Protracted war tests US resolve

"They are proven to be tough warriors," he acknowledged. "We're in an environment they, obviously, are experts in, and it is extremely harsh."

Yet beyond the air and ground war, there are other indications that Americans need to prepare themselves for an enduring conflict. For example, military and intelligence officials warn that the conflict could be prolonged and the US position weakened by a Taliban program of "denial and deception" that seeks to influence public opinion around the world.

In several areas, says a senior defense official, the Taliban has begun housing its troops in mosques and other village facilities. The regime, said by the US to be sheltering suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, also is placing such military gear as helicopters next to civilian sites rather than at airfields, according to this source, making it much more difficult for the US to attack without either endangering innocent Afghans with aerial bombing or exposing US ground forces to hostile fire.

"They're using fairly classical techniques," says the official.

The Pentagon this week also asked the defense industry for "help in combating terrorism" - another indication that the war won't be over soon.

In what's called a "Broad Agency Announcement," the Defense Department asked military contractors for aid in "defeating difficult targets, conducting protracted operations in remote areas, and developing countermeasures to weapons of mass destruction." "Its objective," the announcement says, "is to find concepts that can be developed and fielded within 12 to 18 months."

While evidence of the duration of the war is just beginning to sink in, US officials are having a hard time countering the almost-daily reports of civilian casualties in Afghanistan - which, over time, could impact the level of support for the war at home and abroad.

One problem is that the reports are difficult to independently verify. The occasional tour of hospitals, tightly controlled by Taliban officials, is "a time-honored technique designed to have a propaganda effect," says a defense official, seen most recently in Serbia and Iraq. (In some cases, the source says, videos repeatedly showed the same corpses and injured persons.)

While the propaganda war goes on, concern is growing among some lawmakers in Washington about the political difficulties of waging a protracted conflict. "Now we're going to get into the tough calls," says Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. (D) of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

"Case in point: How much longer does the bombing continue?" he told the Council on Foreign Relations this week. "Because we're going to pay every single hour, every single day it continues. We're going to pay an escalating price in the Muslim world. We're going to pay an escalating price in the region. And that in fact is going to make the aftermath of our, quote, victory more difficult to reconstruct the region."

Page: 1 | 2