Push on for ground war

Herald news services

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain said Sunday that America must unleash "all the might of United States military power," including large numbers of ground troops, to prevail in Afghanistan. Bush administration officials said the Taliban is being weakened, but warned Americans must be prepared for a drawn-out conflict.

As the debate over military strikes intensified in Washington, U.S. attacks on the Afghan capital of Kabul killed at least 13 civilians, witnesses there said, and warplanes returned for a second wave of attacks late in the day. American bombs pounded targets in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west and Jalalabad in the east, said the Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency.

About 100 airborne Rangers and other special ground troops struck a Taliban-controlled airfield and a residence of a Taliban leader earlier this month, but McCain said that was not enough. He called for a "very, very significant" force large enough to capture and hold territory.

"I think what we’re going to have to put in (is) numbers of forces that are capable of maintaining a base for a period of time, relatively short, so they can branch out and move into certain areas where we believe that the Taliban and al-Qaida’s networks are located," the Arizona Republican said on CBS’s "Face the Nation."

"It’s going to take a very big effort and probably casualties will be involved, and it won’t be accomplished through air power alone," McCain said on CNN’s "Late Edition."

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he agreed with McCain that large numbers of ground troops may be needed. And Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said if President Bush "comes to the conclusion that it’s going to take that or something like that in order to get these people and to get this network torn down, I would support it."

Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were noncommittal when asked about significant ground forces. "Let’s not go there yet," Card said.

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Bush’s 2000 rival for the GOP presidential nomination, said considerations such as civilian deaths from U.S. bombing and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that begins in mid-November must be "secondary to the job at hand, which is to wipe out nests of terrorism."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that the Pentagon is prepared to fight through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to defeat Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist organization.

"There was a Middle East war during Ramadan. There is nothing in that religion that suggests that conflicts have to stop during Ramadan," Rumsfeld said.

His comments came as the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the coalition was considering a pause during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins around Nov. 17.

Card and Rumsfeld sought to assure Americans that gains are being made even though the Taliban remains firmly in power and Osama bin Laden has yet to be found. The Bush administration also was dealing with a double public-relations setback: 13 reported civilian casualties from U.S. attacks on Sunday and the capture and execution of Taliban opposition leader Abdul Haq.

American airstrikes spilled over Sunday into residential neighborhoods of Kabul, killing 13 civilians, witnesses said. It was the second time in as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed residents.

In neighboring Pakistan, where the government has had to work to keep a lid on pro-Taliban unrest, there was growing concern over civilian casualties.

"We feel the military action should possibly be short and targeted in order to avoid civilian casualties," Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Meanwhile, the Taliban refused to return the body of Afghan opposition figure Abdul Haq, executed Friday after he crossed over into Afghanistan in hopes of drumming up support for the anti-Taliban cause. The Taliban said they had buried Haq in his home village in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials revealed Sunday that an unmanned aircraft operated by the CIA attacked a Taliban convoy Friday in a desperate attempt to save Haq, but the airstrike failed to keep Taliban forces from capturing and executing the Pashtun leader.

In other developments:

  • Three British and two American Muslims, who went to Afghanistan to fight against the United States, were killed in the U.S.-led bombing of the Afghan capital, an Islamic group said Sunday. The identities of the two Americans were not immediately known.

  • Just one day after President Bush criticized airport security legislation that would require all baggage and passenger screeners to be federal employees, Card said Bush would nevertheless sign the bill if Congress approved it.

  • Rumsfeld said Sunday that the United States favors a Northern Alliance takeover of Kabul. Pakistan has warned the United States against allowing the Northern Alliance, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks, to take over the capital, which is inhabited largely by Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group.

  • U.S. officials said Sunday that two C-17 transport planes dropped another 34,000 ration packets in northern Afghanistan, bringing the food aid effort to 925,200 packets dropped during the three weeks of combat over the country.
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