Eighty percent of the time, American airmen received their targets only after they had taken off.

PERATION Enduring Freedom command in a harsh, politically com- marked the first time the US plex environment. The airpower com- responded to an act ponent set the conditions for a coali- Oof terrorism with a large- tion campaign and achieved success scale, sustained, conventional-force from the first night onward, adapting operation. The on the Taliban to tactical constraints and bringing An Air War and al Qaeda was most intense from precise firepower to bear. Indeed, 80 October 2001 through January 2002, percent of the targets struck by US when it featured mostly air and space airpower were “flex targets”—those power. given to pilots en route. It was not, however, a massive air The Sept. 11 attacks came as a war; the sortie count from its start thunderous strategic surprise. It took through takeover of major Afghan time for the Bush Administration to Like No cities was about half that of Opera- formulate its response. Soon, how- tion Allied Force in the Balkans in ever, US attention was drawn to 1999 and nowhere near that of the Osama bin Laden’s nest, Afghani- in 1991. stan. Its Taliban rulers had offered What made OEF unique was that the SaudiÐborn terrorist a safe har- Other joint airpower was able to respond on bor since 1996. Thus, the first step in

By Rebecca Grant

USAF photo by SrA. James Harper

Excerpted from the Air Force Association Special Report “The Afghan Air War,” published by AFA’s Aerospace Education Foundation. The full report is available on the Web at www.aef.org (go to publications, then Eaker Institute Papers).

30 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 30 Eighty percent of the time, American airmen received their targets only after they had taken off.

PERATION Enduring Freedom command in a harsh, politically com- marked the first time the US plex environment. The airpower com- military responded to an act ponent set the conditions for a coali- Oof terrorism with a large- tion campaign and achieved success scale, sustained, conventional-force from the first night onward, adapting operation. The war on the Taliban to tactical constraints and bringing An Air War and al Qaeda was most intense from precise firepower to bear. Indeed, 80 October 2001 through January 2002, percent of the targets struck by US when it featured mostly air and space airpower were “flex targets”—those power. given to pilots en route. It was not, however, a massive air The Sept. 11 attacks came as a war; the sortie count from its start thunderous strategic surprise. It took through takeover of major Afghan time for the Bush Administration to Like No cities was about half that of Opera- formulate its response. Soon, how- tion Allied Force in the Balkans in ever, US attention was drawn to 1999 and nowhere near that of the Osama bin Laden’s nest, Afghani- Gulf War in 1991. stan. Its Taliban rulers had offered What made OEF unique was that the SaudiÐborn terrorist a safe har- Other joint airpower was able to respond on bor since 1996. Thus, the first step in

By Rebecca Grant

USAF photo by SrA. James Harper

Excerpted from the Air Force Association Special Report “The Afghan Air War,” published by AFA’s Aerospace Education Foundation. The full report is available on the Web at www.aef.org (go to publications, then Eaker Institute Papers).

30 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 30 C-17 airlifters carried out a long- distance airdrop of humanitarian daily rations. Air strikes to eliminate air defenses and other key targets were a logical first step, given the success of air- power in the conflicts of the 1990s. But Rumsfeld took pains to point out USAF photo by SSgt. Shane Cuomo that a few days’ worth of strikes would not topple the Taliban. “We have to have a clear under- standing of what is possible in a country like that,” Rumsfeld said. “That country has been at war for a very long time. ... They do not have high-value targets or assets that are the kinds of things that would lend themselves to substantial damage from the air.” It was plain from the outset that An airman prepares a precision guided bomb during Operation Enduring OEF was not going to unfold accord- Freedom. After dropping a portion of their loads, USAF’s B-1Bs, such as this ing to a predetermined strategy. The one, and B-52 bombers were on-call for emerging targets. Gulf War air campaign of 1991 pounded Iraqi forces for 38 days as reducing the terror threat would be sea but turned back on station after the US “tried to set conditions” for to eliminate al Qaeda bases in Af- hearing of the attacks. hostilities, Myers noted in a late Oc- ghanistan. Beyond that, everything for the tober briefing. “Then,” he went on, The primary internal opposition war in Afghanistan had to go in by “we had a ground component that to Taliban rule came from the North- air. USAF’s Air Mobility Command went in and finished the job. You ern Alliance, a loose coalition of began putting in place an air bridge shouldn’t think of this [the war against irregular forces under the leadership of tankers to refuel inbound aircraft. terrorists] in those terms.” of various Afghan strongmen. Some- For the first time, the air bridge out where in the days after Sept. 11, the of the United States ran in two direc- “A Different War” Bush Administration decided that tions, east and west, converging on Echoing that point was Gen. Tom- teaming with the Northern Alliance Central Asia. my R. Franks, the Army officer com- offered the best hope for “liquidat- OEF began on Oct. 7, 2001. Gen. manding US Central Command and ing” the Taliban and al Qaeda in Richard B. Myers, the Air Force of- thus the war’s top military figure. Afghanistan. ficer who had only recently become “It has been said that those who ex- It was also clear that inserting any Joint Chiefs of Chairman, an- pect another Desert Storm will won- US military forces into the region nounced the action. He said, “About der every day what it is that this war would require cooperation from Af- 15 land-based bombers, some 25 is all about,” said Franks. “This is a ghanistan’s neighbors. They were a strike aircraft from carriers, and US different war.” complicated group. Afghanistan bor- and British and Part of the strategy was to take dered nations whose names must have launching approximately 50 Toma- steps to hunt down key individuals made planners shudder: , Iran, hawk missiles have struck terrorist and learn more about al Qaeda’s the now-independent republics of targets in Afghanistan.” structure and any plans for future Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Ta- On Oct. 7 and 8, strikes by Air operations. Another was to unseat jikistan, and on-again, off-again US Force bombers and Navy fighters hit the Taliban. ally Pakistan. Taliban air defense sites, airfields, The Northern Alliance, always a military command-and-control cen- loose grouping, was not ready for The Buildup Begins ters, and other fixed targets near coordinated air and ground offen- The US soon began assembling major cities and installations. The sives. Aid ranging from ammunition forces, however. The Air Force al- first order of business was to “re- to horse fodder had to be flown into ready had established a modern, top- move the threat from air defenses the and air-dropped to alli- of-the-line nerve center, called the and from Taliban aircraft,” Defense ance forces. Trained US special op- Combined Air Operations Center, or Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said erations teams and air controllers CAOC, in a state. This on Oct. 7. had to link up with assigned ele- center would be used to direct all “We need the freedom to operate on ments of the Northern Alliance. facets of the coming air campaign. the ground and in the air, and the The mechanics of airpower for Moreover, some Navy warships were targets selected, if successfully de- OEF were different from those seen in place in the northern . stroyed, should permit an increasing in other recent conflicts. Distance The USS Enterprise degree of freedom over time,” he added. was a major challenge. Navy fight- and its group had begun their Humanitarian relief missions be- ers flew more than 700 miles one return to the US after six months at gan on the first night of the war. Two way from their carriers to their com-

32 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 bat stations. Bombers coming from precision air wings, the strike fight- intricate deck cycle time of the the BritishÐowned Indian Ocean atoll ers averaged two aim points per air- carrier’s operations created a major of Diego Garcia faced a 2,500-mile craft per sortie, a monumental shift challenge. one-way trip. from the mass force packages of Bombers were less affected by For airmen, the war shifted rap- Desert Storm. A full 93 percent of range limitations and soon shoul- idly from strikes against preplanned the Navy strike sorties delivered pre- dered the major part of the job. targets to a combination of pre- cision guided ordnance. After two initial days of strikes, planned and flexible targets. “After “We are more precise than we the B-2 stealth aircraft flying from the first week, the pilots didn’t know were in the past,” explained Adm. Whiteman AFB, Mo., were not used what targets they’d be striking when Vern Clark, the Chief of Naval Op- again, since the air defenses in Af- they launched,” said Vice Adm. John erations, during an interview with ghanistan did not pose a threat to B. Nathman, then commander, Na- C-Span. conventional bombers if they stayed val Air Force, Pacific Fleet. Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force above the altitudes for such man- As emerging targets came to domi- Chief of Staff, concurred with Clark. portable SAMs and anti-aircraft fire nate the tasking, the key was to keep “We’ve come a long way from 10 as might be left. Other bombers fighters and bombers on station over years ago [Operation Desert Storm], were cast in starring roles. The Air Afghanistan long enough to get good when we had to fly ATO [Air Tasking Force deployed 18 B-52s and B-1s targets for their . Orders] out to the aircraft carriers,” from the US to Diego Garcia. Of- To cope with these requirements, Jumper told . ficers in the CAOC generally could Navy aircraft carriers worked under a expect four sorties per day from new and different kind of operational Roving Strike Force the B-1s and five from the B-52s. concept in the Afghan air war. Previ- Once on station, the air compo- Both the B-1 and B-52 now carried ously, exercises focused on a single nent became a roving strike force GPSÐguided Joint Direct Attack carrier generating combat power, a positioned over the to Munitions. reflection of the emphasis provide prompt, precise firepower These bombers, like the B-2s in on each carrier being able to survive on demand. Allied Force in 1999, received new and operate alone. OEF saw several For the fighters—land-based Air target coordinates in real time by aircraft carriers combining forces to Force fighters in the Gulf region and linking directly to the net of updated generate the required effort. USS carrier-based naval fighters—a stan- information. Rarely was a bomber’s Enterprise was joined by four more dard mission was to take off and fly entire load of weapons destined for carriers. USS Kitty Hawk shed all but to an assigned engagement zone. preplanned targets. Once a bomber eight strike aircraft from the air wing There they might orbit as the most crew completed its preplanned as- to make room on the deck for Special recent information was being syn- signment, it would remain airborne Operations Forces helicopters. Some thesized from a variety of sources and on-call for other targets. of Kitty Hawk’s fighter units pulled before being passed on to the strike Jumper called the use of the B-52 temporary duty at Diego Garcia to aircraft. The main obstacle to con- against emerging targets in a close provide air cover for the bomber base tinuous fighter coverage was dis- air support role transformational. on the island. tance. Those sorties, he said, would nor- Naval aircraft flew about 75 per- The need to fly more than 700 mally have been flown by attack air- cent of the strike sorties. With all- miles, strike, and recover within the craft such as the A-10. While USAF bombers and Navy fighters were shifting gears, another, highly unusual type of air war was just getting under way. A clandestine air war used unmanned vehicles, satel- lites, and other intelligence sources to track time-sensitive targets, of which the most tempting and critical were the Taliban and al Qaeda officials on

US Army photo by Sgt. Todd M. Roy the campaign’s most-wanted list.

Flexible Targeting Time-sensitive targeting went by several names. Originally dubbed “flex targeting” during Allied Force in 1999, the process was also nick- named “time-critical targeting.” It could be used for attacking any mov- ing or moveable target of high im- portance, especially one that through electronic emissions, communica- Special forces on the ground in Afghanistan included airmen, such as this tions, or other telltale signs gave master sergeant at far right. USAF combat controllers called in strike aircraft only brief indications of its location. as targets were identified. In the Kosovo war, time-sensitive

AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 33 Whatever the precise facts, the story revealed that the coordination required for tracking and killing a time-sensitive target was not smooth.

Delicate Process Target approval remained a deli- cate process throughout OEF, giv- USAF photo by SSgt. Ricky A. Bloom ing rise to speculative press stories about who grants approval and why and how often authorization was held back. The need for target approval by Franks and levels above him some- times slowed the campaign. Accord- ing to a report in the Washington Post, CENTCOM often denied re- quests from the CAOC to strike newly identified targets. This reportedly provoked one officer to declare, with heavy sarcasm, “It’s kind of ridicu- An Air Force Reserve Command A-10 pilot waits for the signal to launch at lous when you get a live feed from a Bagram air base in Afghanistan. A-10s provided close air support in the rout Predator and the intel guys say, ‘We of Taliban and al Qaeda forces during Enduring Freedom. need independent verification.’ ” Such stories cast a pall over OEF targets were more often military nightmarish ID problems, especially at a time when the air war was shift- equipment such as SAMs. In 2001, under time pressures. ing from the short period of strikes the most time-sensitive targets of all Early in the clandestine air war, on fixed targets to the hunt for Taliban were people such as Mullah Mu- US operators believed they had Mul- military targets. As yet, cracks in the hammad Omar, the Taliban’s prin- lah Omar in their sights. As reported Taliban’s control of Afghanistan cipal spiritual leader. by Seymour M. Hersh in The New were not evident. Months earlier, the Air Force had Yorker, a HellfireÐarmed Predator Coalition achievement of air su- successfully test-fired Hellfire mis- was patrolling the roads near Kabul periority was followed by a brief siles from a Predator Unmanned on the first night of the war. Hersh interval of seeming inactivity; seri- Aerial Vehicle. The CIA appropri- asserted, “The Predator identified a ous Northern Alliance ground op- ated the capability and used Preda- group of cars and trucks fleeing the erations did not start up right away. tors to fire at, as well as track, key capital as a convoy carrying Mullah To many pundits, this came across targets in Afghanistan. Omar, the Taliban leader.” The CIA as a sign of failure. Within days, The targeting of these time-sensi- controller had to refer the shootÐ questions about the inability of air- tive targets, no matter how impor- don’t shoot decision to “officers on power to eliminate al Qaeda centers tant, had to conform to the laws of duty at the headquarters” of Central of resistance filled the press. By the war as dictated by the Geneva Con- Command in Tampa, Fla. end of October, disenchantment had ventions. Strict adherence to the rules Hersh went on: “The Predator spread. “The initial US air strategy of war served to eliminate any possi- tracked the convoy to a building against Afghanistan is not working,” bility of an airman being accused, where Omar, accompanied by a hun- University of Chicago professor down the road, as a war criminal. dred or so guards and soldiers, took Robert A. Pape declared in the Wash- CENTCOM long had employed cover. The precise sequence of events ington Post. lawyers from the military’s Judge Ad- could not be fully learned, but intel- Despite repeated efforts by Rums- vocate General Corps as experts on ligence officials told me that there feld, Myers, and other Pentagon of- the laws of war. In Desert Storm, for was an immediate request for a full- ficials to explain that this war was example, the lawyers got a chop on scale assault by fighterÐbombers. At different, the reflex desire to blame preplanned targets. However, the han- that point, however, word came from airpower surfaced again. dling of time-sensitive targets was General Tommy R. Franks, the Attempting to remedy what sup- harder. CENTCOM commander, saying, as posedly “ailed” OEF, many recom- Not only did intelligence sources the officials put it, ‘My JAG’—Judge mended committing US ground troops have to produce coordinates quickly Advocate General, a legal officer— in substantial numbers. Mackubin enough that could be relayed to a ‘doesn’t like this, so we’re not going T. Owens Jr., a professor of strategy command center and then on to a to fire.’ Instead, the Predator was and force planning at the US Naval strike aircraft, but also the target authorized to fire a missile in front War College, Newport, R.I., esti- might have to be approved. No com- of the building, ‘bounce it off the mated the job would take 35,000 to mander wanted to wind up attacking front door,’ one officer said.” 40,000 American troops. Former Pen- a carload full of Afghan civilians Hersh added that “an operative on tagon official Daniel Goure upped when the target was al Qaeda fight- the ground” later confirmed that the ante, projecting a need for at ers. Restaurants, private homes, and Omar and his guards were in the least 250,000 troops. civilian-style vehicles all posed convoy tracked by the Predator. The cacophony prompted Franks

34 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 to say publicly that the war was “not feld said that “a very modest num- the south. The first step for each at all a stalemate.” Rumsfeld even ber” of US troops were positioned team, of course, was to build trust prepared a public statement (released to help coordinate air strikes and and relationships with the leaders of last November) reminding Ameri- provide logistic support to the North- the Afghan group to which they had cans that the US in the past had ern Alliance. been assigned. The teams went into fought and won long and that Myers went on to explain the tac- Afghanistan after careful prepara- there was no possibility of instant tical concept for the next phase of tion. Powell noted in a Washington victory. operations. “For several days now Post interview, “You had a First The unspoken was that con- we’ve had US troops on the ground World air force and a Fourth World tinuing the bombing campaign would with the Northern Alliance,” he said. army, and it took a while to connect be an exercise in senseless destruc- “Their primary mission is to advise the two.” tion to prove a point, while in the [and] to try to support the Northern Once in place, the SOF teams and end, it would take conventional Alliance with air strikes as appropri- the CAOC’s delivery of “on-call” ground forces to do the job properly. ate. They are specially trained indi- airpower proved to be the right op- Scattered collateral damage inci- viduals who know how to bring in erational concept for unseating the dents, such as a hit on a warehouse, airpower and bring it into the con- Taliban. The ability to call in air fueled more complaints. flict in the right way, and that’s what strikes on precise coordinates gave they’re doing. We think that will the Northern Alliance the boost in Help Arrives have a big impact on the Northern firepower needed to break the Taliban The common view of that contin- Alliance’s ability to prosecute their strongholds. At one Pentagon brief- gent was, as Owens argued, “It’s piece of this war against the Taliban.” ing, Myers showed gun-camera film doubtful the opposition forces can The campaign was approaching a of air strikes hitting two tanks and an win without substantial [US ground turning point. Some 300 Special piece. Another news brief- force] help.” Owens was dead right Operations Forces members, divided ing featured film of a B-52 strike on about the Northern Alliance’s need into small teams, were in place, with Taliban fielded forces. AirÐground for help but wrong about the source. about 200 of those in the north and coordination was working: Control- Help was about to arrive, in a spec- the other 100 or so in tribal groups in lers operating with the Northern Al- tacular form, from CENTCOM’s joint air component. For all of the hand-wringing about The Area of Operations the progress of the air war, opera- tional success always hinged mainly on establishing a linkage between Kazakhstan air and ground forces. Rumsfeld said, “We feel that the air campaign has been effective. The fact that for a Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan period we did not have good targets has now shifted, because we are get- ting much better information from Turkmenistan the ground in terms of targets. Also, the pressure that has been put on Tajikistan fairly continuously these past weeks China ● has forced people to move and to ● ● Taloqan change locations in a way that gives Mazar-e Sharif Kunduz additional targeting opportunities.” ● ● Kabul ● While supporting the Northern Herat Alliance push against the Taliban, Iran ● Jalalabad the joint air component was also busy Afghanistan Khowst with attacks on a network of moun- Kandahar ● tain caves that might be offering shel- ter to al Qaeda forces. A Pentagon spokesman declared that al Qaeda did not any longer ap- pear to be active in Afghanistan, given the continuous military pressure. As he put the situation, “We have taken Pakistan away their ability to use their training camps. We have taken away their known infrastructure. We are strik- ing at the caves that we have learned that they utilize or have utilized.” By late October, the coalition had in place all of the pieces needed for rapid success on the ground. Rums-

AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 35 liance were helping to bring precise alerted a B-52 overhead. The B-52 Nov. 15: “We in fact have the initia- firepower to bear on individual tar- struck the outpost 19 minutes after tive. ... We have said that it’s all gets and directing bomber strikes the initial call. about condition setting, followed by against concentrations of troops. Backed by that kind of airpower, our attaining our objectives. The first the Northern Alliance pressed the thing we did was set conditions to First Towns Fall pedal to the floor, and the allegedly begin to take down the tactical air In the first week of November stalemated war accelerated into high defense and all of that. So we set 2001, air strikes concentrated on gear. Over the course of a week, the conditions and then we did that. The Taliban and al Qaeda forces and alliance, with on-call American air- next thing we did was set conditions military equipment near Mazar-e power overhead, took town after with these special forces teams and Sharif and Kabul, the capital. Air- town. Taloqan fell on Nov. 11. The the positioning of our aviation as- craft on Nov. 4 dropped two gigantic Northern Alliance announced the lib- sets to be able to take the Taliban BLU-82 15,000-pound bombs on eration of Herat on Nov. 12. Opposi- apart or fracture it. And we did that.” Taliban troops, with a telling effect. tion forces soon were making plans The Northern Alliance went on the to recover the capital. Bush Was Impressed attack, and by Nov. 6, its forces had The morning of Nov. 12 saw the President Bush himself summed captured villages around Mazar-e beginning of the end for the Tali- up the meaning of the action in a Sharif. Shulgareh fell on Nov. 7, and ban’s control of Kabul. B-52 strikes Dec. 11 speech at The Citadel. “These on Nov. 9 the Northern Alliance pounded Taliban lines around the past two months have shown that an claimed Mazar-e Sharif itself. capital in the morning. By late after- innovative doctrine and high-tech The CAOC kept directing bombs noon, Northern Alliance armored weaponry can shape and then domi- on target and the Northern Alliance forces were moving down the “Old nate an unconventional conflict,” he started rolling up the Taliban. A stun- Road” toward the city with said, noting that “this combination— ning demonstration of the new tech- sweeping through former Taliban po- real-time intelligence, local allied nique at its best came when a B-52 sitions. Fleeing Taliban fighters dis- forces, special forces, and precision bomber put bombs on target within carded their equipment and their dead airpower— has really never been used 20 minutes of a call for assistance. and ran for their lives. The air strikes before.” Northern Alliance forces, who were around Kabul also killed a key bin The swift, midÐNovember collapse riding on horseback, discovered a Laden deputy, Mohammed Atef. of the Taliban left the forces of OEF Taliban military outpost with artil- On Nov. 13, the Northern Alli- facing three main tasks in the months lery, barracks, and a command post. ance took control of Kabul and be- ahead: Although the Taliban force was quiet gan to set up police control of the Conquest of the last remaining at the time, the Northern Alliance city. Elements of the Taliban were Taliban strongholds, such as Kan- commander identified the outpost as now in headlong flight southward to dahar, the spiritual capital of the a stronghold. He asked for coalition the sparsely populated areas con- Taliban movement. aircraft to strike the target within the trolled by Pashtun tribes. Initial reconstruction of civilian next few days. A USAF combat con- Thus, in the space of only two government and infrastructure in troller notified the CAOC, and since weeks, the coalition broke the Tali- Afghanistan. the target lay in an already estab- ban’s grip on Afghanistan. Franks Elimination or capture of the lished engagement zone, the CAOC summed up the progress to date on scattered remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban, including the leaders. With peacekeeping duties begin- ning and with the Taliban collapsing so quickly, the pressure was on to finish the rout. The Northern Alli- ance took its hot pursuit of the Taliban and al Qaeda south to the remaining strongholds of Taliban power near Kandahar and Kunduz.

USAF photo by TSgt. Joe Springfield On Nov. 20, more than 1,000 Taliban fighters at Kunduz surren- dered to the Northern Alliance. Six days later, Kunduz was occupied. By early December, Kandahar fell. The second task, restoring civil order and starting the rebuilding pro- cess, gained some strength from the momentum of the Northern Alli- ance’s victories and the ongoing humanitarian relief operations. OEF cast a new mold by delivering Hu- UAVs such as this RQ-1B Predator were star performers as US forces tracked manitarian Daily Rations and other time-sensitive targets and then relayed the data to airborne strike aircraft. supplies starting the very first night. Some 80 percent of the targets struck were given to pilots en route. The HDRs were described by Joseph

36 AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 J. Collins, deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and hu- manitarian affairs, as “a safe, veg- etarian, nonculturally sensitive meal that has everything you need, unless you need taste.” An average daily airdrop delivered 35,000 HDRs. Sometimes the number went as high as 70,000. USAF photo by A1C Joshua P. Strang

Pursuing the Bad Guys The third task entailed mopping up on a grand scale. Though Afghani- stan was no longer under Taliban con- trol, the country was not entirely free of Taliban or al Qaeda, either. Only a fraction of top leadership had been killed in battle or had fallen into the hands of the Americans. A conven- tional war might have ended with the fall of major cities and elevation of An F-16 fighter displays the “Let’s Roll” nose art, commemorating the victims the government of interim Prime Min- and heroes of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In midÐOctober, some doubted the ister Hamid Karzai. The ability of airpower to rout the Taliban, but they were proved wrong. had to continue. OEF began to focus on the track- cave complex near Tora Bora in the Yet this is exactly what happened. ing of leadership, remaining troops White Mountains. The Air Force and Navy, using pre- concentrations, and strong points. Despite intense air strikes and an cision laser-guided and satellite- As Franks had said Nov. 15, “The attack by US forces and the North- guided munitions, made every strike Taliban is not destroyed as an effec- ern Alliance, the battle did not round count. With a minimum of collat- tive fighting force from the level of up all al Qaeda. eral damage and bloodshed, the air one individual man carrying a “I would think that it would be a strikes enabled the Northern Alli- until that individual man puts down mistake to say that the al Qaeda is ance to overcome the Taliban’s nu- his weapon.” Last fall, DOD offi- finished in Afghanistan at this stage,” merical advantage and their supply cials repeatedly explained that the said Rumsfeld on Dec. 19. He noted of tanks, artillery, and vehicles and US still had to find and get al Qaeda that some of the Taliban fighters had retake the 85 percent of Afghani- and the Taliban, specifically the lead- “just gone home, dropped their weap- stan once controlled by that oppres- ership. ons—these are Afghans—and they’ve sive regime. This new phase of operations in- gone back to their villages and said, At the same time, the air compo- cluded deploying ground troops and ‘To heck with it. I’m not going to do nent mounted a major humanitarian using expeditionary air bases inside anything.’ ” relief effort and delivered nearly all Afghanistan. Over the next several Ever since the Gulf War, US strat- materiel to surrounding bases by months, coalition air and ground egy debates have tended to stumble air. It proved the validity of a con- forces worked together on a series of over the issue of whether large-scale cept: US and allied airpower can raids against Taliban and al Qaeda maneuvering by land combat forces work efficiently with local ground remnants. with tanks and artillery are essential forces to accomplish the combatant Hovering over it all was the hope of to success in battle. The early criti- commander’s objectives. While this finding bin Laden himself, or at least cisms of airpower in OEF brought will not be the solution for every gaining new clues as to his where- that argument to the table once again. potential campaign, it is now be- abouts. Franks had said CENTCOM In midÐOctober, some doubted it was yond dispute as a proven model for was closely watching both Kandahar possible to rout a wily and experi- coalition operations. and an area to the south, near Tora enced Taliban force on its own turf Afghanistan offered convincing Bora. A Taliban ambassador an- especially with Afghans (and Ameri- evidence that airpower is flexible nounced in midÐNovember that bin cans) on horseback, a few hundred enough to take the lead in many dif- Laden and his family had relocated highly trained US airmen, soldiers, ferent types of conflict. US airpower to parts of Afghanistan not controlled and sailors on the ground, and 50 to enabled Northern Alliance forces to by the Taliban. Then, in early De- 100 strike sorties per day launched take back control of Afghanistan and cember, coalition forces attacked a from distant bases. did it in under two months. The war on terrorism will demand action in many forms on many fronts. Afghani- Rebecca Grant is a contributing editor of Air Force Magazine. She is president stan demonstrated that the United of IRIS Independent Research in Washington, D.C., and has worked for RAND, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Grant is a States, by committing its joint air fellow of the Eaker Institute for Aerospace Concepts, the public policy and forces, even in an uncertain tactical research arm of the Air Force Association’s Aerospace Education Foundation. environment, can enable AmericanÐ Her most recent article, “Reach-Forward,” appeared in the October 2002 issue. led forces to prevail. ■

AIR FORCE Magazine / November 2002 37