"In the near term, the United States will have to tap into the intelligence apparatus of other countries," said Andrew F. Krepinevitch, a former Pentagon war planner who now heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
"We need their military support and access to their bases, but most of all we need a window into what they know.
Retired General Wesley K. Clark, NATO's commander of the 1999 Kosovo conflict, agreed Sunday in an interview: "We have more than enough means to defeat them -- if we can find them."
In the Middle East, countries are cautious about revealing the extent of their cooperation with the US for fear of igniting a public firestorm.
"The political costs of appearing to line up with the United States, which has declared war on all terrorists but with a heavy overtone of on all the Muslim world, is going to be very divisive in every country in the Muslim world," said David Long, former deputy director of the State Department's counterterrorism office.
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