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Worldwide coalitions are shaky contraptions, and the one Bush is trying to drive now is having to make some unscheduled stops. For all the expressions of solidarity following the attacks, locking in the partnerships needed for a full-scale assault required much more than kind words. The U.S. needed access to Omani and Uzbek air bases and Pakistani intelligence and Indian airspace. And while Administration critics, starting with Israel, warned that all these would come at a cost, the Bush Administration also sensed an opportunity. Officials saw a strategic opening, a chance for a new round of realpolitik, which might knit together the U.S., Russia, China and India in the fight against terror — a partnership, however fragile, that could bear other fruit. A huge dividend came last week, when Russian President Vladimir Putin eased his opposition to NATO expansion.
As Rumsfeld said Thursday, the fight against terror "undoubtedly will prove to be a lot more like a cold war than a hot war. If you think about it, in the cold war it took 50 years, plus or minus. It did not involve major battles. It involved continuous pressure. It involved cooperation by a host of nations. It involved the willingness of populations in many countries to invest in it and to sustain it. It took leadership at the top from a number of countries that were willing to be principled and to be courageous and to put things at risk; and when it ended, it ended not with a bang, but through internal collapse."
So while all the expected hardware kept moving toward Afghanistan, that was only half the picture. The U.S.S. Kitty Hawk steamed out of the Pacific toward the Persian Gulf, rigged not for air operations but as a platform for ground troops. A three-ship Marine amphibious group is on its way from Norfolk, Va. And up to 1,000 light-infantry troops from the 10th Mountain Division left Fort Drum in New York late last week for Uzbekistan, the first U.S. troops to be based in a country of the former Soviet Union.
The diplomats fanned out as well: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has become a trusted and effective counterpart for Bush, visited Islamabad; State Department troubleshooter Richard Haass paid a call on the exiled Afghan King in Rome, and Rumsfeld spent three days in the Middle East and Central Asia locking down final logistics. He won continued access to Oman's air bases (and promised the Sultan a cache of American military hardware). A week after a secret mission by Under Secretary of State John Bolton, Rumsfeld got the formal go-ahead from Uzbek President Islam Karimov to base 1,000 troops at Khanabad, 125 miles north of the Afghan border. (Karimov said no aerial or ground attacks would be launched from his soil, at least for now.) And while Rumsfeld was taking care of the guns, other Bush aides were working on the butter.
The inside story of how Bush decided to open the humanitarian front begins in the first few days after the attacks. In peace, even the worst Presidents have time to plan; in war, the best barely have time to react. The food-aid idea came together in what an official calls an "organic" fashion, meaning in no particular order at all. But sources tell TIME that the package has its roots in the vengeful attacks on Arab Americans right here at home in the days after Sept. 11.
Many people who watched the buildings explode in New York City and Washington felt an intense desire for revenge. Bush was among them. On Air Force One on Sept. 11, he spoke privately of retaliation, of striking back with lethal force and doing so quickly; his military aides told him the U.S. had no good targets for a quick strike inside Afghanistan, and Bush wisely resisted the urge to launch a futile attack like the one Ronald Reagan ordered in 1983, when the U.S.S. New Jersey shelled the hills above Beirut after a suicide bomber killed 241 U.S. Marines stationed there.
Some Americans were not so restrained. After Sept. 11, as retaliatory crimes against Arab Americans mounted — in which three people were killed — Bush realized he had to do something to stop them. On Monday, Sept. 17, he motored uptown to the Islamic Center of Washington, the city's biggest mosque. He met privately with Islamic leaders, then joined them for a shoulder-to-shoulder statement for the cameras. "These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that."
Bush's message was aimed at the home front, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee reported a sharp drop in attacks against Arab Americans in the days after he spoke. But the impact overseas was even more dramatic. The White House heard instantly from its embassies in the Middle East. Ambassador Margaret Tutwiler, who left the West Wing over the summer to take up her post as U.S. envoy to Morocco, called adviser Karen Hughes from Rabat. "Keep it up," said Tutwiler, whose ear for the right political move is unrivaled. "It's getting incredible coverage." When King Abdullah of Jordan paid a visit to the White House late last month, he privately commended the mosque visit, hinting that similar events would help Arab allies keep a lid on anti-American anger. Around the same time, Bush met with Islamic leaders in the White House. "I have told the nation more than once that ours is a war against evil, against extremists [and] that the teachings of Islam are the teachings of peace and good," Bush said.