IN WAR ON TERRORISM, UNSEEN FRONTS MAY BE CRUCIAL

As the buildup of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region gathers
steam, the Bush administration is pursuing its war on terrorism along
less traditional fronts as well, moving to freeze terrorists' assets,
pressuring their state supporters through diplomacy and putting in
motion covert operations against their networks.

The visible military operations and the other, less observable,
actions promise to be the two sides of this war. They will make it
less like traditional wars the United States has fought and, in many
respects, more like the war against drugs that the country has been
pursuing for at least two decades, military experts said.

Like the war on drugs, it will be long. It will rely less on
conventional weaponry and more on special operations raids, covert
attacks and entirely nonmilitary means. Indeed, the less observable
realms of intelligence, finance, diplomacy and computer warfare may
prove to be the major arenas of the effort, with military operations
in a supporting role that will steal the headlines but tell only part
of the story.

"It's closer to the type of complexity in controlling international
drugs than [it is to] Desert Storm," said retired Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, who led the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division against
Iraqi forces in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago and later headed
the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill
Clinton. "It requires an interagency effort by the Defense, Justice
and State [departments]."

The diffuse, complex nature of the administration's emerging strategy
for combating terrorism also points to the likely tactics it will use
- - and on its ultimate targets, according to military experts.

"Nobody believes that the way to fight the war on drugs is to
concentrate on the hapless mule who carries cocaine through an
airport," said Richard Perle, a policy strategist in the Pentagon
during the Reagan administration. Likewise, he said, in the war
against terrorism "you go after the source. You go after the
producers, the big fish. And the equivalent of the producers, the
drug lords, are not the terrorists but the countries that harbor
them."

President Bush has made clear that the administration's initial focus
will likely be accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But the
most important target in this war - what military theorists call the
enemy's "center of gravity" - could prove to be the governments that
give sanctuary to terrorists, rather than the terrorists themselves,
specialists in military planning said.

There is every indication that the war will start - or has started -
in Afghanistan, where bin Laden has based his operations since 1996.
Although the Pentagon refuses to comment on covert operations, there
were rumblings in the Defense Department last week that a
counteroffensive was already under way. Indeed, the Taliban militia
claimed yesterday to have shot down an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance
drone over Afghanistan. The Pentagon had no comment on the report.

The military action in Afghanistan, both covert and overt, is likely
to rely heavily on intelligence and operations by U.S. Special
Forces. "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine,"
one Defense Department official said. "I think it is going to put us
to the test in many ways."

If the Persian Gulf War was more like football, with its lengthy
buildup and diagrammed maneuvers, this war likely will resemble
soccer, with its fluidity and improvisation. It will be a difficult
sort of war to command, execute and analyze, military experts
predict. "It is going to require a different mind-set," said one
officer involved in planning for it.

Officials say that although there eventually could be military action
in places other than Afghanistan, the administration has yet to
decide on those plans. To give the Pentagon more flexibility,
however, the administration has deployed aircraft carriers, a Marine
expeditionary unit and scores of warplanes to the region. In an
unprecedented move, some aircraft are being sent to Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan, two of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

If the military component in the administration's war against
terrorism is only half the battle, the other half will include
financial, economic, law enforcement, domestic security, diplomatic
and intelligence elements, officials said. And their desired effect
will be psychological as well as tactical.

"Now we have a clear enemy who is not only trying to do us great
damage, but is also trying to terrorize us . . . to paralyze us by
terrorizing us," said Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. trade
representative who was a senior aide to Secretary of State James A.
Baker III during the Gulf War. "Our response has to counter fear and
panic."

Here is how some facets of the struggle are taking shape:

On the diplomatic front, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has
reached out to European allies, Arab nations, China and Russia in an
effort to isolate Afghanistan and make it difficult for bin Laden to
find refuge. The United Arab Emirates severed relations with the
Taliban, and Iran and Pakistan sealed their borders.

Powell has also reached out to sometime foes - such as Syria and Iran
- - urging them to abandon their past policies of supporting terrorist
groups. While asserting that they had no illusions about the chances
for such changes, Powell and Bush have indicated to the two countries
that now would be a chance for a new start.

On the economic front, the administration has sought to use trade and
aid to offer incentives to wavering nations and assurance to friends.
It moved last week to lift U.S. sanctions on Pakistan that had been
imposed because of displeasure with Islamabad's nuclear weapons
program. And it held out the possibility of throwing U.S. support
behind the rescheduling of talks that were already moving forward on
Pakistan's more than $30 billion in debt if it withdraws its support
from the Taliban and helps the U.S. war effort.

The administration also bolstered trade ties with Indonesia, the
world's largest Muslim nation, whose president, Megawati
Sukarnoputri, made a previously scheduled visit to Washington to see
Bush. Indonesia, a moderate Muslim country, has been used as a base
by terrorist networks in the past.

On the financial front, the United States is looking for help from
Europe, where many of the hijackers in the Sept. 11 suicide attacks
on New York and Washington had lived, schooled or transited on their
way to the United States. Several European allies, including Britain,
Italy, Germany and Spain, have seized bank accounts suspected of
being linked to bin Laden or other terrorist organizations.

Bush is expected to take the next step Monday by signing an executive
order designating some individuals and groups as terrorist and
freezing their assets.

The administration is also trying to get better intelligence
information on the bin Laden network. China agreed to send an
interagency group of counterterrorism experts to share information.
The administration is also pressuring Pakistan, which is considered
the country with the best intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden,
to cooperate.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf
states - home to financial backers and recruits for terrorist
networks - could also provide useful information to the United
States. Some of those countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, have
not been completely forthcoming in the past, some U.S. officials say.
Saudi Arabia pledged its support in the investigation of this month's
attacks and has already delivered dossiers on some individuals as
requested by the FBI.

It will be difficult to measure the success of these different
approaches. And it is likely to be equally difficult to tell when the
war is over.

Asked to define "victory" in the war against terrorism last week,
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had difficulty coming up with a
concise answer. After 500 words of hovering, he landed on his
definition. "I say that victory is persuading the American people and
the rest of the world that this is not a quick matter that is going
to be over in a month or a year or even five years," he said.

McCaffrey, a veteran of the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the drug
war, said the answer was probably more like New York City's
successful war on crime. "At the end of the day, you have to ask a
mom whether she feels safe going out with her children," he said. "If
she answers no, then you haven't done the job.