conflict with opponents who believe they are invisible. Yet they are mistaken,'' Bush said. ``They will be exposed.''
Americans are familiar with quick missile strikes to thwart terrorists halfway around the world.
After terrorists bombed a discotheque in Berlin in 1985, killing two American soldiers and a Turkish woman and wounding 229 other people, the Reagan administration conducted an air strike against five targets in Libya. It was only marginally successful but did appear to tone down terroristic rhetoric.
After car bombs exploded outside U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and wounding thousands during the Clinton administration, the U.S. military fired about 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles against terrorist targets in Afghanistan. It's a training area for forces of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks.
``These cruise missile attacks that we've done over the last years were not effective,'' said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a member of the Senate Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism. ``It was like taking a stick and poking a hornet's next. It didn't actually dig the nest out.''
The West alone cannot win the war against terrorism, Brownback said. It needs alliances with Islamic nations whose names don't roll off the tongues of many Americans — Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakstan, former Soviet republics north of Afghanistan.
``This cannot be seen as the West against Islam,'' Brownback said. ``If we are to be successful, we have to have a number of countries in the Islamic region in the world on our side with us, which we did in the Persian Gulf War.''
If the United States wants these countries to share intelligence, be staging areas for military personnel and equipment and supplies, it has to be willing to open markets, help them get oil and gas out of their regions, help them get international bank loans and aid.
Military action is just one piece of an assault on terrorism around the world, said Michele Flournoy, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Success in any war on terrorism will be measured in the number of arrests, she said, whether access is severed to terrorists' bank accounts and if more nations stop funneling money and providing safe havens for them to live and train.
``If you rely only on military means, you will fail,'' Flournoy said.
