U.S. military in Persian Gulf ready for possible retaliation

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan is far on the other side of the world in a rough neighborhood where a superpower has tripped once before, and not long ago.

But the U.S. military believes it has the long arm and firepower to strike inside Afghanistan, if President Bush decides to retaliate for terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Indeed, ever since the Persian Gulf War, the United States has positioned large numbers of military troops, planes and ships on the land, and waters surrounding friendly countries in the region like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Those troops are one of the reasons that Osama bin Laden, a Saudi exile and Islamic fundamentalist who operates out of Afghanistan, hates America.

Finding one man

But now, those 25,000 troops and their aircraft carriers, warplanes and cruise missiles could form the basis of a military force to attack bin Laden's terror base. That is, if American intelligence can find him.

Camps run by terrorists, especially in a mountainous area like Afghanistan, are much harder to find and destroy than a nation and its army, acknowledges Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"The chance of hitting bin Laden is zero," Nikolai Kovalyov, the former head of Russia's Federal Security Service, warned last week. The Soviet Union, at the time a superpower, pulled out of Afghanistan after losing a war there.

"He's elusive, he moves, he's got a lot of cover," said retired Army Col. Bill Taylor, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "What we can do depends on the intelligence we have. And the best source of intelligence is Pakistan."

For that and many reasons, Pakistan is an important component to a U.S. military campaign into Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is 1,000 miles from any ocean, surrounded by nations that are either hostile to the United States, like Iran, or at least unused to U.S. military cooperation, such as Pakistan and Russia.

Pakistan's permission

The Bush administration has received permission from Pakistan to fly over its territory in the event of military action and to base a multinational force within its borders, Pakistani military and diplomatic sources said Saturday. Pakistan also agreed to close its border with Afghanistan and cooperate in intelligence gathering.

Right now, the United States has about 25,000 military personnel on ships or land in the Persian Gulf region, about 5,000 more than usual because two aircraft carrier groups -- each with 75 warplanes and 10 to 12 ships -- are in the region.

The USS Enterprise, which was due to return home after being relieved earlier this month by the USS Carl Vinson, has been ordered to remain in the area indefinitely, said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark.

Those battle groups normally include cruisers and submarines, which could be the launch pads for long-range cruise missile strikes, perhaps occurring before attacks by manned aircraft such as B-2 stealth bombers or B-1 Lancers.

There have been no indications of a buildup of American forces in the Middle East since Tuesday's devastating terror attack. The 50,000 U.S. reservists called to action by Bush last week would help protect the United States, not go overseas.