U.S. Develops Options for Military Action
Troops Could Be Sent Overseas Within Weeks

By Thomas E. Ricks, Kamran Khan and Molly Moore
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 19, 2001; Page A01

The Pentagon intensified preparations yesterday for a possible overseas deployment of U.S. troops that could begin within weeks as U.S. and Pakistani officials drafted plans for using bases in Pakistan as staging grounds for raids into neighboring Afghanistan, according to officials in Washington and Islamabad.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, alluding to the planning in both countries, said the United States is preparing "a very broadly based campaign to go after the terrorist problem where it exists." And in an indication of the breadth of military action being contemplated by the administration in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Rumsfeld told reporters that the U.S. military would "use the full spectrum of our capabilities."

"I think of it in the sense of self-defense, and there is nothing that inhibits the United States of America from defending itself," Rumsfeld said.

While Pentagon officials stressed no decisions have been made, sources said Rumsfeld and other senior officials are considering a wide range of options for attacking suspected terrorists and their supporters in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has been harboring Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. government says is its prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The options range from small-scale raids using Special Forces troops to airstrikes and cruise missile barrages, officials said. In addition to direct military action, the administration is considering a variety of intelligence, economic and diplomatic actions to disrupt terrorist networks and the governments that support or tolerate them, officials said.

"We intend to put them on the defensive, to disrupt terrorist networks and remove their sanctuaries and their support systems," Rumsfeld said. "This will take a long, sustained effort."

The Pentagon's planning reflects some of the political and geographic difficulties confronting the administration as it contemplates what President Bush has called a new kind of war against a shadowy, stateless enemy. The plans are a radical departure from operations such as the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which involved a massive buildup of troops and heavy weapons, and will rely instead on smaller, more mobile units.

Pakistani military officials said the Bush administration has not asked to station large numbers of ground troops in the country, a request that would be politically difficult for the Pakistan government to meet and logistically difficult for U.S. forces to carry out. Sensitive to the problems of having U.S. troops operate in a conservative Muslim nation, especially in an area of Pakistan where Afghans are considered ethnic brothers, Pentagon planners are aiming to minimize the number of U.S. troops that would be based there, officials said.

One possible course of action calls for Special Forces to conduct raids on suspected terrorists in Afghanistan from Pakistan. The countries share a 1,500-mile border. But the plan calls for stationing most of the assault troops outside Pakistan and flying them to Pakistan at the last minute to stage the raids, officials said. Pentagon officials are discussing basing some forces aboard Navy ships in the Arabian Sea and having them use helicopters to move into Afghanistan. U.S. troops might also be based in friendly Persian Gulf nations, such as Oman and Kuwait.

The Navy has two aircraft carriers in the area, the Carl Vinson and the Enterprise, and soon will have a third, the Theodore Roosevelt.

Asked to comment on the military planning, Victoria Clarke, the top Pentagon spokeswoman, said, "We don't have any comment on operational details."

A delegation of U.S. officials is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan this week to discuss details of ground support requirements. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised to cooperate with U.S. efforts to dislodge bin Laden.

Musharraf, a veteran of Pakistani special forces, already has agreed to give the United States overflight rights for missile and aerial bombing raids in Afghanistan.

Military planners say a limited ground presence will be necessary to command any operation run out of Pakistan, including operating a headquarters and basing the Special Operations helicopters that would be used for the short trip over the border into Afghanistan. Officials said they are planning to keep the deployment as "austere" as possible, with troops living in tents, and as many support functions as possible, such as intelligence analysis, being carried out elsewhere.

"You can run a limited war with the facilities that the U.S. Navy has in the Arabian Sea," a senior Pakistan naval official said. "But they are no substitute to a solid support paraphernalia on the ground."

For example, the U.S. base in Pakistan would need to have on hand a fairly large quick reaction force, perhaps a regiment of U.S. Army Rangers, in case a Special Forces raid went awry, officials said. Most of the helicopter pilots and their maintenance crews would need to live on the base.

U.S. and Pakistani military officials also are discussing upgrading Pakistani medical facilities in border areas to accommodate emergencies. In addition, they are making plans to use the major port of Karachi for large shipments of supplies to support operations, officials familiar with discussions said.

U.S. and Pakistani military officials are assessing use of other air fields across the country, particularly at the large Karachi airport, for use in supporting operations into Afghanistan.

While there has been some talk of having U.S. forces operate from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan just north of Afghanistan, military planners said Pakistan's bases would provide support much closer to the most likely targets in Taliban-controlled eastern Afghanistan areas near the Pakistan border.

Because of its long history of military relations with Pakistan during the Cold War, the U.S. military is familiar with Pakistan's military infrastructure. One base near Peshawar was built by the United States. The base was used to fly U-2 spy planes over the Soviet Union, and was the origin of the doomed espionage flight of Francis Gary Powers, whose plane was downed by the Soviets in May 1960.

U.S. and Pakistan special forces units conducted joint operations in the rugged hills of the North West Frontier Province, where Peshawar is located, in 1998, the same year the United States launched missile attacks into Afghanistan in retribution for bin Laden's alleged role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Pakistani officials are already preparing medical facilities in Peshawar and Quetta for a possible attack, sources said. In the 1998 U.S. attack, Pakistani hospitals treated victims injured when at least one cruise missile fell astray in Pakistan.

Even though U.S. military cooperation with Pakistan has declined dramatically in recent years, U.S. Navy ships have made three port calls in Karachi in the last six years, allowing naval officers and personnel to become familiar with operations at the port, which would be a key staging area for fuel, supplies and troop movements into Pakistan.

Ricks reported from Washington; Khan and Moore from Islamabad. Staff writer Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report.