How goes the war? Far from Washington, the administration’s coalition-building and military spadework proceeded smoothly. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld returned from a tour of front lines, having secured cooperation from countries–Oman, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan–that can now serve as back bases for attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bush’s Joshua Strategy–British Prime Minister Tony Blair on second trumpet–continued to shake in-country support for the mullahs of Kabul who harbor Osama bin Laden and his Qaeda terror network. The U.S. Army’s illustrious 10th Mountain Division landed in an astonishing bivouac–a former Soviet republic, Uzbekistan. Bush, at Camp David, met via video link with his war cabinet (including a jet-lagged Rumsfeld) as humanitarian food drops were readied for Afghanistan–an effort to honor one of the “Five Pillars of Islam,” alms to the poor, before fighting in that Muslim land. “Full warning has been given,” Bush told the Taliban in a radio address. “Time is running out.” Winter, he might have added, was coming.
The war abroad was as neat and antiseptic as it would ever be–because it had not quite begun. The antiterror global coalition was as unified as it would ever be–for the same reason. It was a different story on the home front. At least for now, Bush remained one of the most popular presidents on record. The new NEWSWEEK Poll showed public approval of his handling of the crisis holding steady at 88 percent. He was, however, beset by challenges–more from the right than the left–on economics and security. Hawks in his own party castigated him for focusing too narrowly on bin Laden and the Taliban. The same critics were upset at Bush’s declaration of sup-port for a Palestinian state, and the ensuing angry war of words with Israel. The administration strove to emit a consistent message, forged every weekday morning in a meeting with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their longtime political aides. It didn’t always work. One day, a top CIA official privately told Congress that another terror attack was a “100 percent” certainty; the next, cabinet officials tried to soothe public concerns.
Events were moving with lightning speed, but before the advent of an American strike there were faint signs of impatience with Bush’s calibrated campaign of diplomacy, psywar and global “intel” to prepare the ground. The NEWSWEEK Poll of two weeks ago found a 45-point spread between those who agreed that “military attacks should already have started” (18 percent) and those who said the United States “should take as long as is necessary” (63 percent). By the end of last week that margin had dropped to 31 points (24-55 percent). Democrats tended to think that the president had not yet begun to test the public’s patience. “He’s got plenty of time,” said Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Team Bush, careful to cultivate an influential Democrat, installed a special, secure phone link to Biden’s home.) Republicans were more restive. “The feeling up here is ‘OK, we’ve made nice’,” said a GOP Hill leadership source. “Now it’s time to attack somebody.”
That “somebody,” of course, is bin Laden, but the administration’s increasing focus on him drew the fire of the GOP’s “neocon” wing. A scathing editorial in the conservative Weekly Standard accused the administration of “moral and strategic incoherence” because it had made overtures to Iran and downplayed the urgency of destroying Saddam Hussein. It blamed Secretary of State Colin Powell for leading Bush astray.
In fact, Bush hasn’t dismissed the idea of attacking Saddam, but won’t consider it until the end of what the war cabinet calls Phase One–eliminating the Afghan terror bases. Cheney told the administration’s top anti-Saddam militant–Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz–to pipe down, NEWSWEEK has learned, and Biden says that officials who once touted to him the possibility of “going after Iraq” (including the national-security adviser Condi Rice) aren’t doing so at the moment.
The same neocons blamed Bush–not Israel–for new strains in relations between the two countries. The president said last week that a Palestinian state was “part of a vision” for peace in the region. The idea itself wasn’t so controversial, but the language and context was: a casually explicit remark in a “press avail” without advance notice to Israel–and in the midst of a new wave of attacks by Palestinians. Outraged, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded viciously, warning Bush not to “appease” Arabs–obliquely comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, the British P.M. who tried to make peace with Hitler.
Bush, whose father was viewed with deep suspicion by U.S. supporters of Israel, suddenly found himself crosswise with an important constituency. He was said to be “angry” at Sharon; spokesman Ari Fleischer declared the old general’s statement “unacceptable.” Bush shouldn’t have made the statehood statement to begin with–at least not now–said Sen. John McCain. “It was the wrong time to say it,” he contended. Sharon’s response was “predictable,” he said, and Fleischer’s reaction overheated. Perhaps so, but Bush had a right to be angry–and Sharon’s historical allusion seemed likely to be proved wrong. At Camp David last Saturday morning, the president was ensconced in Laurel Cabin, receiving status reports from Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld. Their ultimate goal was peace. But to get there, they had to discuss the mechanics of war.
