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CIAO DATE: 03/02
Strange Victory: A critical appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan war
Carl Conetta
PDA Research Monograph #6
30 January 2002
War can never be separated from political intercourse, and if, in considering the matter, this is done in any way, all the threads of the different relations are to a certain extent broken, and we have before us a senseless thing without an object. - Carl von Clausewitz, On War 1
It is routine for war retrospectives to ask how victory was achieved. But Operation Enduring Freedom poses an additional, more fundamental question: Where has victory delivered us? In two short months Operation Enduring Freedom transformed the strategic landscape of not only Afghanistan, but also Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. It did so in ways that were largely unforseen and unplanned at the outset of the war and that remain unsettled today. Indeed, seldom has the gap been so great between the clarity of battlefield victory and the uncertainty of what it has wrought. Even the net effect of the victory on the new terrorism is uncertain.
The Taliban have been driven from power and Al Qaeda has been scattered to the hills, but Afghanistan has not come to rest in a stable place. In some respects its new circumstances resemble those of 1992, when a fragile peace brokered by outside powers was about to be tested. In other respects, its situation is reminiscent of the 1970s, when Soviet influence in the country was peaking and a new round in the "Great Game" was about to begin. Concomitant with the war in Afghanistan, the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and between India and Pakistan also escalated dramatically. Taken together, these developments may portend a period of increased global conflict deeply involving the United States and significantly exceeding the issue of terrorism.
When it was launched, Operation Enduring Freedom was granted the dispensation of being a categorically "new war", which gave its architects considerable freedom to play it by ear. 2 Actually, what was singular was not the war but the scale and audacity of the attack that America suffered on 11 September. 3 In the wake of this attack, the impulse to war overwhelmed the attention to war's possible stability effects and broader repercussions. Once war commenced, the measure of success in Afghanistan came to focus too narrowly on battlefield gains. So it should come as no surprise now that, looking up, we find ourselves in terra incognita.
Useful analysis of the war in Afghanistan must begin by revoking the war's dispensation and treating it like any other war. War attains meaning only in the context of the strategic relations and conditions it affects, broadly considered. These effects are measured in terms of the fate of not only armies, states, and alliances, but people too. These propositions inform the present analysis of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).
This report begins its assessment of OEF with an accounting of the operation's costs and achievements. In Section 2, the report briefly considers an alternative pathway for US action in order to clarify some of the policy choices available to the US administration. Sections 3 and 4 review the evolution of US war goals and strategy, showing how these interacted with the changing circumstances of the war to produce the outcomes summarized in Section 1. The conclusion, Section 5, relates the conduct of the war to the administration's military and security policy framework, and it ponders where this might lead the US campaign against terrorism.
1. What has Operation Enduring Freedom accomplished?
The outcome of the operation is easy to summarize in quantitative terms:
Translating these achievements into qualitative terms:
The acting assistant director of the FBI's counter-terrorism division, J.T. Caruso, estimates that as a result of Operation Enduring Freedom, Al Qaeda's capacity to commit "horrific acts" has been reduced by 30 percent. Caruso expects that the capture of bin Laden would cause a "stuttering" in Al Qaeda operations, but not necessary a "pause" due to the decentralized nature of the organization. 9 One might have hoped that Operation Enduring Freedom would have had a greater impact on Al Qaeda's global capabilities — given the US expenditure of 12,000 bombs and missiles, the killing of at least 3,000 enemy troops, and the capture of 7,000 more. But most of the US military effort and most of the troops killed or captured in the operation were only indirectly related to Al Qaeda's global terrorist activities.
The Taliban regime, which absorbed most of our attention, bore only a contingent relationship to Al Qaeda's activities outside the region. In fact, most of the Al Qaeda facilities and most of the foreign troops under their control in Afghanistan had to do with the civil war there. Most of the organization's capabilities to conduct far reaching terrorist acts resided and resides outside of Afghanistan, and thus fell beyond the scope of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The essential importance of Afghanistan to the extra-regional goals and activities of Al Qaeda was not that it provided a sanctuary and training site for terrorists. Instead, Afghanistan served the organization's global activities principally as a recruiting ground for future cadre. The capacity of Al Qaeda to repair its lost capabilities for global terrorism rests on the fact that terrorist attacks like the 11 September crashes do not depend on the possession of massive, open-air training facilities. Warehouses and small ad hoc sites will do. Moreover, large terrorist organizations have proved themselves able to operate for very long periods without state sanctuaries — as long as sympathetic communities exist. The Irish Republican Army is an example. Thus, Al Qaeda may be able to recoup its lost capacity by adopting a more thoroughly clandestine and "state-less" approach to its operations, including recruitment and training.
1.1.1 Secondary goals
In addition to its direct impact on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the United States might have hoped that Operation Enduring Freedom would serve:
Regarding deterrence effects: The fate of the Taliban should motivate some rogue states to be more careful in their relations with free-lance terrorist organizations that, like Al Qaeda, might target the United States. How this will actually affect the frequency of terrorists attacks on US assets depends on a number of additional factors, however: (i) the deterrent effect might not extend to weak states or quasi-states, like Somalia; (ii) stronger states, like Libya and Syria, might already be substantially deterred from supporting attacks on the United States; and, as noted above, (iii) the new transnational terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, might not be especially dependent on state support for their anti-US operations. Finally, OEF might have other effects that counter-balance its deterrent effect: while some states may become more careful about directly or indirectly supporting terror attacks on US assets, terrorist organizations themselves may become more motivated to conduct them.
Regarding US military engagement: The speed, scale, and intensity of the US response to the 11 September attack certainly undercut any expectation that the attack might lead to a reduction in US military activism abroad. The subsequent expansion of US foreign military engagement, occuring as part of the campaign against terrorism, further counters such expectations. 10
Regarding the US position in Central and South Asia: OEF certainly advanced the US position in Afghanistan and Central Asia generally. It also has strengthened the US hand in Pakistan — with the Musharraf regime now substantially dependent on US support. And it has created a new basis for cooperation with India. Translating this improved position into long-term strategic and material gain will not be uncomplicated, however. Russia's influence in Afghanistan also has advanced substantially — perhaps even more than that of the United States. India has driven stakes in the country, too. Russia will contest US advances in the region; so will China and Iran. America's new (or renewed) ties to Pakistan and India may involve the United States in their dispute, which will be played out not only in Kashmir but Afghanistan as well. Pakistan's increased dependancy on the United States is double-edged; maintaining Musharraf against internal opponents will not come cheap or easy. In sum: translating the improved US regional position into long-term gains will require substantial additional investments, commitments, and involvements, and it will entail a significant risk of future conflict, perhaps on a large-scale.
As of 10 January official US personnel losses in the war were two killed by enemy fire (one CIA and one uniformed military) and at least 12 accidental deaths. Afghan militias allied with the United States probably suffered less than 600 combat deaths during the period 7 October 2001 to 10 January 2002, with most of these occurring during the long siege of Mazar-i-Sharif. The Defense Department has estimated that the first three months of the war will cost the United States $3.8 billion, which the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent NGO, finds roughly consistent with its own estimates. 11
1.2.1 The humanitarian cost of the war
Operation Enduring Freedom was not intended or designed be a stability operation. The Taliban regime was removed in order to punish it and to expedite intense, large-scale action against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — not to stabilize the country or relieve its humanitarian crisis. Thus, the principal purpose of toppling the Taliban was realized not in the inauguration of Hamid Karzai, who Washington had slighted until the war was four weeks old, but in the round-up of foreign Taliban volunteers by the Northern Alliance, the ground deployment of US military personnel near Kandahar, and the joint pursuit of Al Qaeda cadre by US and allied Afghan forces.
12
Stability and humanitarian goals were clearly subordinate, and this is reflected in the costs of the operation.
Although Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) has driven the Taliban from power and uprooted the Al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan, substantial humanitarian costs were associated with these outcomes. These costs include:
1.2.2 Stability costs
To the humanitarian costs of war should be added a variety of "stability costs":
The dramatic reversal of Pakistani and Palestinian interests that has accompanied Operation Enduring Freedom may give the impression that the broader campaign against terrorism will be conducted in ways that brush aside the strategic interests of Arab and Muslim states, apart from their interests in curbing terrorism. This need not reflect any grand design on the part of the United States in order to have the effect of being one. The Arab and Muslim world now eagerly anticipates the next steps in the anti-terrorism campaign, their targets and modus operandi. A near-term response on the part of Arab and Muslim states might mix cooperation and resistance to US efforts. 21 A longer-term response would be to work harder at balancing against US power — not in support of terrorism, per se, but as a means of improving their strategic bargaining position. 22
2. Avoidable costs: the road not taken
The negative side-effects of Operation Enduring Freedom have had little to do with the real requirements of taking quick action against the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Instead, they derived from (i) the decision to focus the operation on the Taliban government with the aim of toppling it as a first order of business, and (ii) the operation's heavy reliance on a broad campaign of aerial bombardment. Less costly and destabilizing approaches were available, although these would have required greater patience, restraint, and imagination.
In bare outline, an alternative approach would have distinguished between (i) the immediate necessity of moving forcefully against al-Qaeda and (ii) a need to address the broader problem of Afghanistan, including the Taliban. (See Appendix 2. The missing political framework for Operation Enduring Freedom.)
An immediate campaign against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan could have been limited to special operations and very selective air strikes. Such a campaign would have produced results, not quickly, but reliably — and with a minimum of negative side-effects. In any case, the most urgent anti-terrorist tasks in the aftermath of 11 September had to do with Al Qaeda cells outside of Afghanistan that might mount new strikes. Interdicting these was largely a mission of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Resolving the broader problems of Afghanistan might have required a major military operation (including the deployment of ground troops) — but this should have been postponed until an adequate political framework was in place. Even 6-to-8 months of intensive diplomatic, intelligence, and military preparations would have made a significant difference in terms of the impact, effectiveness, and broader repercussions of a military operation aiming to bring stability to Afghanistan. Such preparations might even have obviated war or allowed a reduction in its scale.
The rush into a large and ambitious military operation precluded making adequate arrangements for the post-war political environment and humanitarian needs. Pre-war preparations should have included:
Building an adequate political framework for military operations is not a matter of defraying military success or accepting military risks simply for the sake of diplomacy. On the contrary: The lack of proper political preparation makes it harder to achieve military success and raises its cost. It also makes it harder to translate battlefield victory into reliable strategic gains.
3. War in search of a strategy
The goals and strategy of Operation Enduring Freedom underwent several revisions during the course of the war — actually, during its first three weeks. This turbulence reflected the difficulty of finding a strategy that could reconcile the Administration's immediate war aims with a set of broader, longer-term strategic considerations — such as stability in Afghanistan and in the region surrounding it. During the war's third week it became clear that there was no such strategy available, and this posed a choice: either the United States would have to accept the prospect of a longer war or set aside some of its broader stability concerns. Given the potential political risks associated with any long-war scenario, this was an easy choice to make: the broader concerns were set aside.
3.1 The Taliban become the target
After 11 September the Bush administration asserted various near-term military objectives with regard to Afghanistan. Among these, the lowest common denominator goal was to bring the leaders of al-Qaeda to justice and destroy their organizational capacity. For many observers this implied a carefully focused response involving special operations units and limited air strikes targeting bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The notion of a low-profile operation with a reduced risk of collateral casualties had strong appeal for most allies — and especially Pakistan. And it appealed to many counter-terrorism experts and "new warfare" advocates as well. 23
More controversial and demanding were the possible goals regarding the Taliban. After 11 September Administration officials variously suggested two possible goals for military action against the Taliban:
Both of these objectives implied military operations of greater scope and intensity than the option of just targeting Al Qaeda. Both would involve air campaigns; even the lesser of the two options — punish and coerce — might require action on the scale of the 1999 effort in the Balkans, Operation Allied Force (OAF)
Choosing to target the Taliban government complicated the job of building and maintaining an international coalition. A substantial bombing campaign implied a higher level of collateral damage and gave the impression of an attack on Afghanistan itself. An International Gallup Association poll conducted in 37 countries shortly after the 11 September attacks found large majorities in most favoring a legal response over a military one; only in Israel, India, and the United States did majorities favor quick military action. 24 Qualms about civilian casualties and concerns about the polarizing effects of a big bombing campaign fed controversy. 25 The retributive aspect of such a campaign also raised international legal issues. For Muslim and Arab governments especially, action against an Islamic state was much more disconcerting than an attempt to neutralize a terrorist organization — and it added no practical benefits for them. 26 Indeed, for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it constituted an attack on a protégée.
The more ambitious of the US anti-Taliban options — regime removal — generated additional concerns as well: If the Taliban were removed, who or what would follow them? And what would be the effect on stability in Afghanistan and the surrounding region? Finally, there was the practical issue of getting the job done: No one doubted that removing the regime would require a commitment of ground troops. But how many? And for how long? 27
None of these issues or questions posed a near-term problem in terms of US public opinion, which after 11 September pretty much gave the Bush administration a blank check. 28 The principal problem was opinion in foreign capitals. 29 On this front one factor helping to enable action against the Taliban was the regime's general isolation. During its short tenure it had done a remarkably good job alienating opinion in the West.
In the weeks leading up to the war, the Bush administration exhibited an artful ambiguity about the goals and nature of the prospective military operation in Afghanistan. Of course, bin Laden was in the cross-hairs. Regarding the Taliban, however, the administration publically emphasized the "punish and coerce" option, while Pakistan attempted to convince the Taliban to comply to American demands and obviate a strike. 30 But there was little hope that the Taliban would or even could comply. The demands made of the Taliban leadership were both quite substantial and non-negotiable: turn over bin Laden and the Al Qaeda cadre, shut down all their camps and sites, and open Afghanistan to US inspections. Even had the Taliban leadership been ready to rid themselves of bin Laden and his top associates, several elements of the US ultimatum made their compliance unlikely.
By some accounts there were as many as 3,000 Al Qaeda volunteers in Afghanistan, the great majority of them involved as shock troops in the local civil war or as a Taliban security force. Al Qaeda's base infrastructure — estimated as comprising dozens of sites — also served largely indigenous purposes or figured in the Kashmir civil war. Thus, acceding to the Administration's demands would have probably meant losing the current civil war. Moreover, both the troops and the base infrastructure of Al Qaeda melded into those of the Taliban proper. Given this, the Taliban might have expected that an open-ended US inspection regime would be both intrusive and protracted. Finally, framing these demands as non-negotiable required that the Taliban assume a supine posture. A nationalist reaction should have been predictable. And this gave leverage to the hardliners in Kandahar, rather than the more flexible shura in Kabul.
Although the pre-war exchanges with the Taliban were unlikely to bring the two sides togther, they were essential to the coalition-building effort, especially with regard to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim states. During the course of its jousting with the Bush administration, the Taliban's idiosyncratic excesses became a focus of administration and media commentary. By the eve of the war, the failure of the Taliban to do as ordered had made them a more prominent target than even bin Laden.
Although before the war the Bush administration had publically emphasized the "punish and coerce" option for action against the Taliban, it also began soon after the 11 September attack to build support among its European allies for the more ambitious goal of forcing a regime change in Afghanistan. By late September the administration was openly encouraging indigenous resistance to the Taliban and pledging indirect support — but without naming the Northern Alliance as the intended beneficiary. 31 Once OEF got underway, the administration's declared war aims transmuted rather quickly into the overthrow of the Taliban regime. 32 What remained to be determined was (i) who or what would replace the Taliban and (ii) how would the Administration effect the change. As it turned out, battlefield exigencies would make both decisions for the administration during the first month of war. In other words: war would determine politics and strategy would define its own goals.
3.2 Initial war strategy: split the Taliban
Initially the goal of regime replacement did not imply unleashing the Northern Alliance or completely uprooting the Taliban in the south. Instead, the United States aimed to pressure and weaken the Taliban through a combination of air attacks, special operations, and limited support to the Northern Alliance war effort. The United States also hoped to induce a split in the Taliban or create one, de facto, by killing off the most intransigent elements of the movement and those linked closely to bin Laden — including Mullah Omar, defense minister Obeidullah Khan, and justice minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi. 33 A more amenable "rump Taliban" might then meld with other Pashtun elements being assembled by the United States and Pakistan. The final step would be the creation of a unity government incorporating the Northern Alliance, all under the tutelage of King Zahir Shah and the auspices of the United Nations.
The US plan came together hastily in the aftermath of September 11. This contrasts sharply with the experience of preparing for operations Desert Storm and Allied Force. In those cases, four-to-six months of diplomatic work preceded the onset of offensive action; these earlier operations also benefitted from simpler strategic circumstances and stronger pre-war alliance arrangements.
Due to hast, key elements of the initial OEF plan proved to be impracticable. The decision to launch such a politically ambitious campaign so soon after the September 11 attack put an impossible set of tasks before the US State Department. Not only did it have to assemble a multi-national political framework in weeks rather than months, it had to do so under conditions of a war whose objectives and direction were unclear.
The chief problems with the administration's initial approach involved faulty assumptions about:
(i) how fast a representative Pashtun alternative to the Taliban could be assembled,
(ii) how fully and effectively Pakistan could be compelled to cooperate in the Taliban's demise when this goal threatened Pakistan's own security and stability,
(iii) how easily and quickly the Taliban order might be disintegrated by means of an air campaign that lacked a sufficient complement on the ground, and
(iv) how reliably the Northern Alliance could be won to a campaign that might bleed them white and yet not give them their primary objective: uncontested control of Kabul and the northern half of Afghanistan.
3.2.1 Romancing the Taliban
It proved impossible to quickly assemble a Pashtun alternative to Taliban power while conducting military operations that were killing hundreds of Pashtuns, aiding their northern adversaries, and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
34
King Zahir Shah's office, including Hamid Karzai, felt under supported. Afghan expert Barnett Rubin's assessment of the effort made on the political side is uncompromising:
They've got one part-time upper-middle-level figure [Richard Haass] working on the political side, and they've got all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff working on the military side. And they can't find half the price of a cruise missile to support Zahir Shah's office in Rome. 35
Many elements of the Taliban's domestic coalition might have defected to a viable alternative Pashtun coalition, if one had been available. But none could be constructed in the time allotted. This much is clear: there were deep and abiding divisions within the Taliban that might have been better exploited under different conditions.
The divisions within the Taliban had been evident before the war, pertaining especially to relations with the West, and they became apparent again during the Taliban's twilight hours. 36 These divisions pitted the Kandahar shura against the generally more pragmatic Kabul shura, which had direct responsibility for government administration and, supposedly, military affairs. The broader constituency for this group were the "second generation" members of the Taliban ruling coalition — local leaders, veteran mujahedin, and new Taliban adherents who joined the group during its post-1994 rise to national power. Although it is a misnomer to call this group "moderate", they were no more extreme than many members of the Northern Alliance. Unfortunately, this tendency lost a potential leader when the long-time head of the Kabul shura (and Taliban Council of Ministers), Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, died in April 2001. If an organized internal challenge to Mullah Omar was to arise after 11 September, it would have had to be assisted from the outside.
3.2.2 Pakistan: between the devil and the red, white, and blue
Pakistan had a very substantial capacity to remold political circumstances in Afghanistan — but not within a month and not without assurances regarding the power balance between Pashtuns and other Afghan ethnic groups. Up until the eve of the war and even after, the Taliban were heavily dependent on Pakistani support. They also benefitted from Pakistan's porous borders. Finally, Pakistan's military and intelligence establishments had links to the Taliban at multiple levels, reinforced by personnel inside Afghanistan, who were working side-by-side with Taliban cadre. These various linkages and relations of dependency gave Pakistan potential leverage to pressure the Taliban on bin Laden and weaken or potentially split them — an effort that might have borne fruit given six months and a more nuanced approach.
37
But the explicit targeting of the Taliban compromised many of Pakistan's assets in the country, requiring their quick withdrawal. To be effective, the attempt to assemble a moderate Taliban opposition would have had to precede not follow any signals that the United States was planning removal of the Taliban.
38
President Pervez Musharraf, under duress and stunned by the terrorist attacks, agreed to an American program of action that essentially cast Pakistan's regional security interests to the wind, threatened the country's internal stability, and put his own presidency at risk. 39 Although the Musharraf government supported the operation, popular opinion opposed it by an 82 percent to 8 percent margin. 40 The most likely outcome of the operation — the collapse of Pashtun power in Afghanistan — ran obviously counter to critical Pakistani security interests: it opened the door to a potential threat in the west. Pakistanis need not be members of Pashtun or fundamentalist minorities in order to appreciate this; these concerns had a broader constituency in Pakistan.
Soon after the bombing commenced Musharraf began openly expressing his ambivalence and calling for restraint in the conduct of the operation. 41 Even less consistent was the support of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment. Religious, ethnic, and institutional ties between the Taliban and Pakistan's military and intelligence services (the ISI and smaller Intelligence Bureau) militated against any quick divorce. Musharraf had had neither sufficient time nor leverage to bring them fully into line. In fact, some elements worked at deadly cross-purposes to OEF, materially supporting Taliban resistance and undermining efforts to assemble an alternative to the Taliban inside Afghanistan. 42
3.3 The first phase of the air campaign: a lever without a fulcrum
Through the end of October the air campaign failed to either compel Taliban cooperation or disintegrate the movement. 43 During most of this period air attacks focused largely on air defense, command and control, political, and infrastructure targets as well as military bases and storage sites. What should have been clear from the experience of Operation Allied Force was that the "lever" of air power requires a "fulcrum" on the ground.
The available ground fulcrum in Afghanistan — the Northern Alliance — was regarded initially (and accurately) as unlikely to produce the desired political outcome, should it sweep to victory. Thus, support for the Alliance's war effort was minimally configured to sustain their front and pressure the Taliban without enabling a rapid Alliance sweep. Of course, the only completely reliable fulcrum would have been US troops on the ground in large numbers. But practical and diplomatic problems precluded this option — at least in the chosen time frame. 44
For its part, the Northern Alliance — probably following Russian advice — was reluctant to risk its troops, assets, and power in vigorously attacking well-defended Taliban positions — unless the United States provided more air support. 45 The mid-October failure of the Northern Alliance's first attempt to take Mazar-i-Sharif exemplified the stalemate in the north. This, and the apparent resilience of the Taliban elsewhere, prompted a process of questioning and re-orienting America's strategy. 46 Nonetheless, the administration's initial response to the difficulties during the second week of war was not to unleash the Alliance but to increase the intensity of bombing all around. This also increased the rate of civilian casualties and elicited a new round of international criticism. Essentially, the war effort became a race between the cumulative effects of bombing and the international disapprobation that this incurred. Still, through the end of October, the air campaign was no more effective than a lever without a fulcrum.
3.3.1 Strategic bombardment: alienating hearts and minds
During the operation's first month aerial bombardment proved more successful in rattling America's partners and alienating world opinion than in coercing or collapsing the Taliban. It also proved a poor recruiter for the American cause inside Afghanistan: even in Uzbek and Tajik areas, public opinion doubted the wisdom and necessity of the American approach.
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Besides directly claiming hundreds of civilian lives by early November, the bombing campaign exacerbated an already severe refugee problem and disrupted relief efforts, leading humanitarian agencies to call for a halt or pause. Joining this chorus were Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, UN Special Envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi, and the coalition's preferred future Afghan head-of-state, King Zahir Shah.
Reinforcing the impression of a bombing campaign gone awry were the destruction of a UN de-mining facility, the double bombing of a Red Cross food distribution center, an attack on a Red Cross food convoy, the destruction of a military hospital, and accidental attacks on an old age home and a boys school. Several small villages and residential areas suffered severe attacks. In one case the intended target had been 500 meters from the actual bomb impact point; in another, the intended target was a half-mile's distance. (The problem of errant bombs continued through to end of the war and included accidental injury of the Hamid Karzai, the new Afghan interim prime minister.) (See Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher Rate of Civilian Casualties?, PDA Briefing Report 11, 18 January 2002.)
The American use of cluster bombs, which began in earnest during the last week of October, also drew sharp rebukes from human rights and de-mining groups. In some cases, cluster bombs had been used near civilian areas, leaving submunitions scattered among residences. Unexploded bomblets were even found 100-km over the Afghan border inside Pakistan, apparently the result of an accidental bomb release. Also contributing to the concern about cluster bombs was the fact that their submunitions were the same color and approximate size of the humanitarian food packets being dropped by the US Air Force: a public relations fiasco for the war effort.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other Pentagon spokespersons routinely responded to criticism about civilian casualties by arguing that the United States had taken great pains to limit collateral damage — but that some amount of it is inevitable in war. On 29 October, for instance, Rumsfeld told reporters that,
War is ugly. It causes misery and suffering and death, and we see that every day. But let's be clear: no nation in human history has done more to avoid civilian casualties than the United States has in this conflict. 48
Rumsfeld's defense begged several pivotal issues. A fault line in support for Operation Enduring Freedom centered precisely on the question of whether the response to the 11 September attacks should have taken the form of a broad "war" rather than a much more limited military operation — a "police action" of some sort — focusing narrowly on the perpetrators of the terrorist attack and their cohorts. 49
A review of commentary on the war shows literally no critics expressing surprise about the fact that large-scale military action — and, especially, aerial bombardment — entail unintended civilian casualties, collateral damage, and other negative inadvertent effects. 50 What they had questioned was the necessity of pursuing aims as ambitious and broad as those that came to define Operation Enduring Freedom. And critics had especially questioned the necessity of conducting a large-scale bombing campaign that included civilian areas in its sweep. Such disagreements may have been suppressed temporarily by the hope for a "clean war" or by the shared desire to bring the perpetrators of 11 September to justice. But they were re-activated as soon as civilian casualties begin to mount.
3.4 A shift in strategy — unleashing the dogs of war
For the Bush administration the darkest moments of the war came between its third and fifth. week. Indicative of the apparent troubles on the battlefield was a sour turn in press coverage:
"Taliban Hang On; U.S. finds they are not so easy to defeat" (Newsday, 26 October);
"Big Ground Forces Seen as Necessary to Defeat Taliban; Bombing has left militia largely in tact" (Washington Post, 2 November);
"The week it all went wobbly for the West" (Sunday Times, London, 4 November); and,
"U.S. Adjusts Battle Plans as Strategy Goes Awry" (New York Times, 9 November).
While the New York Times perceived "Strategy Angst" (Oct 27), the UK Guardian wrote of the "Wobble Effect" (29 October) and more ominously reported: "Splits open in UK-US alliance" (9 November 2001).
The bombing campaign had been intensified during the second week — daily sorties rose from about 25 to 90 — after the Taliban had proved more resilient than initially expected and the Northern Alliance had failed in its initial effort to take Mazar-i-Sharif. But this was still consistent with hopes that the Taliban might be split and co-opted. The truly significant shift was the decision to cast America's lot with the Northern Alliance military effort. 51 This gained substance during the last week of October when B-52s began to carpet-bomb Taliban positions opposite the Northern Alliance and US Special Operations troops assumed a bigger role in guiding both the air attacks and the Alliance's efforts. Throughout the first ten days of November air support for the Alliance grew in tandem with criticism of the war's slow progress and its mounting civilian costs. Alliance air support was accentuated by bringing into play 15,000 pound slurry bombs (the BLU-82 "Big Blue" or "daisy-cutters") and by increasing the expenditure of cluster bombs.
In the Northern Alliance's troops US air power found its required ground fulcrum. But it was a devil's bargain that cost America leverage and control on the strategic level. The contradiction inherent in fully supporting the Northern Alliance military effort was two-fold:
The Alliance, fully aware of both these facts, quickly discarded their promise of restraint once it became possible for them to ride into Kabul (and into power) without further American assistance.
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