Perhaps it's the understandable anxiety over the anthrax scare, whose effects are being felt very close to home, but suddenly some strange things are going on in President Bush's administration. The admission during a press conference by a high-ranking, high-tech naval officer, that he had been surprised by the resoluteness of the Taliban fighters under aerial bombardment, was extraordinary and unnerving. Had this officer read nothing about the history of Afghanistan over the past two centuries? Even a superficial knowledge of its peoples' earlier encounters with outsiders would have made him aware that the Afghanistanis know how to fight and survive against the odds. We were initially told that the bombing of the past three weeks was intended to destroy the Taliban's air defence capabilities; if we are now learning that it was also intended to break the Taliban's spirit than we shall be entitled to ask some very hard questions about the quality of the strategic thinking in Washington. Matters were not improved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's subsequent admission that Osama bin Laden could already have flown the coop and may never be caught.
Washington worries
26/10/2001 00:00
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