'Discord' in Bush administration

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, SEPT. 20. After the initial rallying behind the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, there are indications of rumblings within the administration and from Congress to the broad policies that are being put in place or sought in the campaign against terror and terrorists.

The New York Times, for instance, is reporting that some of the President's advisers are deeply split on the nature and scope of the U.S. military response; and members of the National Security Council are said to have a tense argument over this.

That scenario is all too familiar and if Mr. Bush is witness to conflicting advice from within his team, he will not be the first President to have faced such a situation. According to the paper, those pressing the President for an early and a broad campaign against Osama bin Laden's network include the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, and the Chief of Staff of the Vice- President, Mr. Lewis Libby.

Mr. Wolfowitz, the paper maintains, is not only for an early campaign but also for taking on Osama's operating networks in Iraq and Lebanon's Bekka Valley. And a number of conservatives are supposed to be circulating a letter urging the President to make a ``determined effort'' to remove Mr. Saddam Hussein from power even if Iraq cannot be directly linked to last Tuesday's terror attacks on New York and Washington.

The other side of the fence is the known actor, the State Department and its Secretary, Gen. Colin Powell. A former four star general and one who was in charge of the Gulf War, Gen. Powell is counselling patience and apparently making the point that a rush into military operations will tear apart the coalition-building efforts.

Gen. Powell and the State Department are not just worried about the implications of the U.S. actions within the Islamic world and among America's allies in the Arab community in West Asia. The administration is also sufficiently worried about Pakistan itself. ``A lot of us are worried that he (meaning Gen. Pervez Musharraf) may not survive politically,'' an unnamed official has been quoted in the paper.

The other part of the worry has to do with nations such as China and Russia which are urging caution. Beijing, for example, has also said that legitimacy to American retaliation should come by way of the United Nations - something that the Bush administration has hardly any appetite at this time. But the Russian Foreign Minister, in spite of apprehensions, has pledged cooperation in many ways, including intelligence information.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, today denied reports of a split among aides to the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, over the scope and timing of the U.S.-led military response to the terrorist attacks.

``First of all, there is no rift developing in the administration,'' he said in an interview on the NBC ``Today'' programme. ``The Department of State, the Department of Defence and the President are all on same sheet of music.''

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