President Bush increased pressure on the Taliban regime Saturday to turn over Osama bin Laden as U.S. military forces massed around Afghanistan and leaders there prepared the impoverished nation for war.
With reports circulating that American and British special forces have been active inside Afghanistan, Bush condemned the Taliban leaders for harboring the Saudi exile and said he is determined to isolate and destroy the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
“We did not seek this conflict, but we will win it,” Bush declared in his weekly radio address before meeting with his war planning council at Camp David. “America will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail.”
In the region, Pakistani clerics urged new talks with the Taliban after returning empty-handed from Kabul where they beseeched the Afghan government to turn over bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the attacks.
Instead, Taliban leaders on Saturday spread out across the nation to rally their country for a jihad, or holy war, with America. Soldiers practiced with Russian rifles, and anti-aircraft guns were tested even as a huge aid convoy of 200 tons of food and supplies started off from Pakistan for some of the poorest areas of neighboring Afghanistan.
A new report that the CIA has made clandestine contacts with the rebel forces in Afghanistan for three years in an effort to capture and perhaps kill bin Laden added to claims that commando teams have been active for the last two weeks searching for bin Laden and mapping the area in preparation for attacks. One television report out of the Persian Gulf region said that members of the U.S. special forces were captured inside Afghanistan near the Iranian border.
The Taliban quickly denied that any arrests had taken place, and Bush administration officials shed no light on the alleged incident. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “We are not going to comment on where our troops are or are not.”
In Chicago on Saturday, Rev. Jesse Jackson announced that he will not visit Afghanistan, saying he is unwilling to risk being used as a pawn or as a target in the dispute between the United States and the Taliban.
Jackson, whose trip had been discouraged by the White House and State Department, instead said he would draft a letter to be signed by world religious leaders urging the Taliban to turn over bin Laden and his associates to the World Court. He also will ask for the release of eight Christian workers being held by the government. Those workers, charged with spreading Christianity, face trial Sunday.
U.S. official visits Moscow
In Moscow, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton met with his Russian counterpart to continue discussions on how Russia will assist the U.S. in striking against bin Laden. Bolton also was visiting three former Soviet states that border Afghanistan and could be used as bases for such a strike–Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
As more than two dozen warships, 300 aircraft and nearly 30,000 troops converge on the region around landlocked Afghanistan, U.S. reservists continued to be called up for duty on the home front. About 16,000 of the 35,000 reservists expected to be called up had been mobilized by Saturday. The Pentagon is authorized to call up 50,000 reserves.
In his radio address, Bush condemned the Taliban for failing to turn over bin Laden and the leaders of his global network, Al Qaeda.
“The United States respects the people of Afghanistan and we are their largest provider of humanitarian aid,” Bush said. “But we condemn the Taliban and welcome the support of other nations in isolating that regime.”
Bush also called on Congress to give the FBI, CIA and other law-enforcement groups greater powers that he said are critical to combating terrorism, including increased flexibility to tap suspects’ telephones and computers, and the ability to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without bringing formal charges against them.
Civil libertarians and many Democratic lawmakers have balked at giving police such powers.
Lawmakers, eager to display bipartisan unity, quickly obliged the administration in the granting of war powers and approving the money needed to begin cleaning up after the disaster. But they are more hesitant to expand laws that they said could undercut Americans’ civil liberties, the very values they say make the U.S. a model for other nations.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cautioned recently that lawmakers “must be vigilant on constitutional principles, not vigilantes.”
But Bush said, FBI and CIA agents and analysts “have been on the case around the clock, uncovering and pursuing the enemy. In the long campaign ahead, they will need our continued support, and every necessary tool to do their work.”
Democrats tried to make clear Saturday that they remain supportive of the Republican president in this time of war.
“The Democratic Party stands 100 percent behind President Bush as he prepares the appropriate military response,” Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn said in the Democratic response to the president’s radio address.
U.S. protesters: `No War!’
The White House is negotiating with Democrats over a minimum wage increase, and Bush aides are working on a plan to revive the struggling economy, including a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits and tax cuts.
Several thousand demonstrators shouting “No War!” poured into the streets of Washington on Saturday to protest Bush’s intention to strike back at bin Laden. Bush was away at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains.
The protesters had come to town for meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, but those meetings were canceled after the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Police were called out, and some protesters were subdued with pepper spray, but the demonstrations were largely peaceful compared with the most recent of such events in July in Genoa, Italy, where one demonstrator was killed by police.
Joining Bush at Camp David were some members of his National Security Council, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet and Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card.
After his regular briefings, Bush conferred with other senior national security officials on a secure video link and then went out for a jog. Bush planned to spend part of Saturday evening watching the Texas Tech vs. Texas football game on television, a White House spokesman said.
Bush also used his address to assure Americans that while there has been no retaliatory military strike in the more than two weeks since the attacks, the administration has been diligent and vigilant in isolating and undermining bin Laden and those who protect him.
Financial weapons
Bush last week ordered bin Laden’s financial assets–estimated at about $300 million–frozen. He beefed up security on American airlines, including placing armed marshals on virtually all flights. And he pressured a number of nations, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to abandon their support for the Taliban.
“As all these actions make clear, our war on terror will be much broader than the battlefields and beachheads of the past,” Bush said. “This war will be fought wherever terrorists hide, or run, or plan. Some victories will be won outside of public view, in tragedies avoided and threats eliminated. Other victories will be clear to all.”
“Our weapons are military and diplomatic, financial and legal. And in this struggle, our greatest advantages are the patience and resolve of the American people,” Bush said.
Addressing civilians abroad, the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans after intelligence services here and abroad reported that extremists in nine countries might be preparing to kidnap or kill U.S. and British citizens in response to any U.S. military action.
Former President Bill Clinton and his one-time opponent, former Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole, joined forces in Washington on Saturday to announce a joint effort to raise $100 million to benefit the families of the victims of the attacks. The money will fund scholarships.
“We all support the president,” Clinton said. “Most Americans will continue to be united behind the president in the direction we’re taking.”
