The US is poring over options for war, top officials vowing to eradicate the terrorists who hit New York and the Pentagon as well as the states and organizations that support them.
The military strike options go far beyond the short-term cruise missile assaults of years past in Afghanistan and Sudan and isolated airstrikes against sites in Iraq.
Instead, they involve the potential lengthy use of military forces on the land, at sea and in the air. Options include the covert insertion of elite special forces and long-range bomb strikes from manned aircraft, said senior military and administration officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
In the most explicit description yet of the George W. Bush administration's intentions, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday the retaliation would be continued until the roots of terrorism are destroyed.
"These people try to hide. They won't be able to hide forever," Wolfowitz said. "One has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism."
The huge number of dead and the destruction wrought by Tuesday's strikes has caused a different mindset to take hold among senior Defense Department officials, a ranking military official said.
"If you are really going to do war, you do it with all assets -- political, economic and military, and that's what they want to do," the officer said.
The Pentagon has asked President Bush to authorize the activation of tens of thousands of part-time reserve troops for "homeland defense" after a major terror attack against the nation, defense officials said yesterday.
One senior official, who asked not to be identified, suggested that a raid against Afghanistan, where fugitive guerrilla leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be based, could come as early as this weekend or next week.
Other US officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that the Pentagon's Joint Military Command and other commands, especially with oversight for the Middle East, were considering everything from use of elite Special Operations troops to strikes by heavy B-2 Stealth bombers and cruise missile raids.
"You don't do it with just a single military strike, no matter how dramatic," Wolfowitz said.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
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