Word: rumsfeld
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...Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's comments in India Monday that he expected that the war against the Taliban would not go on for years appeared to have been directed at regional allies concerned at the negative domestic fallout from a protracted bombing campaign. After all, back home the Pentagon is having to massage the complex and sometimes contradictory message that America's patience is required for a war that will inevitably be drawn-out and costly, but also that substantial progress is being made and the enemy is on the ropes. European allies may have expressed skepticism over the nature...
...raids. Still the forces ranged against Osama bin Laden were no nearer to finding the elusive terrorist leader. Britain?s Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted in a newspaper interview, "I have always thought it unlikely that he will turn up in a court one day." U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded that it was proving "very difficult" to find bin Laden and that the Taliban were putting up stronger resistance than had been anticipated...
...says an Air Force commander. "But you usually don't get lucky, so you just keep pressing on." Pentagon officials have said some ground operations aimed at crushing the Taliban and al-Qaeda may not get under way until next spring. "We're not setting timetables," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday. In a remarkable admission, Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem said, "I am a bit surprised at how doggedly they're hanging onto power. We definitely need to have patience," he added. "This is going to be a long, long campaign...
...Weapons Depot The Pentagon's most optimistic estimate is that 85% of American bombs and missiles have hit their targets. But that means that 450 or more may have gone astray, regularly nailing civilian structures and residential neighborhoods. The military has struggled to explain some of its mistakes. Rumsfeld flatly denied a Taliban report that a U.S. warhead landed on a hospital in Herat. But the next day he sent his spokeswoman out to concede that "it is possible" a 1,000-lb. bomb from a U.S. F-18 accidentally damaged the hospital. The U.S. has also acknowledged dropping...
...Rumsfeld has pledged "to do everything humanly possible...to let the world know that this is not against the Afghan people," but he has little chance of winning that argument. Many rural Afghans will believe anything the Taliban tells them about the U.S.--including last week's accusation that American planes were dropping chemical weapons. The only way for the U.S. to counter such claims may be to slow the aerial campaign and avoid borderline targets altogether. The U.S. destroys about 1% of an enemy force for each day of bombing; by that yardstick, there remain many Taliban targets...