4.5 SEARCHING FOR FRESH OPTIONS
"Boots on the Ground?"
Starting on the day the August 1998 strikes were launched, General Shelton had
issued a planning order to prepare follow-on strikes and think beyond just using
cruise missiles.137 The initial strikes had been called Operation
Infinite Reach. The follow-on plans were given the code name Operation Infinite
Resolve.
At the time, any actual military action in Afghanistan would have been
carried out by General Zinni's Central Command. This command was therefore the
locus for most military planning. Zinni was even less enthusiastic than Cohen
and Shelton about follow-on cruise missile strikes. He knew that the Tomahawks
did not always hit their targets. After the August 20 strikes, President Clinton
had had to call Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif to apologize for a wayward
missile that had killed several people in a Pakistani village. Sharif had been
understanding, while commenting on American "overkill."138
Zinni feared that Bin Ladin would in the future locate himself in cities,
where U.S. missiles could kill thousands of Afghans. He worried also lest
Pakistani authorities not get adequate warning, think the missiles came from
India, and do something that everyone would later regret. Discussing potential
repercussions in the region of his military responsibility, Zinni said, "It
was easy to take the shot from Washington and walk away from it. We had to live
there."139
Zinni's distinct preference would have been to build up counterterrorism
capabilities in neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan. But he told us that he
could not drum up much interest in or money for such a purpose from Washington,
partly, he thought, because these countries had dictatorial governments.140
After the decision-in which fear of collateral damage was an important
factor-not to use cruise missiles against Kandahar in December 1998, Shelton and
officers in the Pentagon developed plans for using an AC-130 gunship instead of
cruise missile strikes. Designed specifically for the special forces, the
version of the AC-130 known as "Spooky" can fly in fast or from high
altitude, undetected by radar; guided to its zone by extraordinarily complex
electronics, it is capable of rapidly firing precision-guided 25, 40, and 105 mm
projectiles. Because this system could target more precisely than a salvo of
cruise missiles, it had a much lower risk of causing collateral damage. After
giving Clarke a briefing and being encouraged to proceed, Shelton formally
directed Zinni and General Peter Schoomaker, who headed the Special Operations
Command, to develop plans for an AC-130 mission against Bin Ladin's headquarters
and infrastructure in Afghanistan. The Joint Staff prepared a decision paper for
deployment of the Special Operations aircraft.141
Though Berger and Clarke continued to indicate interest in this option, the
AC-130s were never deployed. Clarke wrote at the time that Zinni opposed their
use, and John Maher, the Joint Staff's deputy director of operations, agreed
that this was Zinni's position. Zinni himself does not recall blocking the
option. He told us that he understood the Special Operations Command had never
thought the intelligence good enough to justify actually moving AC-130s into
position. Schoomaker says, on the contrary, that he thought the AC-130 option
feasible.142
