Caught with virtually no good intelligence in Afghanistan, the Bush administration now is in the awkward position of relying entirely on foreign governments in the Muslim world for information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, US officials and intelligence experts say.
The intelligence blackout is so complete that, American officials worry, it could jeopardize or severely limit US military options and actions in the hunt for bin Laden, who has been identified as the prime suspect in last Tuesday's deadly terror attacks.
"There's a great, great lack of US intelligence on Afghanistan now," said Julie R. Sirrs, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who specialized in Afghanistan and the region. "I think people in the intelligence community were overconfident they could uncover things in time."
PHOTO: AFP
Only a handful of US intelligence officials speak the main languages of Afghanistan, Pashtu and Dari, an Afghan Persian dialect, Sirrs and others said.
Two US officials acknowledged Sunday that the Bush administration feels hamstrung by the lack of informants on the ground to provide what's called "humint," or human intelligence. They declined to estimate how many informants the US has in Afghanistan, but both said the number was tiny.
"I know Americans can more easily accept casualties now, but I don't think they will tolerate it for folly," said one US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And right now I don't see US troops going in unless they really know where bin Laden is. And we don't know where he is. You don't want to land blind in a hot zone, with no idea of what you are facing."
The official said the US has been received good leads from a number of foreign governments, but declined to give any specifics. US intelligence agencies will be looking toward Pakistan above all over countries, but the official said several Middle East and European nations also have provided strong information so far.
The second US official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistanis know more about bin Laden than anyone, but "They also leak more. In the past they have given some very sensitive information to" bin Laden.
It is widely believed in intelligence circles that a Pakistani source tipped off bin Laden about the 1998 cruise missile attack on one of his camps, allowing him to flee.
In the 1980s, the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence service collaborated to aid the Afghan guerrilla movement that eventually defeated the occupying Soviet Union Army. During that period, many Pakistani military officers formed close alliances with Afghan factions.
"I am sure there are people in Pakistan, probably including in the government, who do know where bin Laden generally is, which is far, far better than we do," Sirrs said Sunday.
"But I'm almost sure they won't tell us now. The Pakistanis will give us something, but probably nothing very useful. If we let the Pakistanis know what we are going to do, there's a likelihood that information will get out."
A former senior US official who had extensive dealings in the region agreed with that assessment and said much of the US intelligence resources for the region were diverted in recent years to examine the Kashmir conflict and the testing of nuclear bombs by Pakistan and India.
That decision to focus elsewhere now leaves the US sorting through intelligence information from sources other than its own.
"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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