Full wrath’ vowed in long, ‘dirty’ war...
Cheney cites links to bin Laden
but warns of networks around globe
MSNBC
Sept. 16 — Vice President Cheney on Sunday warned terrorists to expect the nation’s “full wrath” in a war that would take “several years” and require using “mean, dirty” intelligence tactics not currently allowed. Interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney said that unlike the Gulf War, where the enemy was clear and easily located, this war includes networks around the world, among them terrorists in Egypt and Uzbekistan.
“WHAT WE have to do is take down those networks,” he said.
Those groups and their supporters, governments among them, should understand, he added, that they can expect the “full wrath of the United States of America.”
He specifically cited the Islamic Jihad in Egypt and extremists in Uzbekistan, formerly part of the Soviet Union.
As President Bush had Saturday, Cheney said the prime suspect is exiled Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden. “I have no doubt that he and his organization played a significant role,” he said.
“There’s a lot of evidence to link his organization ... to this operation,” he added, among them ties to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
But, he emphasized, “that doesn’t mean there weren’t others involved.”
The vice president said that while he would be happy to have bin Laden’s “head on a platter,” that itself wouldn’t end the war against his followers and other terrorists.
WORKING ‘THE DARK SIDE’
Cheney acknowledged military strikes are an option, but he also stressed the role intelligence would play in rooting out terrorists. “We also have to work the dark side if you will, the shadows, in the intelligence world,” he said.
Asked by “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert if that meant lifting current restrictions on who the United States can recruit for intelligence, Cheney said, “I think so ... we need to be able to penetrate these organizations” by using “any means at our disposal.”
Reminded that some past intelligence sources had been human rights violators, Cheney insisted that “we need to have on the payroll some very unsavory characters ... It is a mean, nasty, dangerous and dirty business and we have to operate in that arena.”
‘WILL NOT BE EASY’
Meeting at Camp David on Saturday with his military and diplomatic advisers, President Bush braced Americans for a long, costly struggle against terrorism, warning them, “You will be asked for resolve, for the conflict will not be easy.”
The president directed members of the armed forces to “get ready ... we’re at war.”
And for the first time, Bush singled out Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden as a main suspect in Tuesday’s attacks.
Of bin Laden, the president told reporters: “If he thinks he can hide from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.”
He added: “We will smoke them out of their holes. We’ll get them running, and we’ll bring them to justice.”
Asked how long the anti-terror campaign might take, Bush told reporters: “As long as it takes. And it’s not just one person. We’re talking about those who fed them, those who house them. Those who harbor terrorists will be held accountable for this action.”
In his weekly radio address, Bush said those who planned Tuesday’s attacks “will discover what others in the past have learned: Those who make war against the United States have chosen their own destruction.” (Click here for the full address.)
MILITARY OPTIONS
One option for retaliation: kill bin Laden and some of his lieutenants, despite an executive order signed by President Reagan in the 1980s that forbids assassination of foreign political leaders.
Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA agent, told CNN on Saturday that while he did not anticipate that there would be a specific list of those to be assassinated, “lethal force” might well be used in attempts to arrest those who plotted the attacks.
But NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported Friday that the United States has lost track of bin Laden’s location in Afghanistan, making him a much more difficult target.
Newsweek poll: 89 percent for Bush
Girding for action at home and abroad, Bush issued a national emergency order that authorized the activation of up to 50,000 military reservists given “the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.”
The Pentagon said it would immediately call up 35,000 troops for “homeland defense,” manning support positions across the country. The United States has about 1.2 million National Guard and reservists.
A new Newsweek poll published Saturday indicated that 71 percent of Americans want the U.S. military to strike against terrorist bases and the countries that support them even if there is a high likelihood that civilians would be killed.
FORCES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Since the Persian Gulf War, the United States has positioned large numbers of troops, planes and ships on the land, and waters surrounding friendly countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
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. U.S. retaliation could occur at any moment, and officials said that when it does, the likely targets would be sites in Afghanistan, where bin Laden supports and trains his forces.
A White House official said Thursday the administration wants an international coalition to be in place before the United States retaliates, even if it means a delay of weeks or months.
But a senior official, speaking privately, told the Associated Press that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to punish the perpetrators as soon as they are identified, regardless of how far along the coalition-building process is.
BIN LADEN AND AFGHANISTAN
Once a U.S. ally against the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, bin Laden came to oppose the United States after Saudi Arabia allowed U.S. troops on its soil in preparation for the Persian Gulf War against Iraq.
Since then, bin Laden has been implicated in several attacks, including bombings in Saudi Arabia that killed 24 U.S. service members; the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people; and the suicide bombing last year of the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors.
Afghan leaders have denied involvement in the attacks. In a radio broadcast, the Taliban’s leader said bin Laden would not be handed over and warned Muslims to prepare for a “jihad,” or holy war.
“You should know that this is not only the issue of Osama, it is opposition to Islam,” Mullah Mohammad Omar said Friday, according to a BBC transcript of the Taliban Voice of Shariat Radio. “Each Muslim should be ready for a jihad against this and be ready for his religion, if there is a need for him to sacrifice himself for Islam and his belief, and make a sacrifice for the symbol of belief in Islam.”
REACTION WORLDWIDE
Still, Afghanistan appears to have lost the support of neighboring Pakistan, which has had strong ties to the Taliban.
Pakistan on Sunday said it was sending a delegation to Kabul. A senior Pakistani government source said on condition of anonymity that the delegation would be demanding that the Taliban hand over bin Laden.
A day earlier, Pakistan agreed to U.S. requests, among them: to allow a multinational force to be based within its borders, to close its border with Afghanistan, to allow its airspace to be used for possible strikes and to cooperate in intelligence-gathering.
Support for U.S. retaliation has come from around the world, including the U.N. Security Council and NATO allies. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak told NBC that he would support “very tough action.”
The government of neighboring Iran said Saturday it would seal its 560-mile border with Afghanistan to prevent an influx of refugees as the prospects grew of a strike against Afghanistan, the official news agency IRNA reported.
But not every Middle Eastern country lined up to support the United States. In an open letter read on state-controlled television, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein blamed the United States for provoking the attack, asking, “Isn’t the use by America and some Western governments of their fire against others in the world including ... the Arabs and the Muslims one of the most important reasons for the lack of stability in the world at the present time?”
And French Defense Minister Alain Richard cautioned Saturday that “armed action is only one of the ways of responding. What is necessary is a way that does not provoke other elements of instability.” More than 5 million Muslims live in France, about 10 percent of the population.
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MSNBC.com’s Miguel Llanos; NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski, Robert Windrem, Betsy Steuart and Mike Viqueira; The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
